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Started By
Message
An article that is not encouraging
Posted on 6/18/10 at 10:49 am
Posted on 6/18/10 at 10:49 am
It's long, but worth the read:
LINK
Any oil industry experts that can verify or refute this article?
LINK
quote:
The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said.
Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can "get there first".
Any oil industry experts that can verify or refute this article?
2
Posted on 6/18/10 at 11:02 am to givemeabeer
The reservoir could sand in... that would be better. So it is incorrect right there. Also the higher the flowrate the more likely it is to sand in.
Not a prediction just a way that it could get better, something you quote him as saying is impossible.
Not a prediction just a way that it could get better, something you quote him as saying is impossible.
Posted on 6/18/10 at 11:06 am to omegaman66
quote:
The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already
Yeah immeasurable because it is so small. The oil itself has done little damage. It has killed some birds, it has killed a very small number of fish possibly, and has killed some marsh. A few beaches have been oiled, which is freaking easy as hell to clean up.
The damage is largely restricted to the economy not the environment. Hell the specks and shrimp probably are loving the lack of humans out there killing them with nets and fishing poles... they are getting a break.
Posted on 6/18/10 at 11:07 am to omegaman66
quote:Couldn't a high flow rate also cause it to start spewing water instead of oil? I guess it depends on where the flow is actually coming from and what the well cross section looks like.
Also the higher the flowrate the more likely it is to sand in.
Posted on 6/18/10 at 11:43 am to omegaman66
quote:
Yeah immeasurable because it is so small. The oil itself has done little damage. It has killed some birds, it has killed a very small number of fish possibly, and has killed some marsh. A few beaches have been oiled, which is freaking easy as hell to clean up.
The damage is largely restricted to the economy not the environment. Hell the specks and shrimp probably are loving the lack of humans out there killing them with nets and fishing poles... they are getting a break.
Wow.
Posted on 6/18/10 at 11:54 am to Alahunter
quote:
wow
I exaggerate but only a little, to make a point. Economic damage is huge. Enviromental damage... not so much.
Think about this. areas of low oxygen were found and look what the media did with that. 10 miles by 3 miles!!!! Remember that one single plume that we all heard about. They reported hundreds are thousands of these.
Well that was an area of LOW oxygen that MIGHT possibly get to low to support life... maybe. It didn't reach the seas floor or the sea surface.
Now every freaking year we get an area that is anywhere from 6 to 12 thousand square miles in size that is so low in oxygen almost everything in it dies. It goes from the sea floor up but doesn't normally reach the surface. Occasionally it might reach shore and people gleefully run down into the surf to dip up crabs and fish that are trapped dieing in the surf.
This dead zone is of an order of magnitude bigger than the areas that MIGHT oneday drop below a level that supports sealife... maybe.
Hell for all they know that was the outer edges of the freaking dead zone.
But my point has nothing to do with the dreaded underwater plumes of one day potentially death and ALL about the fact that the media blows things way out of proportion. They are crying about a mugging when the murder goes unreported. Mountains out of mole hills.
Posted on 6/18/10 at 12:31 pm to omegaman66
quote:This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. We hold all sorts of stuff up in loose sediment and sand with piles all the time. Bridges, piers, platforms in shallower water. The friction on the OUTSIDE of the pipe (or pile) exerts tremendous horizontal force, which in turn allows the piling (or surface casing) to generate friction preventing sinking. Loose sediment is just like water, the deeper you go the harder it pushes. What does the think hold up platforms in shallow water?
The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself. The very large steel connectors of the initial well head "spud" stabbed in to the sea floor. The Bop literally sits on top of the pipe and never touches the sea bed, it wouldn't do anything in way of support if it did.
quote:First there is no appreciable current at 5,000 feet. Second... we hold entire platform jackets up on piles that are "samller than the machine itself". Dumbarse.
After several tens of feet the seabed does begin to support the well connection laterally (side to side) you couldn't put a 450 ton piece of machinery on top of a 100' tall pipe "in the air" and subject it to the side loads caused by the ocean currents and expect it not to bend over...unless that pipe was very much larger than the machine itself, which you all can see it is not
quote:When you read something like this... it's pretty obvious this just theatrical melodramatic pap. Not science.
It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo.
Posted on 6/18/10 at 12:56 pm to Taxing Authority
Editors and authors of these pieces should be subject to firing squad 
Posted on 6/18/10 at 2:21 pm to givemeabeer
quote:
Editors' note for first-time visitors: What follows is a comment from a The Oil Drum reader
I quit reading after this...not everyone on that site knows what the hell they are talking about
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