Last week we discussed the Deepwater Horizon blowout and the resultant huge oil spill, and will continue the discussion tonight. By the way, the title of this piece represents the official NOAA estimate of the release. Some estimates are as much as five to ten times this amount, but the NOAA estimate one is the official one, so we will use it.
It really makes little difference, because even the official estimate is huge. Since this happened on 20100420, with the rig sinking and presumably destroying the riser on 20100422, at the official rate for the 18 days now 3.7 million gallons have been released.