If you’re into doomsday scenarios worthy of Hollywood, here’s a rationally argued assessment of what might be happening in the Gulf of Mexico.
This started as a comment left on The Oil Drum blog, spotted by Casaubon’s Book at Science Blogs, picked up by Mother Jones, and then broadcast by Information Clearing House.
If I understand it correctly, the premise of the original comment is that there is evidence that the well now gushing oil is actually seriously damaged beneath the ocean floor. Attempts to cap the well merely increase pressure below, causing those deeper breaks to get worse. The oil and gas escaping from the damaged areas in the well below the ocean floor are actually causing erosion, and could eventually cause the collapse of the area surrounding the well.
Worst case, in this view, is that nothing can stop the oil until the whole underground oil reserve that has been tapped into is emptied. And just how much oil we’re talking about isn’t clear. Billions of gallons?
There’s enough technical information, and enough references, to make it difficult to dismiss this as pure conspiracy bunk.
Hollywood science fiction begins to pale alongside this doomsday scenario.
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this post seems okay. But when I tried 3 times to comment on your post about your father, l got rejected.
Some doctors refuse to make an alzheimer’s diagnosis, saying it can be verified only with an autopsy of the brain.
It seems to me that if the patient does not know what a clock is for, he’s got alzheimer’s, but if he can tell time, he doesn’t and probably has simple dementia (can’t remember what he ate for lunch, for example).
Well, Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are progressive. Apparently it can progress very quickly, in some cases, more slowly in others. He’s been diagnosed with a combo of Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia. I expect that, if he lives long enough, we’ll get to the “what is a clock for” stage.
some new internet mythology is appearing regarding natural leakage and seepage
apparently mother nature leaks more oil than mankind can do in this kind of event — just like Mt. St. Helens did more for global warming than 10 million cars
not throwing this out there to provoke anything — just reminding people that this type of thinking is floating around out there in cyberspace
Re: the Gulf Oil issue – we have to hope that the relief wells now being drilled will be deep enough and properly placed to close the well once and for all.
“Mapping the (sea) floor sonically” is standard operating procedure to view changes in a reservoir. They undoubtedly have earlier and substantial seismic data, and the update will, among other things, show how the reservoir is being depleted and how the oil and gas are flowing – and provide them with more info on how to shut it down (and confirm that the relief well drilling is on target).
I’ve never heard of the kind of ‘nightmare scenario’ described in the article, but at this point we’d all best be chanting “drill, baby, drill!” because the faster the relief wells get there, the faster we’ll get to a solution.
There’s a guy named Matt Simmons, a veteran oil industry insider, that several weeks ago said that the only answer to this leak was to drill the relief well and then drop a low-power nuke down the hole to seal it. He claims that the Russians have used this technique in the past.
It sounds pretty crazy, but this guy has serious credentials. Just last year, the Wall St. Journal named him one of the five most important voices in the oil industry.
And when you start to think about it, the Russian angle seems to make sense. When you look at the abysmal safety record of Soviet machinery, wouldn’t it make sense that the Russians had screwed up and leaked oil before?
“Simmons is quoted as saying, “Obama could remove BP today… tell BP it is time to leave”. Some questions were also brought up that pertained to a nuclear device and how the military could lower one 18,000 feet into the well bore.
Simmons went on to say ” Such techniques have been used by the Russians on several different occasions”.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/05/senasational-claims-by-matt-simmons-about-the-bp-leak/
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/06/time-to-nuke-the-leak-%e2%80%93-part-2/
I’ve met Matt several times and agree – he is a very credible voice. He’s not a scientist/techie himself, but he has some of the best who work with him, and he’s been around long enough to know what works and what doesn’t.
The Russians have used nukes in a number of their fields. I heard that they used them to fracture the formation, but it makes sense that it could be used to shut in a well too. I’m sure that some BP business people are wondering if they can still get something out of this reservoir, but I would think that their leaders are ready to be shed of it. If a nuke offers their best option, expect one to be used. They will start traditionally first however, and attempt to seal it with cement.
And, running new seismic surveys give them the best available information to make these decisions.
My opinion is that BP as a whole is a good company. They have however been focused on process efficiencies and controlling costs, and the company man on the rig was obviously feeling the heat to get the reservoir into production and made some terrible decisions, even in view of data that should have convinced him otherwise. If BP survives this (and I hope they do – we need them to keep paying!), you’ll see a far different company and (I also hope) a reformed industry. There are oil companies (investor-owned and nationally-owned) who would not have responded anywhere nearly as well as BP has to this disaster, regardless of what has been said about them.
That said, whatever they do will never seem like it’s enough. But we can’t turn back time.