Oil Spill- at least it doesn't interefere with my holidays

[Jusoda Kid 1]

Scary this thread.

[ewerk 27300]

Don't see how they can unless they are drilling into the existing well sideways from a distance and redirecting the flow. It's like having a giant balloon with a hole in it, making two new holes isn't going to stop the air escaping from the original hole, sort of.

 

Pretty much what they're doing.

 

http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?catego...ntentId=7061734

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1816655120100618

[Rob W 0]

Still only the 3rd worst spill on record like.

 

Yes but I don't think they'll be able to stop it anytime soon, about 2 months till the relief platforms are in place. I have a bad feeling about this.

 

The relief wells won't stop it though, they'll just reduce the pressure, it'll still be leaking.

 

As I understand it, the relieft wells will stop the leak entirely by the end of August (if things go to plan).

 

Don't see how they can unless they are drilling into the existing well sideways from a distance and redirecting the flow. It's like having a giant balloon with a hole in it, making two new holes isn't going to stop the air escaping from the original hole, sort of.

 

 

Normally they will drill close to the other well - maybe 40-50 metres away - and then put some bloody great pumps to work and shatter the rock between the two well bores , hopefully collapsing the free flowing well

 

I think its fair to say that the new well will have the correct weight mud in it, a working blow out preventer and a decent cement job- all of which appear to have been missing on the blowout

 

trying to actually intersect the other well is a recipe for trouble IMHO - you have absolutely no idea what state the hole is in and what the pressures are

Edited July 13, 2010 by Rob W

[Happy Face 29]

Stopped apparently.

[Danny CL 0]

Top work by BP, despite what the yank media might tell you BP have go over and above the call of duty on this.

 

The only thing sadder than the death of marine life is the fact a lot of red necks will be getting rich off the back of an accident.....sums up the US doesnt it.

[Happy Face 29]

[Danny CL 0]

 

Whats up HF?

[The Fish 9382]

Perhaps that you fuck up every single thread you stumble into?

 

you're a nudnik

[Rob W 0]

Top work by BP, despite what the yank media might tell you BP have go over and above the call of duty on this.

 

The only thing sadder than the death of marine life is the fact a lot of red necks will be getting rich off the back of an accident.....sums up the US doesnt it.

 

 

If half what is circulating in the oil patch is correct BP deserve everything that is coming to them - they killed 11 guys, destroyed god knows how much marine life, wasted a million bbl of oil and $ 5 bn so far and put back the exploitation of offshore US oil by a couple of generations

[Park Life 71]

You can trace the negligence and bravado back to the Bush/Cheney deregulation of the industry. Not in power but their slimy trails still fuking us.

[Cid_MCDP 0]

Top work by BP, despite what the yank media might tell you BP have go over and above the call of duty on this.

 

The only thing sadder than the death of marine life is the fact a lot of red necks will be getting rich off the back of an accident.....sums up the US doesnt it.

 

 

Yeah, right. Just like all those rich Alaskans in 1989...

 

You gotta be joking.

[Rob W 0]

the saddest thing is that 11 guys were killed in the original accident

 

aall the birds in the Gulf States don't equal that

[Guest Gordon McKeag]

Has anyone read that thing, that states that top scientists are saying this leak could trigger the end of the world. There's always some bollocks spouted but, top scientists are saying we could be fucked. The Americans apparently have had a bit of a media black out on this having an exclusion zone, it's something to do with a methane bubble, which could explode, and spew shite out round the world. It happened about 70m years ago, and it could be too late. Might be shite like but I've read it in a few places.

[Park Life 71]

Has anyone read that thing, that states that top scientists are saying this leak could trigger the end of the world. There's always some bollocks spouted but, top scientists are saying we could be fucked. The Americans apparently have had a bit of a media black out on this having an exclusion zone, it's something to do with a methane bubble, which could explode, and spew shite out round the world. It happened about 70m years ago, and it could be too late. Might be shite like but I've read it in a few places.

 

We talked about it a few pages back in this thread fella.

 

A lot of the damage from this spill is worrying and will be on a much larger scale than they are all admitting to (apart from the eco/scientist crowd).

 

If the methane pocket goes off it's all over for that part of the Usa and maybe more.

 

This deep drilling lark is really such a gamble.

[Happy Face 29]

Has anyone read that thing, that states that top scientists are saying this leak could trigger the end of the world. There's always some bollocks spouted but, top scientists are saying we could be fucked. The Americans apparently have had a bit of a media black out on this having an exclusion zone, it's something to do with a methane bubble, which could explode, and spew shite out round the world. It happened about 70m years ago, and it could be too late. Might be shite like but I've read it in a few places.

 

Chez posted about it last week.

 

BP have US law enforcement at their disposal to exclude the public from public property so they can keep reporters from reporting on the worst damage that's been done.

 

Scary shit.

[Park Life 71]

Has anyone read that thing, that states that top scientists are saying this leak could trigger the end of the world. There's always some bollocks spouted but, top scientists are saying we could be fucked. The Americans apparently have had a bit of a media black out on this having an exclusion zone, it's something to do with a methane bubble, which could explode, and spew shite out round the world. It happened about 70m years ago, and it could be too late. Might be shite like but I've read it in a few places.

 

Chez posted about it last week.

BP have US law enforcement at their disposal to exclude the public from public property so they can keep reporters from reporting on the worst damage that's been done.

 

Scary shit.

 

I would have ages ago, but would have been acussed of being a nutter etc so didn't bother.

[Happy Face 29]

Has anyone read that thing, that states that top scientists are saying this leak could trigger the end of the world. There's always some bollocks spouted but, top scientists are saying we could be fucked. The Americans apparently have had a bit of a media black out on this having an exclusion zone, it's something to do with a methane bubble, which could explode, and spew shite out round the world. It happened about 70m years ago, and it could be too late. Might be shite like but I've read it in a few places.

 

Chez posted about it last week.

BP have US law enforcement at their disposal to exclude the public from public property so they can keep reporters from reporting on the worst damage that's been done.

 

Scary shit.

 

I would have ages ago, but would have been acussed of being a nutter etc so didn't bother.

 

Probably.

 

Unfortunately, your confidence in an alien presence and scepticism over global warming gives you a slight 'boy who cried wolf' persona round these parts.

 

I just did a straw poll at work and everyone (7 out of 7) had heard about the methane bubble so I don't think it's loony conspiracy on a par with the theft of our bodily fluids.

Edited July 19, 2010 by Happy Face

[Happy Face 29]

Apparently it is though....

 

In this article, called "Doomsday: How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a 'world-killing' event," a guy named Terrence Aym takes some information he got from a "Mega Disasters" TV special on undersea methane bubbles and mixes it with comments about how there are "giant rifts" beneath the sea and an "information blackout." He proposes that a "twenty mile methane bubble" dislodged by the BP oil disaster will erupt from the ocean floor, causing tidal waves and giant explosions. The sad part about all this is that news organizations and blogs took the story seriously.

 

While it's true that there are methane bubbles (and methane ice) beneath the ocean floor, they are not about to erupt from Gulf and destroy all life on Earth. This morning I spoke with two Earth scientists, Dave Valentine of UC Santa Barbara and Chris Reddy of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who study methane and oil seeps from the sea floor. Valentine has just been out to the Gulf to study the methane levels there, and told io9:

 

During our recent cruise to the Gulf we observed significantly elevated levels of methane at water depth greater than 2500 feet, in the vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon spill site. While the total quantity of methane and other hydrocarbons is enough to cause problems with the regional ecosystem, there is no plausible scenario by which this event alone will cause global-scale extinctions.

 

So yes, there is a methane seep. No, it will not cause tidal waves or explode.

 

Another fishy fact in the methane bubble doomsday story is Aym's description of how methane bubbles are what caused the End Permian mass extinction event 250 million years ago - a mass extinction that I wrote about recently, here. Many scientists do believe that atmospheric changes and ocean anoxia (de-oxygenization) were to blame for that extinction - but even Gregory Ryskin, the scientist whose highly speculative work is cited in the article, doesn't try to claim this as the sole cause, nor does he believe that one bubble of methane could bring down the biosphere instantly. The End Permian extinction took millennia to happen.

 

So the BP oil spill isn't going to end the world - it's just going to kill a lot of ocean life. And already-existing methane seeps may be doing slow, deadly damage to our climate. All this makes it even more obvious that we need to invest in alternate forms of energy. But who wants to hear difficult, complicated pieces of information, when we could just be screaming about doomsday?

 

http://io9.com/5585294/methane-bubble-doom...-story-debunked

Edited July 19, 2010 by Happy Face

[Park Life 71]

Has anyone read that thing, that states that top scientists are saying this leak could trigger the end of the world. There's always some bollocks spouted but, top scientists are saying we could be fucked. The Americans apparently have had a bit of a media black out on this having an exclusion zone, it's something to do with a methane bubble, which could explode, and spew shite out round the world. It happened about 70m years ago, and it could be too late. Might be shite like but I've read it in a few places.

 

Chez posted about it last week.

BP have US law enforcement at their disposal to exclude the public from public property so they can keep reporters from reporting on the worst damage that's been done.

 

Scary shit.

 

I would have ages ago, but would have been acussed of being a nutter etc so didn't bother.

 

Probably.

 

Unfortunately, your confidence in an alien presence and scepticism over global warming gives you a slight 'boy who cried wolf' persona round these parts.

 

I just did a straw poll at work and everyone (7 out of 7) had heard about the methane bubble so I don't think it's loony conspiracy on a par with the theft of our bodily fluids.

 

I'm just ahead of the curve fella.

[Guest Gordon McKeag]

Apparently it is though....

 

In this article, called "Doomsday: How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a 'world-killing' event," a guy named Terrence Aym takes some information he got from a "Mega Disasters" TV special on undersea methane bubbles and mixes it with comments about how there are "giant rifts" beneath the sea and an "information blackout." He proposes that a "twenty mile methane bubble" dislodged by the BP oil disaster will erupt from the ocean floor, causing tidal waves and giant explosions. The sad part about all this is that news organizations and blogs took the story seriously.

 

While it's true that there are methane bubbles (and methane ice) beneath the ocean floor, they are not about to erupt from Gulf and destroy all life on Earth. This morning I spoke with two Earth scientists, Dave Valentine of UC Santa Barbara and Chris Reddy of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who study methane and oil seeps from the sea floor. Valentine has just been out to the Gulf to study the methane levels there, and told io9:

 

During our recent cruise to the Gulf we observed significantly elevated levels of methane at water depth greater than 2500 feet, in the vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon spill site. While the total quantity of methane and other hydrocarbons is enough to cause problems with the regional ecosystem, there is no plausible scenario by which this event alone will cause global-scale extinctions.

 

So yes, there is a methane seep. No, it will not cause tidal waves or explode.

 

Another fishy fact in the methane bubble doomsday story is Aym's description of how methane bubbles are what caused the End Permian mass extinction event 250 million years ago - a mass extinction that I wrote about recently, here. Many scientists do believe that atmospheric changes and ocean anoxia (de-oxygenization) were to blame for that extinction - but even Gregory Ryskin, the scientist whose highly speculative work is cited in the article, doesn't try to claim this as the sole cause, nor does he believe that one bubble of methane could bring down the biosphere instantly. The End Permian extinction took millennia to happen.

 

So the BP oil spill isn't going to end the world - it's just going to kill a lot of ocean life. And already-existing methane seeps may be doing slow, deadly damage to our climate. All this makes it even more obvious that we need to invest in alternate forms of energy. But who wants to hear difficult, complicated pieces of information, when we could just be screaming about doomsday?

 

http://io9.com/5585294/methane-bubble-doom...-story-debunked

What a quality name, has to be related to Jamie Carragher.

[Guest alex]

Saw a programme once where methane bubbles were put forward as a theory for unexplained ship sinkings. This is due to the escaping gas reducing the mass of the water so the ship loses its bouyancy and sinks like a stone. Nice. There's 'pock marks' on the seabed in the North Sea apparently caused by methane bubbles escaping and there's a ship which sank right in the middle of where one of them is.

[Rob W 0]

somewhere there is some pictures of a rig off Burma in the ?early 80's?

 

they hit a shallow gas pocket and it converted the sea to foam for a few minutes - rig went down like a stone

 

the buried frozen methane doesn't seem to be a real problem

[Kevin 1]

[Toonpack 7243]

somewhere there is some pictures of a rig off Burma in the ?early 80's?

 

they hit a shallow gas pocket and it converted the sea to foam for a few minutes - rig went down like a stone

 

the buried frozen methane doesn't seem to be a real problem

 

It's a major risk to a rig is gas in the water, just enough escaped to blow up the Gulf rig, if ther'd been more she'd likely have sunk a'la the Burma example.

 

All sorts of stuff you never hear about goes on day after day. Like all the munitions washing around like pebbles on the seabed.

[Rob W 0]

On the BP rig it looks as if the gas came through the pipework all right - it was justthat they couldn't control it

#

 

 

The Burma incident was a full on breech of the sea floor I understand