Al Jazeera - 21/05/10
US accuses BP of oil spill cover-up
US politicians and scientists have accused the UK oil company, BP, of trying to conceal the extent of what many believe is already the worst oil spill to hit the US.
BP had been estimating that the leak from the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico was flowing at a rate of 5,000 barrels a day, until that number was questioned by scientists and the US government.
Many scientists dismissed the estimate, saying it could be as high as 70,000 barrels (11 million litres) per day or more.
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Deepwater Horizon
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Aurora
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ziggy12345
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Aurora
The Guardian - 25/05/10
The White House directed BP to cut its use of chemical dispersants to break up the Louisiana oil slick by as much as 50% yesterday, reflecting concerns that the clean-up of the spill could be worsening the economic disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the Obama administration wanted the oil company to scale back its use of chemicals on the water surface. The order came amid increasing tension between the administration and the oil company about how to manage the oil on the ocean floor, more than a month after the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
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emordnilap
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ziggy12345
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70,000 per day is based on the casing diameter of 17" and flowing from the resevoir to the wellhead without pressure loss. The flow is coming up between the 13 3/8" cassing and the 17" casing though a failed nitrofied cement job. It then goes through the half closed rams and along 500 metres of buckles and bent 5" drill pipe.RalphW wrote:Please explain.ziggy12345 wrote:.... Many scientists dont know how to use a pocket calculator if they think the leak is 70,000 bopd...
With a resevoir pressure of around 13,000 psi and knowing the permiability of the resevoir I would expext the flow to be no more than 5,000 bopd, If that.
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biffvernon
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Kevin Costner's clean-up operation:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 133821.ece
Giant “vacuum cleaners” built by Kevin Costner, star of Waterworld and other ecologically-minded movies, are to be tested by BP in the Gulf of Mexico this week. The drum-shaped machines, which suck up 200,000 gallons of oil and water a day and seperate it by centrifugal force, have been designed by Costner’s partners in Louisiana-based Ocean Therapy Solutions (OTS).
This weekend six machines are being assembled on barges moored off Louisiana. They could cast off as soon as dawn tomorrow. Costner has also teamed up with John Houghtaling, a New Orleans trial lawyer and chief executive of OTS, to finance a documentary about the disaster to keep BP “honest” in the clean-up operation. “Kevin warned oil companies seven years ago they needed technology like ours, but they said another Exxon Valdez scale disaster could not happen again. This devastation is potentially far worse, and Kevin wants to make sure the oil companies do not slacken off their efforts after the media leaves,” said Houghtaling. “This documentary will hold oil companies such as BP to account, and hopefully aid those who are now pressing for more safeguards built onto rigs and tankers.”
Last week Costner, 55, who has been helping his wife Christine prepare for the imminent birth of their third child, took a few hours off “prenatal duty” to visit Louisiana and persuade BP executives that his machines were worth testing. He admitted he was angry that such technology had not been deployed on oil rigs long before the disaster.
“Oil companies have not been fully prepared for such ecological disasters: oil-separating machines, which do not use harmful chemicals to break up the oil, should be mandatory on all rigs,” he said. He told The Sunday Times how childhood memories of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, when a rig leaked 100,000 barrels of oil on the Californian coast killing thousands of birds, influenced him when shooting the 1995 science fiction movie Waterworld, in which the earth was flooded after global warming.
“That is one reason why Dennis Hopper and the bad guys lived on the wreck of the Exxon Valdez,” he said, referring to the tanker that spilt 11m gallons of oil on the Alaskan coastline in 1989. In 1993 he channelled some of his profits from the film The Bodyguard, with Whitney Houston, into a new company dedicated to more advanced ways of dealing with spills than booms, chemicals and casting bales of straw on the surface of the water.
After searching through public library archives, Costner found the solution in a device originally designed to remove radioactive materials from metals in the nuclear industry. The actor licensed the technology and then worked with technicians to build an eight-foot high machine dubbed a ‘Kevin’. He tested the washing machine-like drum on polluted rivers in South America, where it produced 99% clean water.
He wanted to sell the technology to the US Navy and cruise lines so they could clean water from ship bilges before discharging it into the sea, but in the end, disheartened by lack of interest from the oil industry, he sold the company to John Houghtaling. They continued to work together on a range of machines, the largest of which is now called the V20. There are other similar devices around, whose inventors claim they too are ignored by the oil business, but Costner’s star power has proved irresistible.
Last week Ocean Therapy Solutions (OTS) flew engineers from the University of California, Los Angeles, to Venice, Louisiana, to help prepare up to thirty “vacuum cleaners” for the Gulf. They are borrowing some older models back from other owners. Houghtaling said OTS was also leasing $40,000 pollution monitoring devices from a company funded by Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder, to ensure that BP cannot “roll back” on potentially-pricey promises to clean up the Gulf.
“We shall test the V20s this week and see if they can contribute,” said a BP spokesman last week. “We are always open to fresh ideas to protect the environment, which is our first priority.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 133821.ece
Giant “vacuum cleaners” built by Kevin Costner, star of Waterworld and other ecologically-minded movies, are to be tested by BP in the Gulf of Mexico this week. The drum-shaped machines, which suck up 200,000 gallons of oil and water a day and seperate it by centrifugal force, have been designed by Costner’s partners in Louisiana-based Ocean Therapy Solutions (OTS).
This weekend six machines are being assembled on barges moored off Louisiana. They could cast off as soon as dawn tomorrow. Costner has also teamed up with John Houghtaling, a New Orleans trial lawyer and chief executive of OTS, to finance a documentary about the disaster to keep BP “honest” in the clean-up operation. “Kevin warned oil companies seven years ago they needed technology like ours, but they said another Exxon Valdez scale disaster could not happen again. This devastation is potentially far worse, and Kevin wants to make sure the oil companies do not slacken off their efforts after the media leaves,” said Houghtaling. “This documentary will hold oil companies such as BP to account, and hopefully aid those who are now pressing for more safeguards built onto rigs and tankers.”
Last week Costner, 55, who has been helping his wife Christine prepare for the imminent birth of their third child, took a few hours off “prenatal duty” to visit Louisiana and persuade BP executives that his machines were worth testing. He admitted he was angry that such technology had not been deployed on oil rigs long before the disaster.
“Oil companies have not been fully prepared for such ecological disasters: oil-separating machines, which do not use harmful chemicals to break up the oil, should be mandatory on all rigs,” he said. He told The Sunday Times how childhood memories of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, when a rig leaked 100,000 barrels of oil on the Californian coast killing thousands of birds, influenced him when shooting the 1995 science fiction movie Waterworld, in which the earth was flooded after global warming.
“That is one reason why Dennis Hopper and the bad guys lived on the wreck of the Exxon Valdez,” he said, referring to the tanker that spilt 11m gallons of oil on the Alaskan coastline in 1989. In 1993 he channelled some of his profits from the film The Bodyguard, with Whitney Houston, into a new company dedicated to more advanced ways of dealing with spills than booms, chemicals and casting bales of straw on the surface of the water.
After searching through public library archives, Costner found the solution in a device originally designed to remove radioactive materials from metals in the nuclear industry. The actor licensed the technology and then worked with technicians to build an eight-foot high machine dubbed a ‘Kevin’. He tested the washing machine-like drum on polluted rivers in South America, where it produced 99% clean water.
He wanted to sell the technology to the US Navy and cruise lines so they could clean water from ship bilges before discharging it into the sea, but in the end, disheartened by lack of interest from the oil industry, he sold the company to John Houghtaling. They continued to work together on a range of machines, the largest of which is now called the V20. There are other similar devices around, whose inventors claim they too are ignored by the oil business, but Costner’s star power has proved irresistible.
Last week Ocean Therapy Solutions (OTS) flew engineers from the University of California, Los Angeles, to Venice, Louisiana, to help prepare up to thirty “vacuum cleaners” for the Gulf. They are borrowing some older models back from other owners. Houghtaling said OTS was also leasing $40,000 pollution monitoring devices from a company funded by Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder, to ensure that BP cannot “roll back” on potentially-pricey promises to clean up the Gulf.
“We shall test the V20s this week and see if they can contribute,” said a BP spokesman last week. “We are always open to fresh ideas to protect the environment, which is our first priority.”
Interesting stuff but sadly 200k gallons\day won't even scratch the surface of a slick now stretching over tens of thousands of square miles.Mark wrote:Kevin Costner's clean-up operation:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 133821.ece
Giant “vacuum cleaners” built by Kevin Costner, star of Waterworld and other ecologically-minded movies, are to be tested by BP in the Gulf of Mexico this week. The drum-shaped machines, which suck up 200,000 gallons of oil and water a day and seperate it by centrifugal force, have been designed by Costner’s partners in Louisiana-based Ocean Therapy Solutions (OTS).
I guess they could use them to help protect particularly vulnerable areas but the big damage has already been done now, the only healer will be time.
The most complete exposition of a social myth comes when the myth itself is waning (Robert M MacIver 1947)
'Top kill' method 'stops BP oil leak' in Gulf of Mexico
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/us_and ... 174861.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/us_and ... 174861.stm
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Aurora
Also:The Guardian - 27/05/10
The lesson to learn from the oil spill it is that there must be no new offshore drilling. We must transform our energy system.
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The Guardian - 27/05/10
The Gulf disaster is only unusual for being so near the US. Elsewhere, Big Oil rarely cleans up its mess.
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