OILPOCALYPSE!? (lets get real)

The fearmongering going on with this oil spill is reaching apocalyptic proportions, even reaching towards total global destruction. It seems every new prediction is trying to one-up the one before it. But how real is any of this?

For starters I'd like to say that I live off the west cost of Florida and this issue has been pretty important to me all along. I've been genuinely concerned, and disgusted. But now that I'm taking the time to take a closer look at the facts in all of this I'm getting more and more offended by those playing the victims.

Some of these predictions include:
* The oil slick wrapping down the coast right up the Atlantic side of Florida slicking over every beach in its path.
* A total disaster if the oil slick were to get lost out in the deep seas (I guess they want it all to stick to everything on the shoreline).
* The drilling going on such as with this disaster will trigger all of the worlds methane hydrates stored at the bottom of the oceans will release all at once, and then ignite, scorching the entire surface of the earth causing mass extinction.
* That a massive earthquake under the Gulf of Mexico will cause the entire seafloor to collapse (because humans are drilling it), causing total destruction.
* That a hurricane will hit the current leak location and react with the methane hydrate at the bottom, causing an oil slick tsunami 49 miles off the coast of Louisiana that will impact at the same time as the hurricane that will be intensified because of the oil covered Gulf.
* That the leak will continue on unabated forever, thus destroying all of the earths oceans.
* Fuel prices are going to skyrocket worldwide, which leads to many problems.

And many others. Every doom scenario is out there, and most of them are current discussions happening right now at ATS spread across a barrage of different threads.

Lets get down to earth...

First and foremost, the earth naturally seeps oil, methane, and all the rest associated into the worlds oceans, yet somehow we all manage to still eat seafood.

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2000) — Twice an Exxon Valdez spill worth of oil seeps into the Gulf of Mexico every year, according to a new study that will be presented January 27 at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

But the oil isn't destroying habitats or wiping out ocean life. The ooze is a natural phenomena that's been going on for many thousands of years, according to Roger Mitchell, Vice President of Program Development at the Earth Satellite Corporation (EarthSat) in Rockville Md. "The wildlife have adapted and evolved and have no problem dealing with the oil," he said. www.sciencedaily.com...

Oil spills / leaks are the least concern of scientists when it comes to oil and the environment.

oceanworld.tamu.edu...
Radarsat image of oil seeps near Green canyon in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil reaching the sea surface produces a slick that reflects little radio energy, seen as black lines in this image. Radarsat is a Canadian satellite that uses a synthetic-aperture radar to map radio waves reflected from the sea surface.

The major sources of petroleum in the sea, in order of importance, include:

1. Natural seeps from rocks below the sea floor. Oil seeps are common in many areas, including the Gulf of Mexico and offshore of Southern California, and in other areas where oil is found beneath the continental shelf.
2. Consumption, which includes runoff from land and oil from marine boating and jet skis in coastal waters. Most cars drip oil on streets and highways which is washed off by rains. The millions of cars in large coastal cities are important sources.
3. Transportation, which includes spills from tankers and pipelines as well as intentional discharge from ships at sea.
4. Extraction, which includes spills from offshore platforms and blowouts during efforts to explore for and produce oil and gas. An example is the IXTOC I oil well blowout in the Bay of Campeche, Mexico, June 1979 to March 1980, which released 476,000 tonnes of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil Spills

Oil spills from oil tankers operating at sea world-wide account for only 7.7% of oil in the ocean, yet large spills attract far more attention than other much larger sources of oil pollution. The International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Historical Data has information on all spills, large and small. They note that "The average number of large spills per year during the 1990s was about a third of that witnessed during the 1970s."

So basically we're adding to the natural order. Sounds a lot like "Global Warming" fearmongering.

Next we have the idea of this leak being unprecedented, which is false.

Ixtoc I: In 1979 a leak very similar to the Deepwater Horizon occured in the Gulf of Mexico, that went on for nine months, in the Bay of Campeche. While it wasn't as deep, it is still considered the worlds second most productive oil field.

How far the oil traveled was pretty remarkable, however the actual damage wasn't.

Spill conditions: It is estimated that more than 500,000 tons of crude oil was spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from blowout of the Ixtoc I well offshore in the Bay of Campeche. It occurred in early 1979, and several months later impacted the Texas shoreline, primarily along Padre Island. An early storm in September, reversed the currents and self-cleansed most of the shoreline, leaving only (relatively unusual) tarmats. LINK

But if that example isn't good enough, try the Persian Gulf War Oil Spill. It was histories largest oill spill, where almost 3 times the amount spillage of Ixtoc I occured, in a smaller more land locked body of water.


Now this part is very important:

According to a study sponsored by UNESCO, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, the spill did little long-term damage. About half the oil evaporated, a million barrels were recovered and 2 million to 3 million barrels washed ashore, mainly in Saudi Arabia.[2]
en.wikipedia.org...

The quantity of oil is obviously important. The Gulf War spilled about 10 million barrels, and the Ixtoc I released about 3.5 million. The third largest spill in history release 2.1 million barrels. That disaster is another important example, for those whom believe that oil sweeping out to sea is a bad thing:

On July 19, 1979, during a tropical rainstorm, the ship collided with the Aegean Captain, off Trinidad and Tobago, spilling 287,000 metric tonnes of oil consigned to Mobil. The damage incurred from the collision was never completely remedied, and while being towed on August 2, the Atlantic Empress continued to spill an additional 41 million gallons (all together being 276,000 tonnes of crude oil) off Barbados. The Aegean Captain also spilled a large quantity of oil from her No. 1 tank. The Atlantic Empress sank on 3 August in deep water and her remaining cargo solidified. The spill from the two ships fortunately never came ashore.

By comparison, the infamous Exxon Valdez spill ten years later only saw 37,000 metric tonnes of oil released. en.wikipedia.org...

Today we're being shown graphics of gulf currents carrying the oil away from land and we're supposed to be frightened:

Note that the current path is all deep-water until it get near Key West. That could be a problem, but how big of one? Should we bang our heads on our desks, or rest easy that historically and considering the location storms will clean most of it up?

Now the issue of the quantity of the new leak is the question.

Deepwater Horizon daily leakage estimates:
BP/NOAA/Coast Gard - 5,000 bpd
Professor Ian MacDonald at Florida State University - 25,000 bpd
SkyTruth - 26,500 bpd
Professor Steve Werely at Purdue University - 70,000 bpd

The pipe size of the Deepwater Horizon leak is 20". Somehow we're supposed to believe that 100,000 barrels per day are blasting out of that pipe. Anyone care to do that math for us?

[edit on 16-5-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Predictive disaster estimates of times past ought to be a gauge of how scared we ought to be. The following powerpoint presentation by author Dr. Michael Crichton details the history of vastly overblown doom mongering predictions:

Google Video Link

One choice example was the Chernobyl incident. Initial death toll estimates went as high as 16,000, but later the UN found that only 50 were killed. Long term death numbers were estimated in the millions, yet less than 5,000 died, and it's argued that many of them died from the psychological aspects of being told they were doomed.
The tiny one on the right was the actual dead.

Another thing people need to understand is that there are something on the order of over 4,000 oil platforms already out in the gulf.

Currently, the number of US structures in the Gulf is roughly 4,000, with 819 manned platforms. And those numbers are only expected to grow, says Caryl Fagot, a spokeswoman for the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS), which regulates the oil industry in federal waters.
www.csmonitor.com...

The following image mentions 8,237 "leases" in the U.S., with over 6,000 in the Gulf of Mexico:

en.wikipedia.org...

ATS member Doc Velocity in his thread pointed out that oily beaches are nothing new in Texas and Louisiana:

Originally posted by Doc Velocity
Waay back in the 1960s, I remember wandering along the beach at Galveston, collecting shells and shark teeth, and often stepping into globs of sticky tar, which would stain my skin brown for days afterwards. When we went swimming in the surf, we'd come back with brown globs on our skin and swim trunks — and that stuff did not wash out of fabric. www.abovetopsecret.com...

While he blamed it on all of the oil platforms out in the Gulf, my analysis points more towards natural seepage as already covered. His point was that this event isn't some extinction level catastrophe, pointing out that Obama hadn't even mobilized FEMA, because some tar flats is nothing new.

Earlier I witnessed an image of the oil platform map being used to argue that we're due for the "BIG ONE" earthquake, on the order of the Yellowstone Caldera, where basically the entire Gulf of Mexico will cave in on itself causing destruction never before seen:


Note the map covered by those placemarkers. But in reality if those placemarkers were their true size they wouldn't even be visible on the map.

*Oil well bore diameters fall between 5"-36".
*Surface area of the Gulf of Mexico is 615,000 mi² (1.6 million km²), with 642 trillion gallons of water pushing down on the seafloor. Water weighs 8.3 pounds, meaning 5.328 quadrillion lbs. of pressure pushing down, no?

Lets say there are 4,000 wells, at the maximum size of 36" bores. That's 144,000 inches, or a 12,000' hole (total). That is remarkable! However, that's a drop in the pond considering that 2 mile wide hole is spread out thinly over a large section from an area of 615,000 mi².

Then you have people citing doomongering predictions about all of the earth ocean simultaneously releasing their stored methane hydrate into the atmosphere and igniting, on par with earth being hit by a "big one" asteroid. This is actually a doomongering prediction related to "Global Warming", but today's oilpocalypse doomsayers are now proposing that a hurricane will hit the Deepwater Horizon leak site and cause the mile deep (and under the surface) methane hydrate causing a subfloor collapse releasing an oilslick tsunami that impacts Louisiana alongside the hurricane which is intensified from the Gulf scale oil slick. Apparently, you can make this stuff up.

One thing I can say from personal experience that many may not is, I've literally lived through these sorts of absurd ignorant predictions and seen the 'aftermath'.

This all reminds me of hurricane reporting, as I recall that insanity during 2004 when they projected literally FOUR hurricanes in one season that were all at one point projected for a direct hit in Tampa (and everywhere else in FL for that matter).
Observe this image of the projected path a hurricane:

Now GO SHOPPING!!!!

They propagated total madness when they'd point the projected path towards a part of the state. 'Crowds start running down the streets screaming and pulling out their hair.' Then the next day they move the path up a notch covering the next part of the state, and show the people at Home Depot and the grocery store lined up to the back of the store (literally), thereby showing you 'what you should be doing too'. Then the next day they move the path up another notch covering the next part of the state. Now the leftover unbought building materials and etc from the now surpassed former ground zero hurricane targets would be shipped up to the Lowes etc stores to the now open 24 hour locations in the new path, most of which was already shipped down from other stores out of state.

Then they'd move the path up a big notch again. In the end for the most part only the path directly hit by the eyewall ends up in total destruction. Take a look at an aerial of a hurricane for perspective here:

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hurricanes are no joke. But they're hyped to ridiculous extremes. For example, during Hurricane Charley (Category 4) my mother was down in Cape Coral, Florida, which neighbors Ft. Myers (literally), and rode out the storm (which 2 hours before landfall was supposed to Tampa direct). She had only one broken window in the aftermath. See the eyewall appear to be directly over Ft. Myers / Cape Coral:

In Tampa we had the power go out for a number of hours, and some random trees fell down, from the eyewall moving north past us maybe 40 miles to the east. I forgot to mention that its mainly where the eyewall itself makes landfall that really needs to evacuate.
Side note: we did have fun out in the rain and field trying to catch some wind with a tarp. If only we had a bigger tarp out there.

What I'm getting at here is that where the 'eyewall' of this oil slick hits will be tragic, and other areas will notice effects, but the madness being projected right now is by default overblown.

It's not good enough that the good people of Louisiana have a tough road for themselves. Instead, the fate of the entire earth has to come into question by the doomongering disinfo maniacs, and anyone who disagrees is to be painted as some sort of greedy corporate shills.

"Lose sleep, or else!"

[edit on 17-5-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Great presentation, there feller. Be sure to tip your media staff and give them some overtime for today's work. The arguments that are minimizing this disaster are really getting slick, I must say.
Good luck tomorrow, I hope you make lots of money shorting something or doing damage control. I'm convinced you'd short the mother of gawd to make a buck.

I haven't said that there wont be damage, and tragedy, but I detest extremist fearmongering disinfo in all forms, and I'm offended now that I had fallen for it for a couple weeks and felt overly-guilty and worried. I have deep interests in the health of the Florida coastlines.

If you're innocent then don't drive cars. My 2nd citation has oil dripping from cars as being worse for the environment than spills like this so-called apocalyptic Deepwater Horizon.

As I said, I'd be labeled a greedy corporatist for being a doomonger naysayer. Funny thing is odds are I'm far greener than most who will line up to make such statements.


[edit on 16-5-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

The only group qualified to explain the impact on ocean-life is the Jacques Cousteau Society/family...I'll wait for their explaination...not your mirage.



[edit on 17-5-2010 by Granite]

I don't mind all the predictions.I come here to read about things happening around the world and the comments are what its all about ,even if they are over the top or outlandish.I like reading about global disasters,end of the world scenarios and wars.Its just boring news if we cant scare each other.

Nice work OP,

while i do agree that some of theories out there are pure fearmongering, I do still think it's too early to tell what sort of environmental impact this could have.

I did some maths on another thread and came to the conclusion that at the current rate of oil being leaked, it would take 1000 days to equal the worlds biggest ever oil spill in the persian gulf.

However, thats not to say there could'nt be other implications. It has been proven that certain drilling techniques can lead to seismic activity. as I mentioned in LOAMS THREAD , the technique called "the water injection method' is very important as it keeps pressure down the well while the oil is being taken from the well.

In this situation in the gulf we have "RAPID" evacuation of lots of oil, therefore the pressure changes inside the well.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/46ed25b8ff22.gif[/atsimg]

Induced seismicity in oil and gas production has been observed ever since the 1930s, i.e., ever since large scale extraction of fluids occurred. The most famous early instance was in Wilmington, California, where the oil production triggered a series of damaging earthquakes

and I feel this is a very important quote below from the site -

In this instance the cause of the seismicity was traced to subsidence due to rapid extraction of oil without replacement of fluids. Once this was realized the oil extraction was balanced with water injection to mitigate the seismicity

esd.lbl.gov...&gas/

Details of Water Injection Methods



[edit on 16-5-2010 by grantbeed]

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


Seeping oil is a natural occurence but not at 250,000 gallons a day.

The sea and coral life will die enmasse.

Humanity is wrecking this once beautiful, lush planet.

All things together, over abundance oil in our oceans, toxic waste in our water and air, over population, urban sprawl, a island made up of plastic and other misc garbage bigger than the state of Texas floating around the Pacific, and on and on and on it goes.

Earth, in my opinion would be better off minus one species, homosapien.

We are an obnoxious, agressive and service to self species.

And like the way of the dinosaur, we will become extinct if we do not grow up and quickly.

[edit on 16-5-2010 by ofhumandescent]

reply to post by ofhumandescent


It's definitely a disaster for the immediate area. All of those oyster bars and all that off the LA peninsula. Being familiar with things like mangroves and oyster bars and related estuaries I can imagine what's at stake. I want all of that oil to get sucked out into the deep waters. People are freaking out about if a storm hits. Cap that thing off, and then pray for a storm. History shows that storms clean the mess up.

Recall 9/11, they had everyone thinking there would be 10-20 thousand dead, for weeks.

250,000 gallons a day is pushing it. Someone please show me the math! I want math, not emotional worst case scenario predictions. I've looked at several of these estimate articles, but never any math. That forced me to show examples of absurd estimates of times past. Categorically, most disaster estimates usually are grossly overstated, unless its something like the Valdez spill where they knew how much was in the tank and how much was lost.

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2000) — Twice an Exxon Valdez spill worth of oil seeps into the Gulf of Mexico every year, according to a new study that will be presented January 27 at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

But the oil isn't destroying habitats or wiping out ocean life. The ooze is a natural phenomena that's been going on for many thousands of years, according to Roger Mitchell, Vice President of Program Development at the Earth Satellite Corporation (EarthSat) in Rockville Md. "The wildlife have adapted and evolved and have no problem dealing with the oil," he said. www.sciencedaily.com...

Earth, in my opinion would be better off minus one species, homosapien.

I know that's what most emotional environmentalists believe, and why so many call for extermination of the species. It's too bad most of their data used to argue this agenda is deeply flawed and over-exaggerated.

The poster is forgetting the fact that this oil IS poison to the human and animal kingdom. WE have seen cancers exploding, children with autistic damage. This comes from our polluted ecosystem. This spill is apocalyptic to those people involved . remember the straw that broke the camels back!! this is another straw added, the last?? who knows. 1 out of a thousand children used to get autistic now in 25 years that has rissen to 1 in 100, at this rate we will have no healthy children born in another 20 years--do we not call this opocalyptic?? This one spill down deep could be the straw that broke the camels back. As far as apocaliptic mind sets, well thats because we do know we will drive our selves to extintion sooner or later, its just when?? So we look for it, we stay on top, AND we DO know its comming since we live appart from the natural world we came from.

Thank you for this presentation. This is pretty much exactly what I've been saying on another post, and getting bashed silly for. Nice to see I'm not insane or alone.

Every year 100 million US gallons of oil spill. This is equal to 100 school gymnasiums.
The biggest spill ever occurred during the 1991 Persian Gulf war when about 240 million gallons spilled from oil terminals and tankers off the coast of Saudi Arabia.
The second biggest spill occurred over a ten-month period (June 1979 - February 1980) when 140 million gallons spilled at the Ixtoc I well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico near Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico

The Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska was approximately 11 million gallons. That spill was only about the 35th largest in the world

It's got a long way to go before it is as big as many other spills. To match the biggest spill in history, it would have to keep spewing out 800,000 litres (240,000 gallons) per day for the next 1000 days.

www.absorbentsonline.com...

Even still, the damage will be huge and this baby is pumping oil out real fast too. And I still stand by the theory of Seismic danger due to pressure change beneath the ocean floor.





[edit on 16-5-2010 by grantbeed]

Originally posted by itsawild1
The poster is forgetting the fact that this oil IS poison to the human and animal kingdom. WE have seen cancers exploding, children with autistic damage. This comes from our polluted ecosystem. This spill is apocalyptic to those people involved .

The health problems we all face are severe. But can you show where oil in particular is the cause of autism and cancer?

reply to post by grantbeed


Seismic turbidity is oen thing, but people trying to articulate Caldera volcano scale disaster are way over the top.

[edit on 16-5-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Here's some good news:

DAUPHIN ISLAND, Ala., May 14 (Reuters) - The oil slick from the huge uncontrolled spill in the Gulf of Mexico has broken into smaller parts, and while potentially catastrophic, may pose less threat of a massive landfall, U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen said on Friday.

"The character of the slick has changed somewhat, it is disaggregated into smaller patches of oil," said Allen, who is leading the response to contain what could be the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

"It's not a monolithic spill, we're dealing with oil where it's at," Allen added.

Thin surface oil "sheen" and globs and balls of tar from the spill so far mostly have affected outlying parts of the Louisiana coastline. Tar balls also have washed ashore on Alabama's Dauphin Island.

LINK

[edit on 16-5-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


I realize you are saying that there will be lasting damage, but that it isn't the
end of days.

I agree with that, we will definitely "deal" with this eco-damage.

My question to you Op , and I think that of others is:

Just how much Damage would you deem to acceptable?

Half the Gulf destroyed? One tenth?

What do you consider acceptable loss?

reply to post by Sean48


How much oil would it take to "wipe out" any given percentage of the Gulf? I dont know, but I can tell you that the Gulf contains about 642 trillion gallons of water. That should give us a starting point.

[edit on 16-5-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


How much oil would it take to "wipe out" any given percentage of the Gulf? I dont know, but I can tell you that its about 642 trillion gallons. That should give us a starting point.

I have never seen any poster saying we are doomed , the End is Near.

But I have seen a lot of these threads saying there's No Problem , lets turn our attention elsewhere.

I tell you what.

Lets Plug that @$ pipe, Let's get some real numbers on how much Spewed.

Then you and your oil buddies can come and hold our hands.

reply to post by Sean48




Tell me, have you invested any time or energy into a biodiesel processor system to that you might get off of Big Oil's hindtit?

Surely you don't drive a car around?

reply to post by Sean48

Way to go, Sean. Don't let them get a decent night's sleep until they can really account for it.

reply to post by ChrisCrikey


You people are hilarious. If I'm not banging my head on the ground and cutting my wrists for being a human whom uses petro products that makes me some sort of oil tycoon who stands to profit from the oil disaster. Imagine if everyone who writes and enacts policy was this emotional and irrational. I suppose they are, actually, just on certain issues.

Would you guys actually like to debate my talking points? I'm always looking for a better understanding.

[edit on 16-5-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]