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US Confirms Underwater Oil Plume
oxide7 writes "An underwater three-dimensional map of the oil spill is closer to becoming a reality, now that the US has for the first time confirmed the discovery of a subsurface oil plume resulting from the ruptured BP well. The government agency in charge of ocean science has received the first of several expected reports from university investigators aboard research ships detailing specific locations where oil has been found below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The government, which denied reports of giant underwater oil plumes in mid-May, said researchers at the time had not confirmed the presence of conglomerated oil." The New York Times talked with scientists on a two-week mission in the Gulf and reported them "awed" at the size and density of the underwater plume.
This is such a disaster. Someone please provide links: I know that even now after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska there is ongoing environmental damage and hardship for the people who live in the area. From that example, speculate on what will happen in the Gulf.
Shh.
The whole in the ocean floor has been spewing oil for 50 days. The long term effects of this disaster can't even be imagined yet. BP = Bhopal for the Gulf.
Oh, wait...
All in one spot hopefully. Let me get my straw.
I... drink... your... milkshake!
Obama still hasn't spoken to BP’s CEO Tony Hayward.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
This is the kind of thing conservatives want to bring to every aspect of your life; when Grover Norquist talks about drowning government in a bathtub, the tub is full of crude oil and dead fish.
:-P
So, is it as big as Glenn Beck's ego and as dense as Limbaugh?
Jeez - this is scary - captcha is 'tyranny'
5.6 trillion gallons, assuming 15 miles wide, 3 miles long and about 600 feet thick is correct...
Dave
Most of this stuff is just squid ink.
And those sad pelican shots weren't covered in oil, but merely whale poop.
No pictures to be had, sad panda.
Start with the Top Thugs and work down.
Yours In Novosibirsk,
Kilgore Trout
I think everyone will agree that the BP oil stories would be much better if we dubbed in slide whistles, boink sounds, and Bob Sagget's voice.
America, america, this is you!
I don't think people quite appreciate how difficult it is to remove oil from the ecosystem when things like cleaning the birds is considered futile, the dispersant may be longer acting than the oil and the median time for complete recovery is looking to be in the decades. Any solution that does not prevent future blow outs from happening in the first place is far too expensive to justify, its sort of sad that it is cheaper just to ignore the gulf coast and fish and vacation somewhere else till the pollution dies down. It may make for good TV viewing but I for one would rather see them invest billions to prevent another disaster instead of making largely cosmetic changes to the gulf coast that may lull people into a false sense of security.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I'd think that a more-or-less conglomerated area of oil will make recovery processes easier. I'd like to see these recovery processes footed by BP, and the resultant sale of the recovered crude denied BP and used instead to fund environmental cleanup.
At 15 miles x 3 miles x 600ft that's 21,314,566,152 cubic meters. At .5ppm (absolute minimum, from TFA), that's 10,657 cubic meters of pure oil. Google tells me that 10657 cubic meters converts to 67,030 barrels. This thing has been going on for 49 days now, so we're talking about at least 1367 barrels of oil per day in this plume alone.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
And whether or not talking to the CEO would help at all... This is very relevant clip. The relevant parts are from 4:40 forwards (though I would suggest watching at least from 3:30 forwards as it is a nice clip). http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-1-2010/the-spilling-fields
Lucky, the second oil leak will fix the first YAY!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/37575052
During and after Katrina everyone attacked Bush, often very personal attacks for the Federal and even state responses to that event.
Yet here we are nearly two months after this started and there has been very little vitriolic attacking on the current President.
Why is that I wonder? The Obama administration was in charge of the offices at the Interior that oversaw this and no changes were made. The Justice Department could have been turned on to BP and people could be in jail right now, but nothing was done.
The Bush response to Katrina was hampered by a bad official at FEMA and crappy mayors and Louisiana state officials. Now we are seeing much more widespread failures with the Federal response and coverups by the Federal government yet where is the anger?
Not even half the hate directed at Bush for Katrina is present here for BP.
So...do people just not care about the eastern Gulf of Mexico or are people scared to criticize the Obama administration?
I didn't vote for him in 2008, but if he came out fighting against BP and proactive, I'll vote for him in 2012, but with the response so far, not a chance I'll vote for him and his Carter-esque do nothing response to a crisis.
They [US government] could organize clean up efforts, pay people the money that BP is stalling on paying them, and get the damn ball rolling faster. Then at the end of the day, they can hand the bill to BP. It's one thing to say BP is responsible financially and a whole other thing to sit back and watch the responsible party fumble and fuck up your country. Clean up the oil. Make BP pay for your costs.
Sure, the scientists are in "awe".... but are they "shocked" too?
I am open source, and Linux baby!
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Whoever was on the other end of the line was apparently trying to calm Harrell down. "I am fucking calm," he went on, according to Buzbee. "You realize the rig is burning?"
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/06/the-rigs-on-fire-i-told-you-this-was-gonna-happen/57775/
I take your luck and cast this one!
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0602/month-oil-spill-goldman-sachs-sold-250-million-bp-stock/
So where is the picture?
News for nerds who don't like figures...
for a bit, the big question has been: is the seabed there generally fractured so that the only real option to seal the leaks is nuclear explosives. BP does not like this question because they want to eventually make money off the oil field. Of course, there are a lot of questions they do not like.
Now I read that there are two fractures anyway.
Suppose it turns out we need nukes. There is significant preparation time. Just in case, we should already have been working on preparation. Things like engineering studies, etc. Do you feel like holding your breath for these studies to start up?
So I am not some environmentalist. I do not get big upset about birds dying unpleasantly, though that response might speak well of those who do. But the following statement seems credible to me: biggest environmental disaster in USA history. Simply being a patriot might make you wonder about the response of the political class.
Is there a particular reason the words "we don't know" can't be uttered by any government press secretary or public relations personnel? If your citizens, or media are asking the question, and you (the government) don't have the answer, perhaps it would be best to go find find/get the answer, rather than lie straight face!
Keep up the government status quo boys! Keep it up!
We know the company operating the drilling platform was a separate company (owned by BP), is the BP company that has the drilling rights the main BP company or is it something like "BP Cayman Islands"?
Is it possible if the BP accountants and lawyers have done their jobs properly the amount of money that can be extracted from BP might be "capped"? - the US public could end up paying the bulk of the clean up costs while BP keeps operating in the US under a different name.
I know, my cynicism is showing.
BM3
...Idi Amin was one of the better dictators.
Sounds like a catchy new name for BP
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
BP = Bhopal for the Gulf.
Uh, no, not even close. This isn't even close to being the worst oil spill in history, let alone the worst disaster in history. If the worst case scenario comes to pass... a spewing well until Christmas... then maybe this will make the top ten spill list. Second, this is oil, a natural substance, which even in its toughest form is a far cry from the chemical pesticides that Union Carbide leaked (and this leak is light sweet crude, not the much heavier grade of oil that was spilled at Valdez. It'll actually start evaporating). Last, Bhopal killed 17,000 people. This spill will kill no one, unless we've suddenly started counting birds and fish as people. The birds and fish will recover. The victims of Bhopal aren't coming back.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Given that this high-pressure Macondo oil field has been in existence for many years, and that other fields lie elsewhere under the oceans, could plumes occur naturally through some seismic or tectonic event? Is there any evidence of prior plumes? How did these play out?
Pipe the oil leaking pipe and burn it at the surface.
attach a pipe bigger than the other pipe, but can slide over the current oil spewing pipe.
Plus please remove the gentiles of the employees of BP as punishment why not tar and feather them while they are at it
For once, that might be on topic...
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
FTA: "Bacteria are breaking down the oil's hydrocarbons in a massive, microorganism feeding frenzy that has sent oxygen levels plunging close to what is considered "dead zone" conditions,"
So...shouldn't we be trying to oxygenate the water?
Extra oxygen means the oil gets eaten *and* the fish can survive ... it's win-win.
(Yes I know the sea is quite big but there must be something they can dump into the patches of oil...H2O2?)
No sig today...
We know the company operating the drilling platform was a separate company (owned by BP)
Transocean is not owned by BP. Transocean is a separate company entirely.
The part added by kdawson isn't quite right. The article is available on the New York Times website, but was not written by them. It obviously says: "By PAUL QUINLAN AND JOSH VOORHEES of Greenwire", "Copyright 2010 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved", "Greenwire is published by Environment & Energy Publishing." The actual New York Times article was written by different people and doesn't say anyone was "awed."
Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify. (Ambrose Bierce)
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Folks, our government has been lying to us. They knew the area of the spill on the surface and the rate of the leak. You can compute whether there is any missing oil, and the missing oil must be subsurface. So why are scientists amazed that so much is underwater? doesn't simple math show it must be?
Currently hooked on AMP
Is it possible if the BP accountants and lawyers have done their jobs properly the amount of money that can be extracted from BP might be "capped"?
There's already a low-ball legal cap.
All the talk about raising it or removing it is probably just hot-air politics: IANAL, but I'm pretty sure a change in the law can't be applied retroactively.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
BP actually have a really shitty environmental record.
What they have is a really good marketing department.
A "scientist was awed by the density" of the plume? At HALF A PART PER MILLION???!!!
Am I missing something, or am I just a dullard whose panties don't get bunched over TRACE CONCENTRATIONS?
Remarkable leak, the Gulf Blue - lovely plumage!
We all should be royally pissed off at BP for allowing this to "spill" to happen (I know I am), so don't take this question as an attempt to deemphasize the degree of the disaster, but I was wondering if something like this could ever have happened naturally?
Let say a major earthquake happened, could that not cause a major oil spill that dwarfs this particular BP spill by cracking open a major oil deposit? Is it possible for something like this could happen without us humans causing it? Maybe there have been major oil spills even before we humans made our presence felt?
And 2 weeks ago, they had paid a massive $990m on clean up. Your point?
You're being ironic, right? You're referring to the fact that BP announced it will pay its normal quarterly dividend of 2.63 billion dollars.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So, looking at the wikipedia entry for BP, it seems they own AmPm, Conoco, Castrol, and Arco.
Maybe next time you get an oil change, or fill up the tank, you should consider who you're giving your money to.
Voting with our dollars seem to have much more impact than voting with our votes.
-T
This is a Castrastophie of Biblical Propotions ... and all that the fire fight broke out on a stupid deep water oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico which did not have certifications from the US Federical Gubberment that it should have ... it only had the pay-offs to US Federal Officials and the Local Goverments on Texas, Louisaniana, Alabama and Floridia!
What a waste!
Now the oil plumes are rounding the Florida Keys on their way north the the Grand Banks, then to the Greendland Current.
What a GRAND experiment!
Hope the Queen Mum likes her Snow, a few meters deep for her July Barbeque.
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Seems the article left out what the lady reported in the news conference about the concentration of this "plume" . When I think of a "plume" I think of this big thick thing like a black smoke plume moving along. But the lady in the conference made the horrid mistake of actually providing information. They are not supposed to do that in the political arena. She told their sampling found the oil concentration was 0.5 ppm (parts per million) Oops. So that means you cant see or taste it. This 0.5 ppm would be like having a LARGE city size swimming pool of a Million gallons and pouring in 2 quarts of oil. Devastating... ....(2 quarts being the 0.5 part of the million gallons )
Transocean is a separate company entirely.
Thanks for pointing that out to me, I mistakenly thought BP was using a company that that acquired a controlling interest in the company running the platform.
BM3
here ya go: http://psychicpolitics.com/psychic_politics/psychic_politics/Entries/2010/5/15_release_the_kraken.html
Ask Me About... The 80's!
There's already a low-ball legal cap.
Wow, it is low - 75 million. Transocean - a separate company (thanks for that phantomcircuit) - is trying to limit it's liability to 26 million.
Even if congress approves lifting the cap to 10 billion. I would think the cost will be a lot higher than that figure. At 75 million I think BP execs would not be losing too much sleep. Will they invoice the US for the money they've spent above the 75 million?
BM3
BP was lobbying in secret Indiana officials to dump toxic crap into lake Michigan in exchange for some future jobs a few years back.
UK law differs than US law on these things, but recently Hayward created a new org separate from the rest of BP to head these spill operations. This sadly seems to have been the same first step when they spun-off a shell corp to limit their liabilities in Indonesia a while back.
No corporation should be allowed to grow large enough that it can't be drowned in a bathtub.
This is a great reappropriation of Norquist's infamous line, but I'm inclined to be a bit more long-winded. :)
Here's the thing: in the U.S., were not only the fortunate heirs of a constitution that's created a government of checks, balances, and somewhat limited powers. We're also the recipient of a national story about how our forbears fought for it and we're therefore generally free of state oppression. And whatever your complaints against the federal/state government (and there are some legit complaints), it's still historically true: if you live here, you have more civil liberties and economic freedoms than most of the people who've ever lived on this world. Doesn't mean we couldn't learn a thing or two from other countries, but here we are.
The thing is, that heritage handed to us through the efforts of patriots from the revolution through the cold war -- and just as importantly that national story -- has been forged in a time period during which sovereign states (and maybe a church or two) were essentially the only entities around which enough power could amass to systemically entrench itself into tyranny. When we justifiably celebrate the founding of the United States and its achievements, and when we invoke the language of the revolution... we're talking about the resolution of *that* war. The war fought to forge a modern state that safeguards its citizens from itself.
The world has changed, though. And the modern state isn't the only entity that now has enough power to infringe on your liberties. In fact, many modern states are less powerful than some other entities.
The reason we need a state in the first place is that private power can and will be abused as surely as government power can be. But if the national conversation over the last two years is any indication, we're still fighting the war against state power in our heads.
Tweet, tweet.
Skytruth is a great organization that has been buying Satellite time to survey the area. Turns out that while surveying the oil spill from DWH they found another leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The story was confirmed this morning. Makes you wonder how many leaks have occurred that have been "small enough" that they are simply forgotten about for years.
the sadest thing about this is probably: - for BP it is now the super-gau - cant get any worse - since this is so, their first priority is certainly not to close the leak as fast as possible, but to gain as much kowhow from the incident while proclaiming to try to close it as fast as possible - that knowledge is something nobody else in the industry will have to that extend - so: if you have a similar problem in the future... whom will you ask ( and pay ) to fix it ? :BP
- so : this disaster (and the related costs ) will be seen as an invesment into a business unit that brings that "disaster knowhow" to market.
- all the media coveradge - that it is the greatest polution of all times and such - will be turned aroung by BP marketing into "there was the greates pollution of all times - and we fixed it"
Simply divert the pume to wash up on the shores of Afganistan or North Korea.
Problem solved.
Try a meal with 0.5ppm cyanide. Tasty!
THIS JUST IN! THE US CONFIRMS THE OBVIOUS!
Did they think the oil magically transported itself from the bottom of the see to the surface? I guess they did.
I'll never understand arm-chair petroleum engineers. How easy do you think it is to drive a multi-ton robotic submersible a mile underwater using cameras that don't provide good depth perception to plug a hole spewing oil with a pressure exceeding 5,000 PSI?
I'll never understand why BP thought it was okay to do this with no feasible back-up plan. It's not about how easy or difficult this all is. It is about why they are doing this in the first place if it is so unimaginable to recover from the unexpected.
Reply to That ||
I am glad that Google is profiting from the gulf oil spill and providing us top and center links to valuable, BP provided web sites that keep me informed on the gulf oil spill goings on. If it weren't for that I'd think this thing was a disaster. Thanks, Google, for putting my mind at ease!
--- What?
Sure, there is more that the federal government could be doing (e.g. containment booms, sandbars, etc.), but the main question we should be asking is not whether the government is doing enough, but why the government is spending taxpayer resources on things that do more to serve BP's PR problem than to serve the interests of citizens whose livelihoods have been affected by the ecological and economic damage.
For instance, government resources are being used to keep reporters from taking pictures of wildlife damaged by the oil spill. No democratic government has any business doing such a thing, and it most certainly serves BP's PR needs more than it serves the needs of the public. Why were government/military C-130s being used to distribute dispersants when coagulants would have made removing the oil easier? The only purpose served by dispersants is to reduce the appearance of that oil slick on damning satellite photos. Again: government resources are being used to serve BP's PR needs instead of the citizens' ecological/economic needs.
Getting angry at Obama for not personally swimming down there and plugging the leak with his thumb is stupid. Getting angry at Obama for not getting angry enough is stupid. People making these complaints are asking the wrong questions and complaining about the wrong things. Government should serve us first, and large multinational corporations only when doing so also serves our interests.
If you want to drill someplace dangerous in Canada, the evil socialist nannystate requires you to drill a relief well at the same time you drill the main well. If the American government had the same requirement on drilling done in very deep places, then this problem would have been solved a long time ago. No engineering degree is needed to understand this.
Unfortunately, our government doesn't require such precautions, because our government counts on the "magic of the free market" and "rational self interest" to motivate oil companies to do these things on their own. Thus, such precautions were not taken, and now we have to wait until August for the first attempt at a relief well (keep in mind that the first attempt is rarely successful).
Here is something for everyone in America to think about. I recently had a house built. During this process I was required to have a gas shutoff valve connected at the point of entry to the house and at the stove. Now if I am required to have a double fail safe on my home, how is it possible for BP to get away with one shutoff valve (Blowout Preventer..) ????? Where are we headed if we can't have basic saftey regulation passed without any hitches. Does Murphy's Law ring a bell anywhere????
Wow, surprised I haven't seen anyone comment this yet, but ... The story was that they were spraying dispersant to keep the oil off the surface, right? So, aren't 'underwater plumes' to be expected?
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