Earth ChangesS


Cow Skull

Gulf Leak Estimate Now Closer To 1 Million Gallons Per Day: New Study

Joel Achenbach and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:31 UTC
Pick a number: 12,600 barrels . . . 20,000 . . . 21,500 . . . 25,000 . . . 30,000 . . . 40,000 . . . 50,000. Scientists put every one of those numbers in play Thursday as they struggled to come up with a solid estimate of how much oil is gushing each day from the black geyser at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

The one scientific certainty: It's a lot -- and more than some of the same scientists thought just a couple of weeks ago. It's so much that the crews trying to siphon it to the surface are going to need a bigger boat.

Early in the crisis, BP and the federal government repeatedly said that the Deepwater Horizon well was spewing about 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) a day into the gulf. But the new estimates, released Thursday by government-appointed scientists, show that the well most likely produces 5,000 barrels before breakfast.
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Bizarro Earth

Gulf Oil Spill 'Could Go Years' If Not Dealt With

F. William Engdahl
Financial Sense Editorials
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 08:14 UTC
The Obama Administration and senior BP officials are frantically working not to stop the world's worst oil disaster, but to hide the true extent of the actual ecological catastrophe. Senior researchers tell us that the BP drilling hit one of the oil migration channels and that the leakage could continue for years unless decisive steps are undertaken, something that seems far from the present strategy.

In a recent discussion, Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the Russian State University of Oil and Gas, predicted that the present oil spill flooding the Gulf Coast shores of the United States "could go on for years and years ... many years." 1

According to Kutcherov, a leading specialist in the theory of abiogenic deep origin of petroleum, "What BP drilled into was what we call a 'migration channel,' a deep fault on which hydrocarbons generated in the depth of our planet migrate to the crust and are accumulated in rocks, something like Ghawar in Saudi Arabia."3 Ghawar, the world's most prolific oilfield has been producing millions of barrels daily for almost 70 years with no end in sight. According to the abiotic science, Ghawar like all elephant and giant oil and gas deposits all over the world, is located on a migration channel similar to that in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.
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Binoculars

Volcano Expert Warns of Another Icelandic Eruption

Emma Pryer
Express.co.uk
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:49 UTC
Image
© J. AleanAksja
A volcano expert warned yesterday that another Icelandic eruption could be imminent, raising the prospect of summer holiday flight chaos.

Dr Hazel Rymer has been monitoring a volcano called Askja 180 miles north of Eyjafjallajokull - the volcano that caused a complete shutdown of most of Europe's airspace in April.

She says it is showing increasing signs of seismic activity. Her team from the Open University in London and volunteers from environmental charity Earthwatch have noticed changes in the "plumbing system" beneath the mountain.

Dr Rymer said: "New magma is accumulating. This is what happens before an eruption, but a critical amount needs to accumulate and we cannot say what that is. We can't predict when an eruption will occur - it could be next week or next year."
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Cow Skull

New estimate: Up to 40,000 barrels a day was coming from BP well


CNN
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:56 UTC
Scientists now estimate the leaking BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico was releasing 20,000 to 40,000 barrels -- or 840,000 to 1.7 million gallons -- per day through last week, the head of the U.S. Geological Survey said Thursday.

The scientists' previous estimate was 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day.

The new estimate is of the well's flow rate prior to BP's cutting of the damaged riser pipe extending from the well's blowout preventer last week, U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt said. After BP cut the riser on June 3, it placed a containment cap over the preventer's lower marine riser package to capture some of the leaking oil.
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Cloud Lightning

Oil Guru: The Real Nightmare Will Be When A Hurricane Picks Up The Oil And Paints The Gulf Coast Black

Joe Weisenthal
Business Insider
Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:46 UTC
Don't watch this video of oil guru Matthew Simmons on Dylan Ratigan if you're in the US and you're about to go to sleep.

The Houston energy banker and author of Twilight in the Desert says we basically have two options: Let the well run dry (taking 30 years, and probably ruining the Atlantic ocean) or nuking the well. Barring those things, the best move would be to use supertankers to suck up as much oil as possible ahead of hurricane season, when the oil will be picked up, and will paint the Gulf Coast black. (via TheOilDrum)
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Umbrella

US: Heavy rains cause flooding in Marysville, Washington

Katya Yefimova and Debra Smith
HeraldNet
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:32 UTC
flooding
© Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald

A powerful storm of rain and hail that struck parts of Snohomish County late Wednesday afternoon flooded buildings, clogged storm drains and slowed traffic.

In Marysville, water rose up to two feet in some areas, seriously damaging the Marysville Public Works Building on Columbia Avenue, city spokesman Doug Buell said.

Maintenance crews worked to clear water from major city intersections, as flooding disrupted traffic.

Dale Ticer, who lives above the Cedarcrest Golf Course, had to find another route home after crews closed 84th Street NE. He said he could see a stream of water rushing down the hill.

"It was just a flood of water pouring down," Ticer said.
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Bizarro Earth

BP calls for Russian mini-subs to tackle oil spill - paper

Alexei Vlasov
RIA novosti
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:21 UTC
Image
© © RIA NovostiRussian Mini Sub
The British oil giant BP wants Russian mini-subs to help in eliminating the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Izvestia daily said on Monday.

Anatoly Sagalevich of Russia's Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, which owns the Mir submersibles, was quoted as saying that talks with BP officials had started soon after the accident.
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Umbrella

Flooding in Spain as torrential rain hits multiple areas


RSOE EDIS
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:19 UTC
Spain map
Roads have been closed and homes flooded in some areas of Spain today, Thursday, as a new front brings a return to wet conditions for much of the country. Worst affected regions are Galicia, Asturias, Aragón and Cataluña where many rivers have burst their banks. Several people have had to be rescued, a camping site in Vall de Boí had to be evacuated, and some schools have been closed. The coast of Lugo has been particularly affected and reservoirs in the region have been forced to open their sluice gates.

Update (10.06.2010 at 14:22 GMT+2)

The heavy rain that has fallen over the past few hours has caused extensive flooding, with roads closed and some towns in Lugo (pictured) and Asturias rendered inaccessible.

Reservoirs in the Pyrenees in Lleida and Aragón have also had to be emptied. Along the Lugo coastline, roads have been closed, schools shut and people evacuated from buildings where the ground floors have been flooded since yesterday, when the downpours began.

The mayor of Burela described the town's situation as "terrible", saying that the deluge of water has been on "such magnitude" that "there's no telling what could happen if it doesn't stop raining soon".
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Document

Matthew Simmons: BP Won't Last the Summer and There's Another Big Hole 7 Miles Away

Joe Weisenthal
Business Insider
Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:30 UTC
Matthew Simmons is sticking by his story that there's another giant leak in the Gulf of Mexico blowing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

On CNBC's Fast Money, he says he'd be surprised if BP lasted this summer, saying this disaster is entirely BP's fault.
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Bizarro Earth

Oil Spill? Just Nuke It

Charles W. Moore
Telegrph Journal Canada
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:55 UTC
Image
© The Associated PressThe winning sand sculpture in the Fiesta of Five Flags sand sculpture contest at Pensacola Beach, Fla., on Sunday, displays a can of BP oil being poured over a pelican. Several oil spill-themed sculptures were built by angry residents.
I figured there were probably all sorts of technical reasons why this was a fanciful notion, but it turns out not so much. Apparently the former Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) used nuclear weapons on five separate occasions between 1966 and 1981 to successfully cap blown-out gas and oil surface wells (there was also one attempt that failed), which have been documented in a U.S. Department of Energy report on the U.S.S.R.'s peaceful uses of nuclear explosions.

Russia is now urging the United States to consider doing the same. Komsomoloskaya Pravda, the best-selling Russian daily newspaper, asserts that although based on Soviet experience there's a one-in-five chance a nuke might not seal the well, it's "a gamble the Americans could certainly risk."

Reportedly, the U.S.S.R. developed special nuclear devices explicitly for closing blown-out gas wells, theorizing that the blast from a nuclear detonation would plug any hole within 25 to 50 meters, depending on the device's power. Much as I had idly imagined, massive explosions can be employed to collapse a runaway well on itself, thus plugging, or at least substantially stanching, the flow of oil.
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