What will happen if it NEVER stops leaking for years to come & they cant cap it
one way or another?

For you, no more of this:



You may have to switch to 'soul food'.

chas

PS: In all seriousness, this is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions. As a country, we (those of us who DON'T live on the gulf coast) need to find a way to share in the pain this man-made disaster has caused and also be a part of the solution. One way to start is to curb our appetite for Cadillacs that have OVER 500HP (and only four seats, three of which are rarely filled) http://www.insideline.com/cadillac/cts-v/2009/2009-cadillac-cts-v-to-make-567-horsepower.html . Well, unless you can fuel them with methane created from pig manure. Plus, the purchaser should be required to raise the pigs and process the fuel.

Well, it's a start.



[This message has been edited by cgiles (edited 06-16-2010).]

BTW who uses the most oil in the World.Yo pays your money and yo takes your choice!
can't have it both ways guys.
http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/politics/GlobalOil.html

[This message has been edited by Tony Hughes (edited 06-16-2010).]

The only way this kind of problem never happens again is to hold the feet of our politicians to the fire, and keep them there. 98% incumbency means we are NOT doing this. We vote the same people back in after every disaster, ecological, financial, military, whatever.

WE DON'T CARE... until it's too late, then we all forget about it in ten years time.

The United States of Amnesia

SemiLiveMusic makes a very good point by bringing up Matt Simmons’ interview on MSNBC.

Mr. Simmons gave another interview on Bloomberg on June 15th that should be watched by all. He repeats the claim that 120,000 barrels of oil is now leaking from the seabed each day. He feels the only option left is to bore a hole deep into the seabed and explode a tactical nuke that would generate sufficient heat to seal off the fissures.

http://tinyurl.com/267ylno


Readings from surface vessels have now confirmed the presence of gas bubbles forming around the wellhead. These bubbles comprising of Methane Hydrate, Methylene Chloride, Hydrogen Sulfide and Benzene have been found to cover areas 15 to 20 miles across and tens of feet deep in the bottom of the ocean.

It is feared that if the Methane Hydrates blow up, it would generate a 400 to 600mph Tsunami wave that would crash over the Florida coastline.

Listen to Richard Hoagland narrating the possible sequence of events that may unfold.

Cloud of Death followed by Tsunami – Part 1
http://tinyurl.com/2atonyr

Cloud of Death followed by Tsunami – Part 2
http://tinyurl.com/2errho5

Every person living along the coast of Florida needs to remain prepared and informed.


What happens if we are unable to seal off the seabed?

In this case, we would be looking at the ecological impact of allowing 2.5 billion barrels of oil to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. The next 18 months would be critical to all life forms on earth as the oil circles around the globe doing its damage.

50% of the Oxygen comes from the world’s oceans.

Phytoplanktons living in the oceans generate Oxygen via Photosynthesis. With the help of nutrients from the water and sunlight, they help generate half of the world’s oxygen while fixing 40% of the carbon.

The death of the oceans spells a death sentence for mankind.

Hope we never get to that.


[This message has been edited by Tapas (edited 06-16-2010).]

[This message has been edited by Tapas (edited 06-16-2010).]

Was trying to watch the TV while playing last night. thought i heard that the spill is now confirmed to be much grater than even the 120,000 gallons mentioned here...something like 2 1/2 million a day.

WOW!


Russ

Isn't SWEDEN Almost OIL FREE now?
makes you wonder why we can't do the same, greedy money people perhaps .
http://environment.about.com/od/renewableenergy/a/oilfreesweden.htm


[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 06-17-2010).]

Documents are now surfacing showing how BP knew way back in February 13th that they had cracks in the well.

On March 10th, BP informed Mineral Management Service that they were in a “well control situation.” Nothing was done. The government regulators decided to take no action.

BP speeded up the drilling operation ignoring danger signs and standard operating procedures. Profits were given priority over safety.

http://tinyurl.com/2vrp8h6


On April 20th, Deepwater Horizon exploded triggering the worst man made environmental disaster in human history.

This was not an ‘accident’. This was not an act of God. This was the end result of wanton greed, callousness and total irresponsibility.

Listen to Tony Hayward, CEO of British Petroleum spell it out in his own words the naked truth of what drives his corporation “Our primary purpose in life is to create value for our shareholders ... our primary purpose in life is not to save the world.”

http://tinyurl.com/25rpvzc


Do sociopaths deserve to hold such positions of power and responsibility? Mr. Hayward has been asked to step down today. He is free to have his “life back”.

Unfortunately, for millions of people living around the Gulf Coast, will never be getting their lives back. They face to lose their livelihood, homes, businesses, everything.

We have opened the Gates of Hell, metaphorically speaking.

If this oil gusher cannot be stopped, it will bring death to the Gulf of Mexico and pollute 1/3rd of the worlds water body.

The media released an extremely disturbing piece of news this morning. Very high levels of Methane have been found to be seeping up.

http://tinyurl.com/234aux3


Why should we be concerned?

Methane is a deadly gas 21 times more potent than Carbon Dioxide when it comes to creating a greenhouse effect.

There are enormous deposits of Methane Hydrates on the sea floor. Extreme pressure and cold temperature on the sea floor keeps these deadly gasses trapped as frozen crystals.

If the ocean temperature were to increase by a few degrees, these frozen crystals would transform into a gas and begin to surface. There is so much Methane Hydrate under the ocean, that it could easily trigger a runaway global warming process creating a Martian Climate on earth.

Scientists believe such an event took place 55 million years ago.

The total energy stored in Methane Hydrates rivals all the energy we have in fossil fuels. Japanese scientists have been researching for decades into safe ways of mining this energy source.

Due to its deadly characteristics, all efforts have been proven futile.

It seems we have done the unthinkable.

This hole must be plugged and the cracks on the seabed must be sealed. This is not an ordinary leak in an oil well. We must treat this as a Global Emergency.

Just how much oil is gushing out?

Matt Simmons puts the figure at 120,000 barrels per day. Let’s try to get a visual of this enormous volume of crude.

We are all familiar with the 1gallon milk bottles in the store shelf. Now imagine buying 42 of these plastic bottles filled with dark, heavy crude oil and pouring them into a cylinder 18” in diameter and about 38” tall.

That is your Barrel. It contains 42 gallons of oil.

Watch this animation to see how 25,000 barrels will look like when stacked up around a pillar.

http://tinyurl.com/29ondrm


Multiply that by 5 to get a feel for how much oil is gushing out into the Gulf every single day.

120,000 barrels per day = 120,000 x 42 = 5,040,000 gallons a day.

About 5 millions gallons of crude are being released each day from the bottom of the seabed one mile deep.

Compare this to the Exxon Valdez spill that was a mere 11 million gallons in total. It happened over the surface of the water, so its effect was minimized. Even after 20 years, we are finding oil residues on the sea floor.

How long will this gusher flow?

It is estimated the Macondo Reservoir that Deepwater Horizon tapped into contains around 2 to 2.5 Billion Barrels of oil.

Assuming a constant flow rate of 120,000 barrels per day, it would take 20,833 days or 57 years for the reservoir to drain out.

BP was ecstatic at the prospect of producing 200,000 barrels a day from this reservoir over the period of the next 20-25 years.

In practice, the seepage will increase over time as the cracks widen and the flow will stop when the pressure of reservoir falls to the pressure of the mile high water column.

Scientists feel, that left to its own, the gusher will cease in 9 years.

Obviously, we cannot let this happen.

Not only does life on earth depend on the oceans for half its oxygen supply, but also the seafood comprises a significant portion of the diet for 6.8 billion humans living on this planet.

Phytoplankton covers the oceans surface. Phytoplankton is the primary level in the Marine Food Chain. Zooplankton feeds on Phytoplankton, which are in turn eaten by krill, crustaceans and small fishes, which are then in turn eaten by larger fish followed by penguin, seals, whales and polar bears.

Man stands at the tail end of this food chain.

Death of the oceans will put mankind in peril.

Matt Simmons feels that a tactical nuke is the only option left to seal the seabed.

http://tinyurl.com/267ylno


The Russians were able to stop gas fires on ground wells using tactical nukes. They were successful several times in the past.

Detonating a nuke deep under the seabed under 1 mile of water has never been done before. It could make matters a lot worse by opening up the entire seabed and releasing the radiation including the oil and natural gas.

Byron King, who served in the Navy, makes a counter argument as to why nukes should never be used at such extreme depths. He feels this is a crazy idea.

http://tinyurl.com/29coqbx


Willard Wattenburg, a nuclear physicist has a novel idea. He feels that dropping steel balls down the well could stop the gusher. Willard was in charge of putting out the oils fires in Kuwait in 1991.

http://tinyurl.com/26cn7nb


Time is running out. We cannot stand by and allow us to poison ourselves.

Highly dangerous levels of Benzene, Hydrogen Sulfide and other Volatile Organic Compounds have been measured along the gulf coast.

Here is a report on the Air Quality. Be sure the read the comments posted. People are understandably frustrated and concerned.

http://tinyurl.com/23867vr


We should make it our top priority to assemble an international team of the best and brightest minds to find a solution to seal the ocean floor. It would take a super human effort and a lot of cooperation to cap this underwater volcano.

We should never give up hope.

We have successfully sent man to the moon. We have coded the human genome. We have built spacecraft that can travel 5 times the speed of sound.

If we can pull this off, it would be mankind’s finest hour.



[This message has been edited by Tapas (edited 06-19-2010).]

The sollutions where available and presented by some dutch companies, but the US of A and BP decided they would solve the problem themselves and it got only worse.

Now it might be to late for these sollutions that would have worked well early on.

THey should have never let BP try and do it on their own, they should have made this an international priorrity issue right from the start and juts have presented the bill to BP.

Tapas thank for posting some very elightening information. Bottom line imho, "greed." And it's everywhere!! I remember it from religious studies and have been reminded of it from time to time from another program I'm involved in. One of the "7 Deadly Sins."

A bit off the subject of the oil spill, but yesterday I was in supermarket where the computer system that runs the check out cash registers crashed. An announcement was made that the store would be closing until the system was up. Customers were asked to proceed to the checkout they would not be charged for what was in their shopping carts. You should have seen the the customers loading extra items into their shopping carts. Talk about "greed" What a surprise those who loaded up their carts only to discover that a few minutes later the cash registers were back in service.