Mother Of All Gushers Could Kill Earth's Oceans

reply to post by LiteraryOneTwo


I've always wondered about that. Man has explored so much beyond Earth and yet most of the oceans aren't fully mapped. Let alone we continue to find new species of fish every year. We've ignored and neglected the ocean for so long. Now we have to pay for our ignorance.

Originally posted by DarkSecret

if we add up these costs it may come close to the price of solar panels and other so-called green energy devices. problem is... we still need oil to build them and ship them where they're needed. so in the long run unless we manage to get our hands on fusion reactors or even ZPEs, we're doomed as a civilization to go back to the horse and buggy...

Add in the defence costs and other costs of the oil economy all borne by society not the oil co's or the direct customers ie Iraq invasion US tax payer bears the cost oil co's sign the deals and reap the rewards. Afghanistan NATO tax payers bear the cost the owners of the trans Afghan Pakistan pipeline reap the rewards.

If these costs worldwide were added to the cost of oil along with the ecological costs suddenly wind, sun and tide become affordable, but then the politicos lose all their lobby dollars and we wouldn't want that cos we love'em so much.

Originally posted by Elzon

5000 barrels a day times 42 gallons = 210,000 gallons

Super old with the stats it's estimated to be 200 000 barrels a day, saw this last night on CBS, CNN and the BBC.

Another huge impact on the insurance industry, another cost not factored into the cost benefit analysis of oil over renewables, it's sorta like a rigged game as if maybe oil folk have had a 100 years to amass a fortune and now are so powerful they can rig society to suit themselves hmm...

Originally posted by warpcrafter
reply to post by unityemissions

 

So, in your esteemed opinion, just killing some of the oceans is okay? How much as you comfortable with? Why don't you tell that to all of the fishermen who are out of work? It's sickening how many people here are trying to make out that this is a total non-issue.

I completely agree with you. Some of the responses in this thread are beyond belief.

"Yea, so we're not killing ALL of the ocean... We're in the clear!!!".



Previous posters have hit it on the head when they say that the supposed "car bomb" in NYC did happen at a very opportune moment.

[edit on 3-5-2010 by Dookzor]

reply to post by randomname


Even 50mx50mx50m of concrete would get shoved aside very easily by 70000psi not to mention the seepage around the edges, then how would it get there we couldn't even pump enough wet concrete down that far and get it on the correct spot.

..I think some people are confused

someone point me to the '200,000 barrels a day'

All I see is, 5,000 barrels a day (200,000 "GALLONS")

So am I wrong? or am I right??

For all of our friends that do lack a Biblical education. This is not a fulfillment of a Biblical prophesy. What everyone is thinking comes from the Revelation of Jesus Christ to Saint John the Divine, 8:8. This is when the third of the creatures in the sea die.

Light Upthe Darkness

Originally posted by 12voltz
Anyone who uses oil is to blame for this .If you drive,consume ,buy,travel,eat,etc ,YOU are to blame .Go and live in a cave until the last drop is gone and then you can come out and start again.Not possible?What a mess we have created, not only this spill but the Whole friggen planet.

You're typing on a keyboard and using a mouse RIGHT NOW made of petroleum product, by a process fueled by petroleum products, and that's just scratching the surface of what petroleum products YOU are using.

Don't throw stones if your own house is made of glass

I find the figures quoted a bit hard to believe. A 6 foot hole with oil under pressure at 70,000 psi. If we do the maths, that means a hole with a cross-sectional area of around 4,000 square inches. At a pressure of 70,000 psi that means a total force or thrust of 285 million pounds.

Tp put that in perspective, the Saturn V rocket had a thrust of 7 million pounds. If the numbers are correct, the gusher is producing the thrust of 40 Saturn V boosters.

Also, if we were to block this gusher with a concrete block, we'd need a block of at least equivalent weight (to overcome thrust). That equates to a solid concrete cube of 130 feet (40 metres) on each side. That's a might big concrete block and will take quite a while to produce.

However, I think the numbers being reported are severely overestimated. The pressure might be 70,000 psi but the hole is probably a lot smaller, perhaps 6-12 inches.

reply to post by antonia


They?

You mean WE.

If the oceans die WE are all F'ed.

Unless you say THEY because you are in fact.....THEM
And caused this disaster.
You monsters!

I didn't get a chance to read the entire thread, so if someone already posted this idea as a possible solution, then I apologize in advance:

This may sound overly simplistic and may even be ignorant, but why can they just lower a huge flat mass over the hole?

I mean very big, like a football field size(at least) of solid steel or something like that, just use a bunch of huge boats to drag it out there, then get the lat/long from BP and lower it down, if big/wide/heavy enough i would think this would plug it up no?

They would probably have to drag the sunken rig over to the side first tho as I assume the rig is over the hole...

They drilled 30,000ft into the crust to tap this reserve. Somehow, I can't imagine sealing this thing by covering the ocean floor.

Even if that massive pressure is within 1,000ft of the seabed, surely it could still find it's way out.

Even if they seal it with a nuke, solving one environmental disaster with another won't sit well with the people.

The good news is, it's obvious the only way we can prevent this from happening again is to ban oil companies.

[edit on 3/5/10 by NuclearPaul]

I dont know if this has been stated (as I read only the first 3 pages and the last) but hey look on the bright side of the situation .

At least now if we will be having a hard time stopping this disaster we actually will find out if there is another intelligent species living in our oceans I mean , if there are super advanced ET living in the depths of our waters , then they will not sit quiet and let their habitat be destroyed

They drilled 30,000ft into the crust ? Is this real? Can they actually drill this deep?

That's almost 6 miles.

I'm also wondering what's going to fill this massive void.

Does anyone else wonder how the oil has been able to maintain such a high pressure for "millions and millions" of years, beings that rock is porous?

I hate oil, and i believe that oil will be the downfall of this planet. You can see it happening now, in many different ways. I think that when oil gets low, thats when we will start seeing conflics around the world, worse than the ones we are seeing now.

Originally posted by kingofmd
Does anyone else wonder how the oil has been able to maintain such a high pressure for "millions and millions" of years, beings that rock is porous?

I wonder . Do You have any good theories on that matter that You could share with the rest ?

Originally posted by spurge
They drilled 30,000ft into the crust ? Is this real? Can they actually drill this deep?

That's almost 6 miles.

I'm also wondering what's going to fill this massive void.

Maybe mother nature will take care of that too. I am wondering if fluid extraction is related to seismicity.

I believe there was a quake in the gulf a couple of years ago at a previously unknown fault.

Maybe someone with expertise in this subject will know if this pressure release will trigger other geological reactions???

reply to post by Thill


Abiotic replacement? We'll use oil until the oil owning oligarchs decide it's time to stop, that won't be soon cos they can only see the value of THEIR oil going up as it begins to get scarcer, filthy lucre in the literal sense.

Originally posted by unityemissions
reply to post by hawkiye

 

Woa there, buddy.

If it takes 1 quart of oil to turn 250,000 gallons of water into toxic uninhabitable waste, then it would take over 343 trillion gallons of oil to pollute the whole oceans.

There are 343,423,668,428,484,681,262 gallons of water in the oceans.

Source

4 quarts in a gallon. So a gallon of oil would produce 1,000,000 gallons of uninhabitable waste.

This means we just take off six zeros to figure how many gallons of oil it would take.

sextillion > quadrillion > trillion.

343 trillion gallons of oil would need to spill to make all the oceans toxic.

I think we're in the clear here.

Oil will only pollute the surface because its less dense , so you need much less. Count only in term of surface.