How about 350,000 barrels or more per day?

Let me begin by saying that I WANT to be wrong. So, someone, please thoroughly debunk this thread.

I've gone over this a few times and I can't believe my numbers. There must be some flaw in my approach... A wrong assumption... Wrong data... Wrong math....

Let me explain:

On May 23rd, it was reported the surface oil slick covered an area greater than the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. ( Link. )

This source reported a day later, a similar comparison where it stated the oil slick was "as big as the state of Connecticut."

You can now view an overlay of the surface slick over any location within the US. Simply go to www.ifitwasmyhome.com... . Look how big it has grown.

Then the day before yesterday, this article appeared:

Scientist Awed by Size, Density of Undersea Oil Plume in Gulf

Vast underwater concentrations of oil sprawling for miles in the Gulf of Mexico from the damaged, crude-belching BP PLC well are unprecedented in "human history" and threaten to wreak havoc on marine life, a team of scientists said today, a finding confirmed for the first time by federal officials.

Researchers aboard the F.G. Walton Smith vessel briefed reporters on a two-week cruise in which they traced an underwater oil plum 15 miles wide, 3 miles long and about 600 feet thick. The plume's core is 1,100 to 1,300 meters below the surface, they said.

"It's an infusion of oil and gas unlike anything else that has ever been seen anywhere, certainly in human history," said Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia, the expedition leader.

OK, so what's my point?

We've all seen the images...thick brown or black oil in heavy concentrations hitting the beaches of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida...miles and miles away from the source... The scale of it all is astonishing... and let's not forget the miles of what we don't see under water...

Reflecting upon this, I think I've stumbled upon a realization that I have not seen anywhere else. If I'm not wrong, then what I'm about to show you explains much concerning BP and the Obama administration's actions (or perceived inaction) during this terrible crisis.

I am coming to the conclusion they aren't worried about the cleanup, because the source of the problem is SO IMMENSE, the cleanup is the least of their immediate concerns.

Let's do the numbers:

• One barrel of oil = 42 gallons. ( Source. )
  
• One square mile = 27,878,400 square feet. ( Source. )
  
• One gallon of paint (read oil) is estimated to cover 350 sq ft. ( Source. )
  
• The size of Connecticut = 5,544 square miles ( Source. )
  
• Roughly 30 days produced a surface slick the size of Connecticut. ( Source. )
  
  

If one gallon of paint covers 350 sq. ft., then it would take roughly 79,652 gallons to cover one square mile. (27,878,400 divided by 350)



To cover the size of the state of Connecticut, you would need 441,590,688 gallons of oil. (79,652 times 5,544)

Converting that number into barrels, you would need 10,514,064 barrels of oil to cover the state of Connecticut. (441,590,688 divided by 42)

If that amount was true 30 days into the crisis, then we are talking about an average daily flow rate of 350,469 barrels per day!

Now, do I think that is the actual number? I'm not really sure for now.... But even when using 50 days as the number, you still get a daily flow rate that is more than 210,000 barrels of oil a day!!!!



I have seen numerous images of the oil. It's only my opinion, but if you account for the obvious widespread thickness of the surface slick and consider the vast underwater amounts discussed by various scientific sources, it seems more than reasonable to base such calculations on the "paint" coverage analogy.

When you do this, you start to see the REAL problem...

Can this be right?

I hope not, because if it is, cleanup is indeed the least of our worries.

God help us.

[edit on 11-6-2010 by loam]

I sure hope you're wrong but I feel fairly confident that the numbers being reported are significantly understated.

Interesting side of things. I have been watching this for awhile. I called my cousin who is a marine biologist for the state of CA. He did say he knows people going down to the gulf and would keep me informed. He also stated the MSNBC thing about oil leaking through the seabed is crap. It happens everywhere in the ocean where oil is present. Now, he did say he didn't know for sure if the reports of the other leaks were accurate. What he DID say startled me.

He said they studied the Exxon Valdez spill and he can't figure out why none of the people working on this one seem to know anything about it. They actually cordoned off an area of beach as a control and another they "cleaned" with dispersants and other methods. He said after the results came through they discovered that letting mother nature do her job was the best method. The "clean" beaches were actually more contaminated than the ones they left alone.

Interesting side of things. I have been watching this for awhile. I called my cousin who is a marine biologist for the state of CA. He did say he knows people going down to the gulf and would keep me informed. He also stated the MSNBC thing about oil leaking through the seabed is crap. It happens everywhere in the ocean where oil is present. Now, he did say he didn't know for sure if the reports of the other leaks were accurate. What he DID say startled me.

He said they studied the Exxon Valdez spill and he can't figure out why none of the people working on this one seem to know anything about it. They actually cordoned off an area of beach as a control and another they "cleaned" with dispersants and other methods. He said after the results came through they discovered that letting mother nature do her job was the best method. The "clean" beaches were actually more contaminated than the ones they left alone.

From day one the number of "barrels per day" has consistently done nothing but gone up every time it's mentioned.

We've gone from maybe 1000 barrels per day at the start, to what is it now "officially," 40,000 daily?

Usually disasters get better over time, and a lot of people are under the impression that we're somehow making headway because it's been almost two months, even though the "official" numbers put us around at least 40 times worse-off than we were on day one....

I can't really even begin to comprehend the crap that's going to stem from this.





[edit on 11-6-2010 by alaskan]

I found this and I have posted on other topics,

When the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick, which is larger than is being reported by the media, it was reportedly denied the access. By chance, National Geographic managed to obtain satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site. Other satellite imagery reportedly being withheld by the Obama administration, shows that what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to Madsen’s sources.

www.marketoracle.co.uk...

A cursory look at a map of the Gulf Stream shows that the oil is not just going to cover the beaches in the Gulf, it will spread to the Atlantic coasts up through North Carolina then on to the North Sea and Iceland. And beyond the damage to the beaches, sea life and water supplies, the Gulf stream has a very distinct chemistry, composition (marine organisms), density, temperature. What happens if the oil and the dispersants and all the toxic compounds they create actually change the nature of the Gulf Stream? No one can rule out potential changes including changes in the path of the Gulf Stream, and even small changes could have huge impacts. Europe, including England, is not an icy wasteland due to the warming from the Gulf Stream.

Yet there is a deafening silence from the very environmental organizations which ought to be at the barricades demanding that BP, the US Government and others act decisively.

That deafening silence of leading green or ecology organizations such as Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club and others may well be tied to a money trail that leads right back to the oil industry, notably to BP. Leading environmental organizations have gotten significant financial payoffs in recent years from BP in order that the oil company could remake itself with an “environment-friendly face,” as in “beyond petroleum” the company’s new branding.

The Nature Conservancy, described as “the world’s most powerful environmental group,” has awarded BP a seat on its International Leadership Council after the oil company gave the organization more than $10 million in recent years.

Until recently, the Conservancy and other environmental groups worked with BP in a coalition that lobbied Congress on climate-change issues. An employee of BP Exploration serves as an unpaid Conservancy trustee in Alaska. In addition, according to a recent report published by the Washington Post, Conservation International, another environmental group, has accepted $2 million in donations from BP and worked with the company on a number of projects, including one examining oil-extraction methods. From 2000 to 2006, John Browne, then BP's chief executive, sat on the CI board.

Further, The Environmental Defense Fund, another influential ecologist organization, joined with BP, Shell and other major corporations to form a Partnership for Climate Action, to promote ‘market-based mechanisms’ (sic) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental non-profit groups that have accepted donations from or joined in projects with BP include Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and Audubon. That could explain why the political outcry to date for decisive action in the Gulf has been so muted.

Other satellite imagery reportedly being withheld by the Obama administration, shows that what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to Madsen’s sources

Is this new information?

reply to post by Stormdancer777


That article and this thread go hand in hand.

The Obama Administration and senior BP officials are frantically working not to stop the world’s worst oil disaster, but to hide the true extent of the actual ecological catastrophe. Senior researchers tell us that the BP drilling hit one of the oil migration channels and that the leakage could continue for years unless decisive steps are undertaken, something that seems far from the present strategy.

...

According to the Washington report of Madsen, BP statements that one of the leaks has been contained, are “pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration., according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources.”

The White House has been resisting releasing any “damaging information” about the oil disaster. Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers experts estimate that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico.

Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a “national security issue.” Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano’s actual reasoning for invoking national security, according to Madsen, was merely to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.

If even half of any of this is true, I feel sick to my stomach.

Let's take your number of 350,469 barrels per day.
We know from the news that the pipe is 19 inches in inside diameter.
How fast would it be flowing to escape at the 350K barrel rate?
Well, 350,469 barrels/day is 4.056 barrels per second.
That's 170.37 gallons per second.
There are 231 cubic inches per gallon.
That is a flow rate of 39,355.47 cu in per second.
There are 283.53 cu in in the first inch of pipe exit space for a 19 in diam pipe.
One cubic inch of surface of the exit pipe would have to move at 138.8 inches per sec,
or 11.567 ft/sec. That's 694 ft/min or 41641 ft/hr, which is 7.89 miles/hr.

I suggest to you that it is moving at least 15 to 30 ft/sec out of that pipe based
on the videos. If I am right, you can double or triple your dump number.

Looks like to me that there has been over a million barrels lost into the gulf PER DAY.

I guess we come a looooong way from 5000bpd when I first hear that i was startled because all you have to do is look at production wells in area 25-30,000 and know it was a lie because it's a runaway.....so you say wtf JBL why not more SIMPLE exploration well with different well diameter. NOW though well casing is becoming eroded so sorta like playing darts on prediction?!

i IMAGINE THAT MY 50,000 bpd will be doubled soon so i dunno!


BALLS

reply to post by Stormdancer777


in my opinion that statement almost deserves its own thread. If that is the case it is an absolute disaster.

reply to post by loam

In their permit application BP estimated a worst case scenario of
250,000(Anderson Cooper show) barrels a day.

theweek.com...
What's BP saying?
In its original filing with the Interior Department, BP said it could handle a worst-case spill scenario of up to 162,000 barrels a day.

reply to post by Jim Scott

Originally posted by Jim Scott
Let's take your number of 350,469 barrels per day.
We know from the news that the pipe is 19 inches in inside diameter.
How fast would it be flowing to escape at the 350K barrel rate?
Well, 350,469 barrels/day is 4.056 barrels per second.
That's 170.37 gallons per second.
There are 231 cubic inches per gallon.
That is a flow rate of 39,355.47 cu in per second.
There are 283.53 cu in in the first inch of pipe exit space for a 19 in diam pipe.
One cubic inch of surface of the exit pipe would have to move at 138.8 inches per sec,
or 11.567 ft/sec. That's 694 ft/min or 41641 ft/hr, which is 7.89 miles/hr.

I suggest to you that it is moving at least 15 to 30 ft/sec out of that pipe based
on the videos. If I am right, you can double or triple your dump number.

Looks like to me that there has been over a million barrels lost into the gulf PER DAY.

And I was terrified of my conclusions.

We have to be wrong. I don't want to believe it.

Yikes, talk about a worst-case scenario...



I just hope and pray that the situation is not as bad as it's being depicted in this video. The main guy being interviewed claims that "they [BP] will not be able to stop it for at least another year". What???

What about the two relief wells that BP - or the MSM on behalf of BP - are indicating should be ready in a couple of months (give or take [fill in the gap])?

Originally posted by RRokkyy
reply to post by loam

 

In their permit application BP estimated a worst case scenario of
250,000(Anderson Cooper show) barrels a day.

theweek.com...
What's BP saying?
In its original filing with the Interior Department, BP said it could handle a worst-case spill scenario of up to 162,000 barrels a day.

MMS people also need prison

NOW HOLY SMOKE did BP have superman as employee? BP cannot even collect 15,000bpd and have to burn off the rest because of inadequate containment. Even with new ship arriving from North Sea they still would never collect even 1/2 of that (btw ship will probably sink in triangle) anyway people who write this crap and MMS people who approve need to be in jail> You throw people in jail for traffic tickets so why not this....


hmmmmm

Originally posted by loam
reply to post by Stormdancer777

 

That article and this thread go hand in hand.

The Obama Administration and senior BP officials are frantically working not to stop the world’s worst oil disaster, but to hide the true extent of the actual ecological catastrophe. Senior researchers tell us that the BP drilling hit one of the oil migration channels and that the leakage could continue for years unless decisive steps are undertaken, something that seems far from the present strategy.

...

IMO, IF TRUE, then the relief wells won't work and the NUKE OPTION will be all that is left.

Perhaps Matt Simmons knows that the relief wells won't work and knows that the only chance we have to stop the blowout(s) is with nuke(s).

I've got a gut feeling that the longer they wait, the worse the situation may get. Why? Because if the migration channels are blowing out under the sea floor, the blowout could be fragmenting like broken glass and creating more and more seafloor blowout spots everyday. At some point, even multiple nukes may not be able to stop this type of sub-seafloor disaster.

Originally posted by Jim Scott
Let's take your number of 350,469 barrels per day.
We know from the news that the pipe is 19 inches in inside diameter.
How fast would it be flowing to escape at the 350K barrel rate?
Well, 350,469 barrels/day is 4.056 barrels per second.
That's 170.37 gallons per second.
There are 231 cubic inches per gallon.
That is a flow rate of 39,355.47 cu in per second.
There are 283.53 cu in in the first inch of pipe exit space for a 19 in diam pipe.
One cubic inch of surface of the exit pipe would have to move at 138.8 inches per sec,
or 11.567 ft/sec. That's 694 ft/min or 41641 ft/hr, which is 7.89 miles/hr.

I suggest to you that it is moving at least 15 to 30 ft/sec out of that pipe based
on the videos. If I am right, you can double or triple your dump number.

Looks like to me that there has been over a million barrels lost into the gulf PER DAY.

***DOOMSDAY WARNING:

It's very possible that we are in-fact dealing with a month over month exponential increase in blow-out volume, both from the pipes and from the seafloor.

If true, then whether we are NOW dealing with 50,000 or 1 million barrels per day is a mute-point. Why? Because as time marches on, we will hit 2 mil/day, then 4 mil/day, then 10 mil per day, then 25 mil/day, then 120 mil/day, then 500 million barrels per day... till the field and/or migration channel is dry. The whole process could five years or five months. But the end result will be the same. THE GULF OF MEXICO, MUCH OF THE U.S. EASTERN SEA-BOARD, AND PARTS OF MANY OTHER NATIONS; WILL BE A DEAD ZONE.

MILLIONS of people will become refugees, and much sea food will be destroyed for decades or longer.

BUT, The worst-case scenario is the collapse of the world-wide plankton that create around 80% of the Earth's O2. And, the ELE of many marine species that leads to a collapse of the food chain.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

FOR THE SKEPTICS, who claim that the blow-out could never reach 500 million barrels per day. Yes it can, by blowing past the casing all the way from the migration channel/field to the seafloor.









[edit on 11-6-2010 by Gold_Bug]

Yes but only 100,000,000 million barrels in Macondo reserve so if this happens it will be a one release event maybe better just to have that happen so whole country EVERYONE can swarm gulf KILL BP and begin real clean-up!

Originally posted by jeffrybinladen
Yes but only 100,000,000 million barrels in Macondo reserve so if this happens it will be a one release event maybe better just to have that happen so whole country EVERYONE can swarm gulf KILL BP and begin real clean-up!

I'M NO EXPERT, but if BP hit a migration channel then they tapped into multiple underground seas of oil. Only GOD knows how much oil can be released by this "global" catastrophe.

if that's the true number then without a doubt the seafloor will buckle at some point.
THAT'S when the SHTF. Not that the fan isn't brown enough already.

something positive needs to happen and soon.

b

reply to post by jeffrybinladen


Where do you get your numers from? There are an estimated 50 to a 100 million barrels in the Macondo Prospect. If the flow reaches 1 million a day we only have to wait two-three months before the well is dry. I think the calculations put forward by Goldbug therefore are wrong, thank god. The disaster is bad enough as it is.

en.wikipedia.org...

Edited to add that I think Gold Bugs calculations are wrong.

Loam, I am confident that what you are saying is very close to the truth.

[edit on 11/6/10 by Lebowski achiever]