Oil Rising Again from BP Gulf

[svBeBe]

Originally Posted by rtbates

I don't know about the amount, but oil/tar balls have been washing up on Padre Island for well over 50 years. Long before drilling...I know because I was washing them off my feet 50 years ago...

We visited the beaches between Sabine Pass and High Island very often when I was a child. The beach side highway there is long-since submerged and those beaches no longer exist. There were NO tar balls on those beaches prior to 1955. I know this for certain because we camped there at least a hundred times. Our family also frequented Crystal Beach, entire Bolivar Peninsula and both east and west beaches of Galveston. There were no tar balls then.

The tar balls began to appear on all those beaches during my 7th summer -- 1956. Would be interesting to me to know when the off-shore drilling began in that area.

Someone else in this thread stated that there is a large pool of oil on the floor (sea bottom). Doesn't oil float rather than sink?

Just for the record, I support off-shore drilling and find the current moratorium ridiculous. Sure there are dangers of contaminating our environment. But we as a nation insist on oil, so go get it right there in our own backyard.

[zeehag]

not all oil floats--when it is saturated with thousands of gallons of korexit to make it sink, it will.(0ut of site out of mined) there were plumes floating under water surface the governmental mouths did not choose to see when they sed there was no oil in gulf...despite pix taken by natives ignorant in fotochop, and words from local watermen's mouths... is not the government using underwater searching for oil. is private and educational sources. i trust lsu over usgumminkt anyday when it comes to reporting anything regarding oil spillage and existence of stuff underwater. they are scientists. the guminkt is a bunch of hot air blowers who dont really care about the gulf. they do care about the money generated by corporations.

[Making Waves]

Originally Posted by roverhi

Not popular with our current anti-oil administration and the rabid 'return us to the stone age' environmentalists.

Our current administration just approved the pipeline from tar sands in Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico and has signed off on an increase of off-shore drilling. I'd hardly call that "anti-oil".

Environmentalists are promoting, supporting and doing extensive fundraising for the development of alternative fuels, solar and wind facilities, devices that use less electricity and reduce carbon emissions while being more efficient than previous items. I'd hardly call that returning us to the stone age.

Let's leave the political slander out of this, shall we? The fact remains, BP's well is leaking again. It's polluting our waters, it's killing our sealife, it's bad all around.

[Beer Budget]

The cost of solar and wind are extreme compared to the cost of hydrocarbons and nat gas. The only reason they are moving forward is because of govt subsidies....

FYI, no PROOF yet that the well is leaking.

[Making Waves]

Solar and wind costs are extreme currently, but only because it's relatively recent technology. As with all technology, costs decrease as production increases, but oil company lobbyists have been fighting hard against its development. This is straying into more politics so I'll end it here.

Definitive proof, no - true enough. However, it's in the exact region, so I think we can be reasonably sure of the accuracy of the reports. Either way, it needs to be checked out and steps taken to get it cleaned up before we have another half-year-long ****-up again.

[senormechanico]

Originally Posted by zeehag

not in san diego anymore-- cant get anything but mexican music on my radio anymore. i donot have sirius radio yet.

Zee,
The internet is your friend.

online radio station guide - Bing

[S/V Illusion]

Some people refuse to believe anything unless it implies only what they want it to say. Private labs and academic institutions are funded by groups who obviously can and often do influence the so-called objectivity of places like LSU. If someone says oil sinks or that dispersants cause it to sink, they are expressing a very misleading concept as only one very dense Arabian crude has a density greater than water and Corexit does just what it's name implies - disperse it. It doesn't do anything else...
But common sense and logic are irrelevant I guess when some people just can't accept something unless it fits their comfortable view of the world.

Oil from the Exxon Valdes continued to leach for years and that obviously was a surface source. There is nothing surprising in the Gulf these days and the few reputable observations of pockets remaining in the area are no surprise given the magnitude of the spill. Nature and the Gulf ecosystems will do just what they did in Prince William Sound albeit much faster.

[w1651]

Oil Spill Information - College of Marine Science - University of South Florida - St. Petersburg, Florida
I hope this link works it's to the University of south Florida.
Here you go read all about it.
By the way people are finding oil in their oysters in the pan handle of Florida look up the papers articles up there and you can read them yourselves.
Dispersents made it go to the bottom that's all. and our Gov took billions to look the other way. Has anyone been tried for the gross neglegance that killed 11 workers on the platform? No and they won't be.
The funniest thing I ever heard was that the oil evaporated. That one still makes me chuckle.

[S/V Illusion]

Originally Posted by w1651

The funniest thing I ever heard was that the oil evaporated. That one still makes me chuckle.

If it doesn't volatilize ("evaporate" in your jargon), you couldn't smell it! Obviously, it does indeed volatilize at ambient temperature.

[easterly38]

Originally Posted by S/V Illusion

Some people refuse to believe anything unless it implies only what they want it to say.

I'm with you. I've been following this thread for a while and I've never seen so much obvious misinformation being quoted as fact, third-hand info, etc.

My favorite is the blogger out of New Orleans who has been referenced here a few times. It's like some folks failed to notice he is a plaintiff's attorney and is currently representing folks affected by the spill. While I hope he gets those folks all the money they lost plus HUGE amounts of punitive damages, the fact remains that he has a very clear agenda.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by S/V Illusion

If it doesn't volatilize ("evaporate" in your jargon), you couldn't smell it! Obviously, it does indeed volatilize at ambient temperature.

Light weight organic compounds volatilize* when the oil reaches the surface. Once these compounds are lost, the more resistant longer chain organics are what is left. This is what constitutes the thick mousse that sometimes ends up (visible) on the shoreline.

* To pass off as vapour, or evapourate.

[S/V Illusion]

True Gord but when dispersants are mixed in, the whole physical chemistry changes and the properties of the higher fractions of the oil don't follow that pattern.
My comment above was only intended to show the fallacy in the argument that oil doesn't evaporate. It clearly does. The only debatable point is what percentage is lost through evaporation and that is solely a function of what type crude is spilled. In the case of the gulf spill, the crude characteristic is such that as much as 50% can be lost through evaporation in that climate.

[w1651]

In the case of the gulf spill, the crude characteristic is such that as much as 50% can be lost through evaporation in that climate.

I agree that it can evaporate to a point. But what happened to the other 50%? Don't try to tell me it all evaporated (And that's the Presidents words not mine) especially when dealing with the huge amount that was released.

[S/V Illusion]

Originally Posted by w1651

I agree that it can evaporate to a point. But what happened to the other 50%? Don't try to tell me it all evaporated (And that's the Presidents words not mine) especially when dealing with the huge amount that was released.

No one implied all the oil volatilized. Our President has said and done a lot of dubious things but he never said it all evaporated.

Some indeterminate percentage of the remaining oil in the water column dispersed upon mixing with Corexit. Mo one knows or has postulated what percentage that was. Of the oil not volatilized or dispersed, some percentage washed ashore and of that, a portion was removed by mechanical means. An additional percentage, again no one knows how much, was entrapped in both shoreline and sediment sand. Consequently, no one knows with certainty how much remained in the water column or is/was trapped in the lower depths because of temperature density inversion.

So, that means there were a large number of fractions of the total volume released which can be accounted for to some degree. It didn't disappear and it all didn't sink as some would have you believe.

Try to not get drawn into the rather meaningless numbers being tossed around the media or some less than reputable academic groups looking for more funding. The real story, in the context of the environmental assessments, has yet to be completed and peer reviewed.

For the time being, all we can say with certainty is that the effects, both short and long term as well as the economic impacts appear to be far less than anticipated. Some people just don't like good news...

[w1651]

usgovinfo.about.com/b/2010/08/07/bp-spill-where-did-the...

Here's what the Gov said and below is what probably really happened.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment...ulf-spill-Wher...