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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.
Any solution that does not prevent future blow outs from happening in the first place is far too expensive to justify
Huh? I was under the impression that many jurisdictions have rules stating that relief wells must be drilled in advance. Granted, you'd still have a blow out, and it would probably take a few days to get the necessary equipment and supplies in place to perform the bottom kill, but the leak would be pretty short lived compared to what we are seeing today. Also, Shell is, as I write this, building containment domes over many of their wells that would significantly reduce the problem as well. So it seems to me that there are economical ways to reduce the impact such an event would have. Oh, and that's even ignoring the fact that the spill was caused because BP was breaking the rules that are already in place and cutting corners to save money.
the feds could have provided the 5 million feet of oil boom for the LA coastline back when the Gov requested it on May 2nd.
http://216.87.191.15/News/Louisiana/Government/Louisiana_Gov._Jindal_Parish_Leaders_Express_Frustrations_With_BP__Coast_Guard_Feds__10892.asp
GDP/capita is a pretty stupid way to measure power. Quatar has a GDP/capita of $84,000. Almost double the US. Luxembourg is around 80k. And do remember the US is just the aggregated economies of all the states right.
How about taking over BP because its assets exceed the damage and selling said assets off to fund national oil independence?
Do you know how big BP is? Its assets are worth 236B$ (according to wikipedia, as of 2009). This is going to be expensive, possibly in the billions of dollars, but I doubt they will have to sell anything, they had net income of 16.5B$ in 2009. As for the rest, I would say that legal action should be taken only after investigation, which is underway, and according to the actual evidence. The liability caps were not issued by the president (any president, by the way) but by the congress, and republicans there are currently blocking the attempt to remove them (claiming they should be increased, but not completely removed).
0.5 PPM is the MAXIMUM concentration found, not the minimum.
The actual report shows average analysis results about 0.2 ppb.
That would mean about 1000 barrels spread out over 1000's of cubic miles.
Here is the link to the original NOAA report.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/PDFs/noaa_weatherbird_analysis.pdf
The press is totally misrepresenting the results of this report.