Oilpocalypse Now Take I

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www.helium.com/items/1864136-how-the-ultimate-bp-gulf-disaster-could-kill-millions

How the ultimate BP Gulf disaster could kill millions

by Terrence Aym

Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico—something far worse than the BP oil gusher.

Warnings were raised as long as a year before the Deepwater Horizon disaster that the area of seabed chosen by the BP geologists might be unstable, or worse, inherently dangerous.

What makes the location that Transocean chose potentially far riskier than other potential oil deposits located at other regions of the Gulf? It can be summed up with two words: methane gas.

The same methane that makes coal mining operations hazardous and leads to horrendous mining accidents deep under the earth also can present a high level of danger to certain oil exploration ventures.

Location of Deepwater Horizon oil rig was criticized

More than 12 months ago some geologists rang the warning bell that the Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig might have been erected directly over a huge underground reservoir of methane.

Documents from several years ago indicate that the subterranean geologic formation may contain the presence of a huge methane deposit.

None other than the engineer who helped lead the team to snuff the Gulf oil fires set by Saddam Hussein to slow the advance of American troops has stated that a huge underground lake of methane gas—compressed by a pressure of 100,000 pounds per square inch (psi)—could be released by BP's drilling effort to obtain the oil deposit.

Current engineering technology cannot contain gas that is pressurized to 100,000 psi.

By some geologists' estimates the methane could be a massive 15 to 20 mile toxic and explosive bubble trapped for eons under the Gulf sea floor. In their opinion, the explosive destruction of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead was an accident just waiting to happen.

Yet the disaster that followed the loss of the rig pales by comparison to the apocalyptic disaster that may come.

A cascading catastrophe

According to worried geologists, the first signs that the methane may burst its way through the bottom of the ocean would be fissures or cracks appearing on the ocean floor near the damaged well head.

Evidence of fissures opening up on the seabed have been captured by the robotic submersibles working to repair and contain the ruptured well. Smaller, independent plumes have also appeared outside the nearby radius of the bore hole itself.

According to some geological experts, BP's operations set into motion a series of events that may be irreversible. Step-by-step the drillingteam committed one error after another.

Congressmen Henry Waxman, D-CA, and Bart Stupak, D-MI, in a letter sent to BP CEO Tony Hayward, identified 5 missteps made by BP during the period culminating with the explosion.

Waxman, chair of the Congressional energy panel and Stupak, the head of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said, "The common feature of these five decisions is that they posed a trade-off between cost and well safety."

The two Representatives also stated in the 14-page letter to Hayward that "Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense."

Called by some insiders investigating the ongoing disaster a "perfect storm of catastrophe," the wellhead blew on the sea floor catapulting a stream of mud, oil and gas upwards at the speed of sound.

In describing the events—that transpired in a matter of seconds—they note that immediately following the rupture the borehole pipe's casing blew away exposing a straight line 8 miles deep for the pressurized gas to escape. The result was cavitation, an irregular pressure variance sometimes experience by deep diving vessels such as nuclear submarines. This cavitation created a supersonic bubble of explosive methane gas that resulted in a supersonic explosion killing 11 men and completely annihilating the drilling platform.

Death from the depths

With the emerging evidence of fissures, the quiet fear now is the methane bubble rupturing the seabed and exploding into the Gulf waters. If the bubble escapes, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will instantaneously sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists measuring the oil plumes' advance will instantly perish.

As horrible as that is, what would follow is an event so potentially horrific that it equals in its fury the Indonesian tsunami that killed more than 600,000, or the destruction of Pompeii by Mt. Vesuvius.

The ultimate Gulf disaster, however, would make even those historical horrors pale by comparison. If the huge methane bubble breaches the seabed, it will erupt with an explosive fury similar to that experienced during the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in the Pacific Northwest. A gas gusher will surge upwards through miles of ancient sedimentary rock—layer after layer—past the oil reservoir. It will explode upwards propelled by 50 tons psi, burst through the cracks and fissures of the compromised sea floor, and rupture miles of ocean bottom with one titanic explosion.

The burgeoning methane gas cloud will surface, killing everything it touches, and set off a supersonic tsunami with the wave traveling somewhere between 400 to 600 miles per hour.

While the entire Gulf coastline is vulnerable, the state most exposed to the fury of a supersonic wave towering 100 feet or more is Florida. The Sunshine State only averages about 6 inches above sea level. A supersonic tsunami would literally sweep away everything from Miami to the panhandle in a matter of minutes. Loss of human life would be virtually instantaneous and measured in the millions. Of course the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and southern region of Georgia—a state with no Gulf coastline—would also experience tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Loss of property is virtually incalculable and the days of the US position as the world's superpower would be literally gone in a flash...of detonating methane.

Links

Evidence that methane gas catastrophe may be building

Video #1: www.youtube.com/watch?v =xMEr4FctWAM&feature=player_embedded#!

Video #2: www.youtube.com/watch?v =z4hfGY6i75w&feature=player_embedded#!

[nautonnier]

I can imagine the flecks of spittle on his screen as he typed that

Unfortunately, such doom-laden hyperbole is believed by many of the 'post normal science' group as they have no skepticism and if there are sufficient numbers of them concerned then it must be true as there is a 'consensus'.

[nautonnier]

When this first happened I seem to remember a post of "how convenient"

Now we hear that MMS inspectors TOLD the Trans-Ocean workers to pump seawater ahead of cement into the well almost guaranteeing a blow out....

Then hints that some people shorted or dropped their BP stock holdings _before_ the blow out....

There are coincidences and then there are rat-like smells

[scpg02]

Jun 20, 2010 1:14:38 GMT nautonnier said:

When this first happened I seem to remember a post of "how convenient"

Now we hear that MMS inspectors TOLD the Trans-Ocean workers to pump seawater ahead of cement into the well almost guaranteeing a blow out....

Then hints that some people shorted or dropped their BP stock holdings _before_ the blow out....

There are coincidences and then there are rat-like smells

I jumped the conspiracy fence a few years back. Through out my posting history I have noticed posts about shadow governments etc etc etc. I always thought these posters were a little unbalanced. But I also started paying attention to certain things. AGW started me down the path and then things started falling into place. Hind sight is 20/20 as they say and looking back on things from the conspiracy side of the fence, things become painfully obvious.

There is a quote that floats around about never letting a good disaster go to waste. If this thing wasn't planned then they are at a minimum turning it to their benefit. Getting cap and trade passed was part of the reason Obama was "elected". They'll use whatever they can to push it.

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Article link

Cracks Show BP Was Battling Gulf Well as Early as February

By Alison Fitzgerald and Joe Carroll - Jun 17, 2010

BP Plc was struggling to seal cracks in its Macondo well as far back as February, more than two months before an explosion killed 11 and spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.

“Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost,” said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional investigators probing the disaster. “It’s been a doomed voyage from the beginning.”

BP didn’t respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment. The company’s shares rose 22 pence to 359 pence today in London after the company struck a deal with the Obama administration yesterday to establish a $20 billion fund to pay cleanup costs and compensation. BP has lost 45 percent of its market value since the catastrophe.

On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, drilling documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are still trying to determine whether the fissures played a role in the disaster.

‘Cement Squeeze’

The company attempted a “cement squeeze,” which involves pumping cement to seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining expensive drilling fluid, known as “mud,” into the surrounding rocks.

BP used three different substances to plug the holes before succeeding, the documents show.

“Most of the time you do a squeeze and then let it dry and you’re done,” said John Wang, an assistant professor of petroleum and natural gas engineering at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania. “It dries within a few hours.”

Repeated squeeze attempts are unusual and may indicate rig workers are using the wrong kind of cement, Wang said.

Grappling Engineers

BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward and other top executives were ignorant of the difficulties the company’s engineers were grappling with in the well before the explosion, U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said today during a hearing in Washington.

“We could find no evidence that you paid any attention to the tremendous risk BP was taking,” Waxman said as Hayward waited to testify. “There is not a single e-mail or document that you paid the slightest attention to the dangers at this well.”

BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles and exploration chief Andy Inglis “were apparently oblivious to what was happening,” said Waxman, a California Democrat. “BP’s corporate complacency is astonishing.”

In early March, BP told the minerals agency the company was having trouble maintaining control of surging natural gas, according to e-mails released May 30 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the spill.

Gas Surges

While gas surges are common in oil drilling, companies have abandoned wells if they determine the risk is too high. When a Gulf well known as Blackbeard threatened to blow out in 2006, Exxon Mobil Corp. shut the project down.

“We don’t proceed if we cannot do so safely,” Exxon Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson told a House Energy and Commerce committee panel on June 15.

On March 10, BP executive Scherie Douglas e-mailed Frank Patton, the mineral service’s drilling engineer for the New Orleans district, telling him: “We’re in the midst of a well control situation.”

The incident was a “showstopper,” said Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has consulted with the Interior Department on offshore drilling safety. “They damn near blew up the rig.”

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Article link

Could the Obama Administration be Blocking Gulf Clean-up Efforts Intentionally?"

Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
Friday, June 18, 2010

At first blush this sounds like an outlandish question with a conspiratorial twist. The corollary question goes like this: Is the Obama administration intentionally scaling back clean-up efforts in the Gulf in an attempt to maximize the damage so Democrats in Congress will have an excuse to take effective control over yet another major sector of our economy and impose crippling and draconian new taxes on the American people?

We first learned of this controversy reading Sher Zieve who wrote in the Canada Free Press: "Obama is doing the bare minimum so that destruction will be at an all-time maximum -- in order to shove his Cap and Trade bill (which will complete our destruction) down our throats."

Zieve added: "The BP oil disaster was custom-made for The Obama. The effective oil-skimmer systems utilized by the Saudis and others would work to greatly minimize the damage being caused to the US Gulf Coast. But, The Obama continues to drag his heels as States and lives are destroyed."

Fox News reported that when the Dutch government offered to help us clean up the oil spewing from the leaking BP oil rig, Obama initially turned them down cold. Norwegian and Dutch firms offered to help us too, but Obama said no.

It is reputed that the Roman Emperor Nero played his fiddle while Rome burnt to the ground so he could falsely blame the disaster on Christians and thereby rationalize a campaign of persecution against them.

Is it possible that Barack Hussein Obama and statists on Capitol Hill are using this crisis as an excuse to drive prices up at the pump, drive your utility bills through the roof, regulate your behavior and diminish your standard of living in this already queasy economy?

This much is certain -- in spite of what Obama told the American people during his Oval Office address to the nation, he did not adequately respond to this crisis. The administration has clearly failed in terms of organization and the use of resources available to the federal government.

Moreover, it's now indisputable that statists on Capitol Hill are attempting to exploit this disaster to push so-called cap and trade legislation. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently revealed: "At the same time as Americans wonder when this gusher will ever be plugged, we hear word that the administration and my good friend the majority leader want to piggy back their controversial new national energy tax -- also known as cap and trade -- to an oil spill response bill that could and should be an opportunity for true bipartisan cooperation. So here again, we see the administration using a crisis, in this case the disaster in the gulf, as an opportunity to muscle through Congress another deeply unpopular bill that has profound implications for small business and struggling households."

But why let something as trivial as the truth get in the way when it comes to pushing an extreme "green" agenda? Liberals like Barack Obama made this problem worse so they could "solve" the problem and, as we've come to expect, they plan to "solve" the problem by making it worse.

So, true to form, Obama declared a moratorium on off-shore drilling and to make matters worse, Obama wants to institute a massive new energy tax, masquerading as sound energy policy (so-called cap and trade), that will dramatically raise the cost of just about everything you produce or consume, deprive you of income, control your behavior and repress your liberties.

Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, once said that you should never let a good crisis go to waste and Barack Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill aren't about to let this crisis go to waste. He may pontificate about holding BP to account but Obama and his leftist cronies fully intend to exploit this crisis to sneak liberty-stealing cap and trade legislation past the American people.

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www.telegraph.co.uk


BP chief Tony Hayward sold shares weeks before oil spill

The chief executive of BP sold £1.4 million of his shares in the fuel giant weeks before the Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused its value to collapse.

By Jon Swaine and Robert Winnett
Published: 12:10AM BST 05 Jun 2010

Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental disaster.

Mr Hayward, whose pay package is £4 million a year, then paid off the mortgage on his family’s mansion in Kent, which is estimated to be valued at more than £1.2 million.

There is no suggestion that he acted improperly or had prior knowledge that the company was to face the biggest setback in its history.

His decision, however, means he avoided losing more than £423,000 when BP’s share price plunged after the oil spill began six weeks ago.

Since he disposed of 223,288 shares on March 17, the company’s share price has fallen by 30 per cent. About £40 billion has been wiped off its total value. The fall has caused pain not just for BP shareholders, but also for millions of company pension funds and small investors who have money held in tracker funds.

The spill, which has still not been stemmed, has caused a serious environmental crisis and is estimated to cost BP up to £40 billion to clean up.

There was growing confidence yesterday that a new cap placed over the well was stemming the oil flow. An estimated three million litres a day had been pouring into the sea off the coast of Louisiana since the April 20 explosion, damaging marine life.

The crisis has enraged US politicians, with President Obama yesterday forced to cancel a trip to Indonesia amid a row over the White House’s response.

Mr Hayward, whose position is thought to be under threat, risked further fury by continuing plans to pay out a dividend to investors next month.

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Goldman Sachs Sold 44% of its BP stock THREE weeks before the Disaster

[billyjack]

Let's expose & dissipate the myth about 100,000 psi pressure at 13,000' below the seafloor. This pressure would create a force of 14,400,000 pounds per square foot. Silica(sand) has a density of 2.65 gr/cc or a weight per cubic foot of 165 pounds. Assuming only solid sand for 18,000', not even counting the 5000' of water which only weighs 62 pounds per cubic foot, also ignoring the porosity of sandstone & the fact that shale is dramatically less dense than sand and accounts for probably 80% of the earth at this location, then the weight of the earth 18,000 feet thick is 2,970,000 pounds per square foot. If pressures were really 100,000 psi at this depth the entire gulf would have already exploded and certainly wouldn't need an 8" hole to erupt.

Please don't pay attention to geologists or accountants on technical issues. Where did the 8 miles come from? The well was drilled to about 18,000' below the surface of the ocean. There are 5280' per mile that's around 3.5 miles deep. There's enough hysteria and some desrvedly so going on about this disaster let's at least think a little bit.

[scpg02]

Jun 20, 2010 14:20:25 GMT billyjack said:

Let's expose & dissipate the myth about 100,000 psi pressure at 13,000' below the seafloor. This pressure would create a force of 14,400,000 pounds per square foot. Silica(sand) has a density of 2.65 gr/cc or a weight per cubic foot of 165 pounds. Assuming only solid sand for 18,000', not even counting the 5000' of water which only weighs 62 pounds per cubic foot, also ignoring the porosity of sandstone & the fact that shale is dramatically less dense than sand and accounts for probably 80% of the earth at this location, then the weight of the earth 18,000 feet thick is 2,970,000 pounds per square foot. If pressures were really 100,000 psi at this depth the entire gulf would have already exploded and certainly wouldn't need an 8" hole to erupt.

Please don't pay attention to geologists or accountants on technical issues. Where did the 8 miles come from? The well was drilled to about 18,000' below the surface of the ocean. There are 5280' per mile that's around 3.5 miles deep. There's enough hysteria and some desrvedly so going on about this disaster let's at least think a little bit.

Always happy to have counter or clear information on these things. To answer your question about where the 8 miles come from, from what I've seen and I'm really not following this despite what it looks like, BP supposedly drilled deeper than they were supposed to and deeper than they claim. Apparently they were outside their permit. I'll see if I can dig up the article that talked about that.

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ricksblog.biz/?p=9552

BP WELL DEEPER THAN PERMIT ALLOWED, LACKED SAFETY VALVE

British Petroleum has been deemed by the federal and state governments as the lead and responsible party for stopping and cleaning up the huge environmental disaster caused by explosion and eventual sinking of Deep Horizon well off the shores of Louisiana.

I interviewed Mike Papantonio and Bobby Kennedy, Jr. about this disaster. Papantonio is a Pensacola attorney and environmentalist who founded Emerald Coastkeepers, which is affiliated with Kennedy’s Riverkeepers. The friends have co-hosted the syndicated, radio program “Ring of Fire” for seven years and both successfully tried in 2007 a class-action suit against Dupont for creating a 112-acre waste site tainted with arsenic, cadmium and lead that endangered the residents of the small West Virginia town of Spelter.

Kennedy said that their team discovered last night that the BP well not only didn’t have the acoustical, emergency valve that could have shut it off, but was also lacking a deep-hole valve that would have also been able to stop the leaking of 5,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico.

“The acoustical valve is a device required all over the world,” says Papantonio. “In Norway, you can’t drill in the ocean without one.”

The acoustical valve allows operators to remotely shut off the flow of oil from the well. Senator Bill Nelson told locals at press conference in Pensacola on Friday, April 30 that he was calling for a U.S. Senate probe to find out why regulations were relaxed to allow BP to not install the acoustical valve.

Papantonio also said that the Deep Horizon well was only permitted to be 18,000-ft. deep, but BP was drilling the well to 25,000-ft.

“This screwed up all the permutations on how to deal with this problem,” says Papantonio. “The engineers were thinking the well was only at 18,000 ft.”

Papantonio explained that a deep-hole valve is one valve that is installed 200 feet under the sandy bottom.

When asked why BP wouldn’t install a deep-hole valve, Papantonio says, “Because the deep-hole valve when deployed could cause BP to lose the well site and redrill. They were cutting cost to save money.”

BP is definitely in charge of this environmental clean-up. On Saturday, May 1, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist flew to Pensacola to meet with Coast Guard, Florida Department of Environmental, BP and local county officials and get a briefing on the problem.

When I was identified by Joe Oliveri of BP as a reporter, I was asked by Nancy Blum, DEP communications director, to leave the room. They were talking about operational matters and I was to wait until Gov. Crist arrived for his briefing to re-enter the room.

As I was led out of the room, I overheard Florida DEP Secretary Michael Sole telling a BP representative, “I’m going to take care of you.”

When Gov. Crist arrived, we shook hands in the hallway and he invited me to walk in with him and his small entourage. No one stopped me from coming back into the room.

BP dominated much of the discussion about the clean-up. Gary Stewart, general manager of Governmental Affairs for BP, told the governor, “We have the full BP group-from around the world-focused on this problem. We are working aggressively as we can at the source, in the water and on the shores. We are here for the long-term.”

Joe Oliveri gave a very brief presentation on the booming: 54,000 feet of boom has been deployed, 10,000 feet is in reserve and another 35,000 is in route to NAS Pensacola.

What seems to be ignored by federal and state official is the criminal history of British Petroleum. In 2007, BP entered into agreement with the Justice Department and agreed to pay $373 million in fines and restitution to settle criminal charges stemming from a deadly explosion in Texas, an oil spill in Alaska and allegations of price-fixing in the nation’s propane markets.

In March 2005, an explosion at BP’s refinery in Texas City, Texas, killed 15 contract employees and injured 170. BP pleaded guilty to a one-count felony violation of the Clean Air Act in the case and agreed to pay $50 million in criminal fines.

A year later, oil from BP’s Alaskan exploration subsidiary leaked from pipelines into the tundra and a frozen lake. BP pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act and will pay $20 million in criminal fines and restitution to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Alaska.

“This company is known for cutting corners,” says Papantonio.

Papantonio believes that loosening of the federal regulations for offshore oil rigs by the Minerals Management Service began in 2003 when Vice President thingy Cheney and his Energy Task Force had closed doors meeting with oil industry officials.

“This directly leads back to Cheney’s energy policy,” says Papantonio.

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www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/11/95776/engineers-say-interior-changed.html#ixzz0rJDQ3fbs

Engineers say Interior changed oil report after they signed it

By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — A group of engineers and oil experts said Friday that the Interior Department changed the language of a high-profile oil spill report after they'd signed it, falsely signaling their support for a drilling moratorium that they thought went too far.

The new language called for a stronger and wider moratorium on some oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico than the experts thought necessary. In fact, one said Friday, the stronger moratorium might instead increase the risks slightly.

"The reason we don't agree is that we think it makes the system less safe. It increases risk, it doesn't reduce risk," Texas oil consultant Ken Allen said in an interview.

Allen was among a group of experts who read and signed a May 27 statement by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announcing new safety measures for offshore drilling, as well as a six-month moratorium on some drilling.

"The recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering," Salazar said in the report.

However, as Allen and the others said in a statement, Salazar changed two key recommendations after they'd signed it.

The version they'd signed said Salazar recommended a six-month moratorium on permits for new exploratory wells in water deeper than 1,000 feet.

The final version recommended a six-month moratorium on "new wells being drilled using floating rigs." That included rigs in water deeper than 500 feet and covered more of them, Allen said.

Also, the version the experts signed called for "a temporary pause in all current drilling operations for a sufficient length of time" to perform additional safety tests for the 33 exploratory deepwater wells already working in the Gulf.

The final version urged "an immediate halt to drilling operations on the 33 permitted wells, not including the relief wells currently being drilled by BP, that are currently being drilled using floating rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Drilling operations should cease as soon as safely practicable for a 6-month period."

Allen and the others said they agreed with all the other safety recommendations. "However, we do not agree with the six-month blanket moratorium on floating drilling," they said. "A moratorium was added after the final review and was never agreed to by the contributors."

An Interior spokeswoman said the government didn't mean to say the experts agreed with the moratorium.

"By listing the members of the (National Academy of Engineering) that peer-reviewed the 22 safety recommendations contained in the report, we didn't mean to imply that they also agreed with the moratorium on deepwater drilling," Kendra Barkoff said.

"We acknowledge that they were not asked to review or comment on the proposed moratorium and that they peer-reviewed the report on a technical basis. The moratorium on deepwater drilling is based on the need for a comprehensive review of safety in deepwater operations."

Allen said the moratorium could marginally increase the risk of another spill.

"Stopping and temporarily abandoning the well and then re-entering the well ... there is an element of risk," he said. "The Deepwater Horizon was not drilling, it was temporarily abandoning the well. That's when they ran into trouble."

Also, he said the six-month moratorium could drive owners of the rigs to ship them elsewhere in the world to keep making money.

"The rigs that leave first are going to be bigger, newer rigs. The ones that come back last are the newer, bigger rigs. ... It's not major. All of them meet the requirements. But we're talking about marginal risks," Allen said.

As the rigs leave or shut down, experienced operators will go with them or leave the industry, Allen said.

"When we start back up again, we're going to have a much harder time getting them back. We'll have less experienced people on the rigs," he said.

Finally, he said Gulf oil production is starting to decline. He said one small producer had told investors that it alone would produce 2 million barrels fewer this year than it had thought it would.

"So we're going to have to import more oil by tanker," he said, "and ... history tells us we have more spills by tanker."

[nemesis]

This blog from Al Fin paints a less dire picture of the oil spill and progress of the relief wells.
alfin2100.blogspot.com/
"The news media loves to blow up a tragedy into a world-ending crisis. It sells more advertising. Politicians, trial lawyers, and political activists of the faux environmentalist variety also enjoy inflating a tragedy into the apocalypse. It helps them make money, get elected, gain political clout"

Could anyone in the 'know' comment on the credibility of this report ?

[scpg02]

Jun 21, 2010 0:44:48 GMT nemesis said:

This blog from Al Fin paints a less dire picture of the oil spill and progress of the relief wells.
alfin2100.blogspot.com/
"The news media loves to blow up a tragedy into a world-ending crisis. It sells more advertising. Politicians, trial lawyers, and political activists of the faux environmentalist variety also enjoy inflating a tragedy into the apocalypse. It helps them make money, get elected, gain political clout"

Could anyone in the 'know' comment on the credibility of this report ?

I was hoping there would be more replies and knowledgeable posts. Sadly it hasn't happened. Meanwhile I'll keep adding what I find.

[scpg02]

www.terradaily.com/reports/Gulf_oil_spill_threatens_Atlantic_coast_study_999.html

Gulf oil spill threatens Atlantic coast: study

by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) June 3, 2010

Oil from the devastating Gulf of Mexico spill could reach thousands of miles of Atlantic coastline and ocean within months, a study showed Thursday.

Computer simulations produced by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) suggested that ocean currents could send oil surging beyond the Gulf of Mexico and along the United States' eastern seaboard.

"I've had a lot of people ask me, 'Will the oil reach Florida?'" NCAR scientist Synte Peacock said in a statement.

"Actually, our best knowledge says the scope of this environmental disaster is likely to reach far beyond Florida, with impacts that have yet to be understood."

At least 20 million gallons of oil are believed to have spewed into the Gulf of Mexico since an April 20 explosion tore through a BP-leased rig just off the Louisiana coast, making it the worst spill in US history.

The NCAR simulations suggested once oil entered the Gulf of Mexico's "Loop Current" -- part of the Gulf Stream which sweeps around the Florida panhandle -- it would be only weeks before it reached Florida's Atlantic shores.

From there, the current could take oil as far north as Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, before turning east, the simulations showed.

It was not know whether the oil would be a thin surface layer or whether it would be below the surface.

The NCAR, a Colorado-based facility supported by the National Science Foundation that works with university scientists, emphasized however that the simulations were not a forecast because it was impossible to accurately predict the exact location of the oil in several weeks or months time.

However all six simulations released Thursday suggested oil would work its way into the Loop Current and along the Atlantic coastline.