Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Below the Gulf's Surface

An anonymous reader sends in a NY Times article about the spread of oil from the BP gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. Quoting: "Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide, and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given. ... The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes. Dr. Joye said the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. ... [Scientists on the Pelican mission] suspect the heavy use of chemical dispersants, which BP has injected into the stream of oil emerging from the well, may have broken the oil up into droplets too small to rise rapidly. ... Dr. Joye said the findings about declining oxygen levels were especially worrisome, since oxygen is so slow to move from the surface of the ocean to the bottom. She suspects that oil-eating bacteria are consuming the oxygen at a feverish clip as they work to break down the plumes."

Comments

We should call BP big polluter now!

[Joe The Dragon]

We should call BP big polluter now!

Re:We should call BP big polluter now!

[$RANDOMLUSER]

In other news, the chairman of Goldman Sachs sent the chairman of BP a nice thank-you-note.

Re:We should call BP big polluter now!

[Lars T.]

He also was the prime recipient of millions of dollars from BP. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36783.html The pattern is more than a bit disturbing.

By millions you mean $71,051. Frankly, the 3.5 million dollars over 20 years BP has spend is peanuts, and only make it to 106 on the Heavy Hitters List. But it is unusual that he appears on the top of the list of recipients of BP as well as #2 of the Exxon list, when both companies favour Republicans. But then, even combined they wouldn't be among Obama's Top Contributors

Some Good News

[value_added]

As reported by the WSJ

BP PLC successfully inserted a tube into the broken pipe leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico early Sunday, a person close to the containment operation said, increasing the chances that the company will be able to siphon off much of the oil now gushing into the sea. ...

It's still unclear whether the new siphoning operation will work. Even in the best-case scenario, the tube won't capture all the leaking oil.

... Hear no evil. See no evil.

[fahrbot-bot]

From TFA:

Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.

The government has "top men" working on this. Who? "Top men".
Besides, it's silly to think there could be oil elsewhere than the surface.

BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.

"The answer is no to that," a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. "We're not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It's not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort."

Yes, there's no value (to us) in trying to determine exactly how badly we've screwed things... It's not like a better estimate would be useful in calculating a level of effort for the cleanup, possibly quantity of cleanup materials, or potential ocean chemistry changes.

Re:... Hear no evil. See no evil.

[Peach Rings]

I can't understand why:

• BP still has the authority to say "no you can't study the ocean floor." BP is the worst possible entity to be in charge of cleanup since there's no conceivable reason to expect them to be honest about the extent of the damage. This is an emergency, the military should be all over it. How can a corporation say that anyway, like they own the ocean floor? They operate at the will of the government, who grants them access to public resources like the seafloor...
• Anyone even bothers asking BP for comment. The article presents them as an authoritative source on the matter. You might as well cover a criminal trial by asking the defendant about details of the crime.

Re:... Hear no evil. See no evil.

[NixieBunny]

That video of the leaking pipe shows stuff coming out of it at a rate of about two pipe diameters per second, if you just watch how fast the moving stuff moves. Some simple math puts that flow rate, for the 20 inch diameter pipe that it's said to be, at 80,000 bbl/day.

The math: the pipe area is ~2 sq ft, the flow rate is ~3 ft/second, the volume per second is 6 cu ft, which is about 45 gallons or one barrel per second. That's ~80k bbl/day.

If my math is wrong, please show me how it's wrong. It's the same math that the univ professors are using.

Re:... Hear no evil. See no evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

I work as a Petroleum Engineer. The thing about flow in oil and gas wells is that the natural gas has a density that varies with pressure. When the pressure decreases as the fluid flows up the pipe, it increases in velocity and the volume that the gas takes up increases. When the fluid exits the pipe there is going to be a large pressure drop and will give the appearance of a much larger flow rate with small droplets of oil. The flow of hte fluid out of the pipe in the video is not one continuous phase of oil. Gas to Oil ratios in producing wells commonly range from 500 scf/ BOPD through 50,000 scf / BOPD.

Re:Worst Catastrophe In History

[Anonymous Coward]

As an immigrant from a 3rd world, and after watching American and British and lately chinese interests eat away resources such as forests and minerals, and watching western oil companies pollute and then using economic blackmail to suppress voices, I personally feel this is a positive thing.

Crap close to home seems to be the only way Americans learn - so some pollution close by is always good.

Re:i LOL

[Trip Ericson]

Bear in mind that several years ago, BP merged with another company and kept the BP name. That company? Amoco. AMerican Oil COmpany.

Re:Help me understand oil dispersants

[Mindcontrolled]

The guys over at The Oil Drum forums have done some back-of-the-envelope calculations based on a frame-by-frame analysis of the videos that have been released, basically trying to judge the outflow velocity of the oil from the leak. Most of them end up in the 20k-30k barrel per day range. For some reason, I trust them more than the official figures. Most of the more vocal posters there are petro engineers themselves and know what they are talking about.

On a related note, why exactly does BP have a say in who gets to do what at the spill site? Why do we let them control this?

Re:i LOL

[yyxx]

you americans are fucked, hahah. thats what you get with your evil oil companies.

Actually, it's what Americans get when they let a British oil company deploy a Swiss drilling platform with German companies responsible for safety. Massive US lobbying efforts by BP also contributed to the lack of regulation, all in the name of international fairness and free trade.

And historically, Europe's record on oil spills is far worse than that of the US. Of course, being obedient little nationalists, Europeans love to find fault with the US while their own governments are screwing them.

Hopefully, as a result of this disaster, the US will severely limit the ability of foreign companies to lobby in the US, and hopefully it will kick out European oil companies with their poor safety records once and for all.

Re:Help me understand oil dispersants

[Anonymous Coward]

What you fail to take into account is that natural seepage and massive release are on such opposite sides of the spectrum that "it happens naturally" is not going to make anyone but yourself feel better about this spill.

Happens naturally: a woman's period.
Massive release: getting shot.

Get the point now?

Re:Where's Sarah Palin

[sonicmerlin]

There is no "extreme left" in the United States. Liberal in the US is the equivalent of centrist to slightly conservative in Europe.

Re:Where's Sarah Palin

[Sir_Lewk]

There is no "extreme left" in the US just like there is no "Left", "Right", "Extreme Right", or "Central".

All of these terms are made up to make us think that we still have a choice. To make us think that this isn't for all intents and purposes a one party system.