Deepwater Horizon, Ameria's Chernobyl ?

[Mega]

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2010/0...chernobyl.html
Thinking this myself, sure will slow down deep water wells.....Peek Cheap oil sooner than later?

BTW Sue the ass of those BP Limey bastards!
Mike

[don]

Re: Deepwater Horizon, Ameria's Chernobyl ?

Don't know Mike but for a quick return, put your pounds on Deepwater Horizon being Obama's Katrina....

Scientists Fault Lack of Studies Over Gulf Oil Spill

By JUSTIN GILLIS

Tensions between the Obama administration and the scientific community over the gulf oil spill are escalating, with prominent oceanographers accusing the government of failing to conduct an adequate scientific analysis of the damage and of allowing BP to obscure the spill’s true scope.

The scientists assert that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies have been slow to investigate the magnitude of the spill and the damage it is causing in the deep ocean. They are especially concerned about getting a better handle on problems that may be occurring from large plumes of oil droplets that appear to be spreading beneath the ocean surface.

The scientists point out that in the month since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, the government has failed to make public a single test result on water from the deep ocean. And the scientists say the administration has been too reluctant to demand an accurate analysis of how many gallons of oil are flowing into the sea from the gushing oil well.

“It seems baffling that we don’t know how much oil is being spilled,” Sylvia Earle, a famed oceanographer, said Wednesday on Capitol Hill. “It seems baffling that we don’t know where the oil is in the water column.”


The big scientific question now is what is happening in deeper water. While it is clear that water samples have been taken, the results have not been made public.
Lisa P. Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, told Congress on Wednesday that she was pressing for the release of additional test results, including some samples taken by boats under contract to BP.

While the total number of boats involved in the response is high, relatively few are involved in scientific assessment of the deep ocean.

Rick Steiner, a marine biologist and a veteran of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, assailed NOAA in an interview, declaring that it had been derelict in analyzing conditions beneath the sea.


Mr. Steiner said the likelihood of extensive undersea plumes of oil droplets should have been anticipated from the moment the spill began, given that such an effect from deepwater blowouts had been predicted in the scientific literature for more than a decade, and confirmed in a test off the coast of Norway. An extensive sampling program to map and characterize those plumes should have been put in place from the first days of the spill, he said.

“A vast ecosystem is being exposed to contaminants right now, and nobody’s watching it,” Mr. Steiner said. “That seems to me like a catastrophic failure on the part of NOAA.”

Scientists have long theorized that a shallow spill and a spill in the deep ocean — this one is a mile down — would behave quite differently. A 2003 report by the National Research Council predicted that the oil in a deepwater blowout could break into fine droplets, forming plumes of oil mixed with water that would not quickly rise to the surface.

That prediction appeared to be confirmed Saturday when the researchers aboard the Pelican reported that they had detected immense plumes that they believed were made of oil particles. The results were not final, and came as a surprise to the government. They raise a major concern, that sea life in concentrated areas could be exposed to a heavy load of toxic materials as the plumes drift through the sea.

Under scrutiny from NOAA, the researchers have retreated to their laboratories to finish their analysis.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/sc...ef=todayspaper


Oil Is Fouling Wetlands, Official Says

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. and CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

VENICE, La. — Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana said Wednesday that sheets of heavy crude oil from the offshore spill had seeped deep into the delicate marshes around the mouth of the Mississippi River. He called on the federal government to approve a plan to build sand berms to protect the bayou country.

“These are not tar balls, this is not sheen, this is heavy oil,” Mr. Jindal told reporters on a pier here, holding up a plastic bag full of sticky brownish liquid, after taking a helicopter and boat tour of the area. “What we are seeing yesterday and today is literally this heavy oil coming into our wetlands.”

Mr. Jindal again chastised the Army Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard and BP for not moving quickly enough to decide on the state’s proposal to build more than 80 miles of sand berms along the coastline. “It’s past time to act,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/us...html?ref=earth

[Minion]

Re: Deepwater Horizon, Ameria's Chernobyl ?

Put option is gaining every day. I should have not rang the cash register so early.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Deepwater Horizon, Ameria's Chernobyl ?

Put option is gaining every day. I should have not rang the cash register so early.

Are you going to blame BP for the La Brea Tar Pits disaster, 10,000 to 40,000 years ago in Los Angeles?

http://www.tarpits.org


Tar and oil are a natural part of the environment everywhere.

If BP is helping Iran and Libya, that is a concern. But tar balls and oil do no long-term harm to the environment anywhere on this planet. And on that issue, the EPA is full of crap, as usual.

[Minion]

Re: Deepwater Horizon, Ameria's Chernobyl ?

You've got an ax to grind. I'm just trying to gain financial independence. We're either bankers or minions.

On that note, my bet that gold mining stocks would continue up, is on fire! Same with treasuries going down. All I could do is double and quadruple the bets on the way down.......... but things in the market started turning around at the end of trading today. :cool:

[Rajiv]

Re: Deepwater Horizon, Ameria's Chernobyl ?

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2010/0...chernobyl.html
Thinking this myself, sure will slow down deep water wells.....Peek Cheap oil sooner than later?

BTW Sue the ass of those BP Limey bastards!
Mike

You appear to be on the right track

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Deepwater Horizon

By Tom Whipple
Wednesday, May 19 2010 12:19:09 PM

It has been nearly a month since the tragic events aboard BP's drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon, which suffered a blowout, caught fire, and sank in the Gulf of Mexico releasing prodigious amounts of oil into the sea. So far there has been little damage to the coastline; however, this could change quickly as oil is still pouring from the damaged well pipe and it could be months before the blowout is brought under control.

The possible damage to the environment ranges anywhere from minor, which is doubtful, to wiping out the seafood and tourist industries along the Gulf coast for many years.

Although BP and the government continue to talk about a leak of only 5,000 barrels a day based on photography of the surface slick, numerous outside observers who have viewed video footage of the broken pipe are saying this figure may be an order of magnitude too low. Thus far BP has refused to deploy instruments that could give a more accurate appraisal of the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf on the grounds that stopping the leak, not its size, is what matters.

No matter how much environmental and economic damage results from the Deepwater Horizon blowout, the ramifications of the spill are likely to linger for decades and have a major impact on the availability of deepwater oil as we enter the era of oil depletion. The U.S. government has already put a temporary hold on additional drilling until the facts of the current situation are clarified. The oil companies who are used to minimal government interference with their activities are already raising objections to the possibility of tougher regulation.

From what is known so far, it is clear that offshore drilling came to be seriously under-regulated in recent years with few inspections and little or no penalties for violations. Deepwater offshore drilling has become so expensive - the Deepwater Horizon costs on the order of $1 million a day to operate - that site managers are under heavy pressure to complete projects as quickly as possible and move to the next job.

"Another serious problem for the prospects of future oil production is starting to emerge."

The oil industry is said to have largely written the regulations and the government simply ratified what was presented. The Obama administration has already moved to split the regulation function from the Mineral Management Service and place it in a separate agency dedicated to safety and the prevention of further accidents. Although there will be much raucous discussion, It seems likely that heavier regulation, with higher, more expensive, standards, is on the way and that could delay future deepwater drilling projects by months or years.

Shell, which is about to start drilling in Alaska's Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, has filed new safety plans for their proposed projects. The administration is obviously going to take a very hard look at drilling in areas that are hundreds or even thousands of miles from help if something should grow wrong. It is one thing to drill in the Gulf of Mexico where all sorts of emergency equipment is available within a matter of hours and quite another to drill in the sparsely settled polar regions. The Norwegian and Canadian governments are starting to raise questions about the standards for offshore drilling and are likely to adhere to whatever recommendations come out of the investigations of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Yet another serious problem for the prospects of future oil production is starting to emerge. The deepwater wells, on which we are basing much of our energy future, may not be as productive as previously thought. Until recently the poster child for deepwater oil production was BP's Thunderhorse platform that, after years of delay, started producing in 2008 and was supposed to produce a billion barrels of oil at the rate of 250,000 barrels a day (b/d). At first all seemingly went well with production reaching 172,000 b/d in January of 2009, but then production started falling rapidly to a low of 61,000 b/d last December. BP refuses to comment publicly on what is happening at Thunderhorse, but outside observers are growing increasingly skeptical that the platform will ever produce the planned billion barrels. At least 25 other deepwater projects are said to be facing problems of falling production, raising the question of just how much oil these very expensive deepwater projects will ever produce.

Pressure for regulatory reforms is likely to be based on just how much environmental and economic damage the Deepwater Horizon blowout ultimately causes. If BP contains the leak in a relatively short period of time and there is minimal damage to the seafood industry and coasts, then new drilling could resume shortly. However, if the situation deteriorates further and major coastal damage ensues, then offshore drilling is likely to slow significantly until new regulations are approved and more reliable blowout preventers are developed and deployed.

The battle over tougher regulations is likely to be prolonged and nasty. President Obama has vowed to end the "cozy relationship" between companies and regulators. Testifying before Congress earlier this week, Interior Secretary Salazar said that the oil industry is already characterizing efforts to reform regulations as "impediments and roadblocks to the development of our domestic oil and gas resources." The Secretary called for federal regulation of blowout preventers which are supposed to ensure that spills of the scale of the Deepwater Horizon incident can't happen.

Recommendations stemming from the recently announced independent Presidential Commission on the tragedy will likely have much influence on the course of deepwater drilling and thus the availability of oil in the future. Should the Commission conclude that much tougher regulation is necessary, it is difficult to see how the oil industry, even with its considerable clout in the Congress, can resist the calls for reform. Oil might just become far scarcer and more expensive five years from now than most of us think.

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Tom Whipple is a retired government analyst and has been following the peak oil issue for several years.