Re: [Paddlewise] A little context for the BP oil spill: It isn't the Apocalypse

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 5:19 AM, Rich Kulawiec <rsk_at_rockandwater.net> wrote:

> On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 10:31:42AM -0700, Jackie Myers wrote:
>
> > "The Gulf of Mexico spill is a calamity with enormous costs.  [...]
>
> Correction: this is not a spill.
>

Yup... unfortunately there really isn't a "word" that describes what's going
on very well. I've seen "rupture", "gusher", "blow-out",  "leak" and your
word "flow". None of those really does a good job either. I think "rupture"
may be the single best descriptor of the original incident and then "flow"
for what is happening now.

It's also not very clear as to where the flow of crude is coming from. Is it
the wellhead via a BOP that failed to operate? That would imply one opening
for the flow. But it appears to be more than one flow (three was the most
quoted). So were there three BOPs? In my experience having a multi-headed
BOP in 5k of water would be unusual but time and technology march on so I
dunno any more.

If the original explosion was the result of a poor cementing job then the
flow(s) could be coming up through fissures in the sea bottom itself and
bypassing the BOP altogether. This is one of the most dangerous of all
blow-outs because when the gasses and crude oil reach the surface they can
explode at the rig with no possibility of turning off the flow by shutting
down the BOP. Worse yet, if the rig is anchored and unable to get away, the
gas and crude in the water reduce the buoyancy so that the fire-fighting
boats cannot get close to the rig without risk of sinking. And then, of
course, the floating rig sinks.

So far the descriptions - if you ignore BP spokespeople pointing fingers at
Cameron (the manufacturers of the BOP) and the operators of the rig - point
to the cement job and more than one flow from the single 18,000 foot well.
If that's the case then Haliburton - not BP - is ultimately responsible for
the damages. Think this might take a while to filter through the court
system?

To picture what is happening imagine digging a 5 or 6 foot hole in sand and
burying a water hose at the bottom. Fill the hole back up, tamp it down
well, and then turn on the water. You will probably see more than one exit
of water from the hole.

And speaking of the Valdez, this event has already surpassed it;
> please see the entry for May 1st here:
>

The difficulty in calculating how much crude has escaped comes from not
being able to directly measure the flow rate. Thus everything is calculated
from estimates based on the area covered by the "slick" which requires a
bunch of other estimates. They have to estimate the type of crude (much
different from the crude carried by the Exxon Valdez), how much simply
evaporated into the air, how quickly the crude clumped up, and so forth. So
I'm skeptical of all the current efforts to quantify the flow. "Shitloads"
is the best descriptor I can think of. We may never know how much crude
escaped with any accuracy.

The Exxon Valdez held a known quantity of crude and they knew how much was
pumped (lightered) out of it and assume that what was left was "spilled". It
was much thicker crude with fewer light gasses so one might conclude that
the potential for damage to beaches and critters would have been much
greater.

As an FYI: Moses Lake is going to legalize golf carts for transportation
inside town. Since our electrical power comes from hydro-electric generation
my plans are to make as much of my transportation as possible either by
electric vehicles or by bicycle from now on. I'd kayak but it's about 8
miles of paddling one way to get groceries and only ten blocks by road. (We
live on a peninsula.)

Thanks for the links... that skytruth.org looks very interesting.


Craig Jungers
Moses Lake, WA
www.nwkayaking.net
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