May 02 2010
From Youtube user golefttv – April 30, 2010:
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is becoming worse by the day, with over 200,000 gallons of crude a day. Environmental Attorney Mike Papantonio appears on MSNBC’s The Ed Show to discuss the disaster and the legal ramifications of it.
Mike Papantonio is an American attorney and radio talk show host. A prominent trial lawyer, he co-hosts Ring of Fire Radio, a nationally-syndicated weekly radio program, with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Apr 30 2010
The wind forecast for today in the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans, Louisiana, is from the southeast.
http://forecast.weather.gov/Ma…
Map of April 30 2010 Friday forecast of the BP Oil spill trajectory, in tan. Other days shown in other colors. Black asterisk at lower tip of light blue shows location of broken Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico. Image courtesy of NOAA
Apr 29 2010
God said a fire, not a flood next time.
A “Controlled” Burn of giant oil slick in Gulf of Mexico begins by our Coast Guard, to attempt to prevent landfall of the unprocessed crude oil gushing out of the destroyed BP Deepwater Horizon rig’s wellhead for a week. In spite of having four remotely operated submarines working nearly a mile underwater, trying to jigger the automatic shut off valves, the well continues to blow out at least 42,000 gallons of crude a day.
“They lit it with a little float that has a fuel source on it that floats into the oil and ignites,” Petty Officer Cory Mendenhall told AFP. “It did successfully ignite.”
The first burn was lit at around 4.45pm local time (7.45am AEST) and officials said any fires would have to be extinguished by nightfall. Sunset is at 7.27pm local time.
Apr 25 2010
In oceania, no one can hear you seep.
The U.S. Coast Guard “discovered” 4 days after an explosion destroyed and sank the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig 40 miles off the coast of Venice, Louisiana, killing 11 crew workers, that indeed, oil does appear to be leaking out of the well head on the floor of the ocean.
From HuffPo this morning:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
“We thought what we were dealing with as of yesterday was a surface residual (oil) from the mobile offshore drilling unit,” (Rear Admiral Mary) Landry said. “In addition to that is oil emanating from the well. It is a big change from yesterday … This is a very serious spill, absolutely.”Coast Guard and company officials estimate that as much as 1,000 barrels – or 42,000 gallons – of oil is leaking each day after studying information from remotely operated vehicles (underwater) and the size of the oil slick surrounding the blast site. The rainbow-colored sheen of oil stretched 20 miles by 20 miles on Saturday – about 25 times larger than it appeared to be a day earlier, Landry said.
BP PLC, which leased the rig and is taking the lead in the cleanup, and the government have been using the remotely operated vehicles to try to stop the leak by closing valves on the well deep underwater. If that doesn’t work, the company could drill what’s called an intervention well to control the oil flow. But the intervention drilling could take months.
The article says that the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker wreck in Alaska was 11 million gallons. By dividing 11 million by 42,000 gallons, assuming the government is not lowballing this estimated amount, which seems like a nice, suspiciously round number, “1000 barrels,” I’m coming up with 261 days before this is as big as the Exxon Valdez spill. The regional director for the Federal government’s Mineral Management Services (the wonderful folk who let the companies bid on offshore drilling tracts) says that leaks have been repaired at this depth before, but it is difficult. Bad weather is currently delaying the cleanup of already spilt oil.