Quantifying, and Dealing With, the Deepwater Spill

Gooseygoose writes with a link to this analysis by Boston University professor Cutler Cleveland. "Some reports in the media attempt to downplay the significance of the release of oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident by arguing that natural oil seeps release large volumes of oil to the ocean, so why worry? Let's look at the numbers." Read on for a few more stories on the topic of the Deepwater Horizon spill. theodp writes with some information on the remote-controlled efforts to stanch the oil's flow: "The work Tito Collasius does sounds a little like science fiction: Men on ships flicking joysticks that control robots the size of trucks as they rove miles beneath the sea in near-freezing depths no man could hope to reach. But BP's spill efforts rest in the hands of underwater remote-operated vehicle (ROV) pilots, who 'fly' the ROVs from command centers aboard ships, joysticks in hand and large banks of screens in front of them offering a view of the challenges they confront in the waters below. ROVs are typically used for commercial (as in the oil industry), oceanographic (science research and exploration), and military (mine reconnaissance and recovery) missions. If you're interested in joining Tito, training's available." Even if BP were to effect a perfect block for the oil, though, there's still quite a bit of it swirling in the Gulf — you've probably seen some gut-wrenching pictures of the affected wildlife. Reader grrlscientist writes "Some people claim that we should euthanize all oiled birds immediately upon recovering them. But I argue it is our ethical responsibility to protect, clean, and save these birds, even after they've been oiled, just as we should preserve and clean their habitats."

Comments

Re: I sure if they say it enough...

[Black Parrot]

...Those people of the effected gulf states will begin to believe it...

BP and some of our corporate-owned politicians are doing everything they can to keep people from believing there's any problem. BP has reportedly bought $50,000,000 of media outlets for maintaining their image. Also, reportedly, local police are turning photographers away from places where there's coated wildlife to be seen, and saying that they're doing it at BP's behest. (Since when did your local cops work for a corporation?)

Governor Haley Barber is skipping meetings about the problem and telling the media, "Come on in, the water's fine", comparing it to the light film of gasoline you sometimes see behind a motorboat when you get into the water to ski.

Re:so NIMBYs

[evilviper]

you won't have nuclear reactors with modern technology.

so instead you'll have thousands of acres of your shoreline turned into a befouled environmental calamity

Unless they're putting nuclear reactors directly in the SUVs, oil is completely orthogonal to nuclear power.

france and japan have been relying on reactors for decades.

Oh, I'm sorry. How has uptake of electric cars been going in France and Japan? What percentage of the overall automotive market do they make up?

I'll wait...