http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Saj...eature=related
For all practical purposes the Gulf is a dead body of water. The only question now is: How far up the East coast and onward to Greenland, Ireland, England, then south to Spain before it turns back West will it go?
This satellite picture shows the sheen of oil on the top, but more importantly it shows the extent of the sub-surface cloudiness of the dispersed oil. At least 1/3rd of the Gulf is now a floating mess of surface AND sub-surface oil particles, and the "Top Kill" procedure has failed to kill the leak.
The "relief well", BP last stated, is now at 10,000 ft below the sea bed and has 8,000 feet to go down and a couple miles (?) to go horizontally. Considering how the "Top Kill" went, even if they attempted to inject more mud into the relief well in an attempt to plug the Deep Water Horizon 22" diameter drill pipe, the pressure of the oil and gas may just force the mud up the old pipe and out the broken pipe at the top of the defective, 450 ton blowout preventer setting on the sea floor. My suspicions are that they will attempt both and mud and cement injection via the relief well and after both fails they'll plant a 100 KT nuclear device at 18,000 feet about 500 - 750 ft from the old bore stem and attempt to crush the drill pipe and the formation. Perhaps sometime in early July.
That means that the well will continue to leak for a total of 70-80 days. Current estimates are that the well is leaking between 20,000 and 100,000 barrels a day. BP cannot help but have a very good estimate of the flow rate of the oil escaping, and they know the diameter of the pipe, so they know to a pretty good approximation the rate the oil is leaking. They fact that they are dissimulating indicates the rate is much worse then their original 5,000 barrels per day. I would go with between 90 and 100K barrels per day, or a total of 4 Million barrels (168,000,000 gallons) since the Deep Water Horizon explosion, and I project another 4 million barrels (for a total of 8 million barrels or 336,000,000 gallons till the nuke closes the well stem ... if it does. The total Valdez release was estimated at 10.8 Million gallons. At a minimum the Gulf leak will be 30 times that volume. It could be more, MUCH more, Within the next year and a half most of the 50,000,000 barrels in the oil reserve the Deep Water Horizon was tapping could gush to the surface.
For all practical purposes the Gulf is a dead body of water, and will remain so for the next two or three centuries. Perhaps longer. How far into the Atlantic and around the world the contamination spreads remains to be seen. Dark horizon indeed.
For all practical purposes the Gulf is a dead body of water. The only question now is: How far up the East coast and onward to Greenland, Ireland, England, then south to Spain before it turns back West will it go?
This satellite picture shows the sheen of oil on the top, but more importantly it shows the extent of the sub-surface cloudiness of the dispersed oil. At least 1/3rd of the Gulf is now a floating mess of surface AND sub-surface oil particles, and the "Top Kill" procedure has failed to kill the leak.
The "relief well", BP last stated, is now at 10,000 ft below the sea bed and has 8,000 feet to go down and a couple miles (?) to go horizontally. Considering how the "Top Kill" went, even if they attempted to inject more mud into the relief well in an attempt to plug the Deep Water Horizon 22" diameter drill pipe, the pressure of the oil and gas may just force the mud up the old pipe and out the broken pipe at the top of the defective, 450 ton blowout preventer setting on the sea floor. My suspicions are that they will attempt both and mud and cement injection via the relief well and after both fails they'll plant a 100 KT nuclear device at 18,000 feet about 500 - 750 ft from the old bore stem and attempt to crush the drill pipe and the formation. Perhaps sometime in early July.
That means that the well will continue to leak for a total of 70-80 days. Current estimates are that the well is leaking between 20,000 and 100,000 barrels a day. BP cannot help but have a very good estimate of the flow rate of the oil escaping, and they know the diameter of the pipe, so they know to a pretty good approximation the rate the oil is leaking. They fact that they are dissimulating indicates the rate is much worse then their original 5,000 barrels per day. I would go with between 90 and 100K barrels per day, or a total of 4 Million barrels (168,000,000 gallons) since the Deep Water Horizon explosion, and I project another 4 million barrels (for a total of 8 million barrels or 336,000,000 gallons till the nuke closes the well stem ... if it does. The total Valdez release was estimated at 10.8 Million gallons. At a minimum the Gulf leak will be 30 times that volume. It could be more, MUCH more, Within the next year and a half most of the 50,000,000 barrels in the oil reserve the Deep Water Horizon was tapping could gush to the surface.
For all practical purposes the Gulf is a dead body of water, and will remain so for the next two or three centuries. Perhaps longer. How far into the Atlantic and around the world the contamination spreads remains to be seen. Dark horizon indeed.