Methane levels 40% instead of normal 5% in Gulf - Scientists are Worried

I thought my own arse was the worlds largest producer of methane. Guess I was wrong My GF may still disagree about that.

The internal BP memos calling this well a "Nightmare" months before the disaster were accurate. I think BP got caught gambling on this one. There is no way they could have gotten accurate surveys of the well formation. All they are able to detect at that depth would likely have been the top of the well. They had no idea what was under that area creating this high pressure monster.

Gas levels have always been a major concern. It just wasn't known exactly what and at what ratio it was being released.

The big problem with BP's containment cap is that those tankers fill up pretty fast and now the problem is where do you offload and store 100 000's of barrels of unprocessed oil. Oil storage along the Gulf is always at a premium on the best of times. Those tankers would need major cleaning to go back to regular service afterward.

reply to post by DEEZNUTZ

The big problem with BP's containment cap is that those tankers fill up pretty fast and now the problem is where do you offload and store 100 000's of barrels of unprocessed oil. Oil storage along the Gulf is always at a premium on the best of times. Those tankers would need major cleaning to go back to regular service afterward.

I think they are storing it right there - conserving it in water. BP has obviously leased GoM area, they have their goons on the beaches, to protect their property from day one.

Originally posted by Divinorumus
LOL, as a vegan, a wonderful thought came to mind. What if the amount of methane being release is such that, unless everyone stops breeding and eating cow flesh and blood, you're all doomed? If you care about any of this and saving the Earth, maybe ya'll should stop eating cow to offset this methane. Of course, don't eat any beans either, or you'll just end up canceling out that offset.

For crying out loud... You should seriously reconsider reading, re-reading, and researching something before you blurt out some incoherent rambling....

You do know that plants also use oxygen and CO2 to survive right?.... Where do you think cows, and other animals get the methane they release, and much of the CO2 they emit?... Not only from breathing, but also from eating plants...

A person who is a vegan will release THE SAME AMOUNT of CO2 and methane than a person who eats meat....

Also...in case you dind't know if you don't eat meat YOU NEED to eat beans and other veggies that give protein, otherwise you will get sick...

This tells me you really have no idea what you are doing, and the damage you are causing to your body...and yes you can cause damage to your body by not eating proteins, and or carbohydrates at all...

BTW, the Earth does not need saving... it can take care of itself better than you, and all vegans together could...




[edit on 19-6-2010 by ElectricUniverse]

EPA finds high concentrations of gases in the area

The escape of other poison gases associated with an underground methane bubble (such as hydrogen sulfide, benzene, and methylene chloride) have been found.

Last Thursday, the EPA measured hydrogen sulfide at 1,000 parts per billion — well above the normal 5 to 10 ppb. Some benzene levels were measured near the Gulf of Mexico in the range of 3,000 – 4,000 ppb — up from the normal 0-4 ppb.

source

these high concentrations of poisons directly associated with a gas bubble are something to look into more....it may back up the gas bubble claim made by Hoagland along with yesterday's info about the oil in the leak containing 40% methane instead of the normal 5%

Originally posted by cosmicpixie
EPA finds high concentrations of gases in the area

The escape of other poison gases associated with an underground methane bubble (such as hydrogen sulfide, benzene, and methylene chloride) have been found.

Last Thursday, the EPA measured hydrogen sulfide at 1,000 parts per billion — well above the normal 5 to 10 ppb. Some benzene levels were measured near the Gulf of Mexico in the range of 3,000 – 4,000 ppb — up from the normal 0-4 ppb.

source

these high concentrations of poisons directly associated with a gas bubble are something to look into more....it may back up the gas bubble claim made by Hoagland along with yesterday's info about the oil in the leak containing 40% methane instead of the normal 5%

Thanks for corroborating my report from 2 days ago [2nd post]

[edit on 6/19/2010 by SquirrelNutz]

reply to post by SquirrelNutz


It's all seemingly pointing in the same direction isn't it.

Now with the original blow out we know that a methane bubble was responsible. I am going to look into methane bubbles later when i've more time to find out how they behave - am wondering if smaller blow outs/bubbles rise and escape , like the one that blew the rig, as a precursor to a mother of all gas bubbles busrting forth ?


Interesting post from someone replying to my question about what's really down there too...high methane counts like these *may* link to the abiotic oil concept (and therefore the volcano theory I gather)


Roo Reindeer Victoria:
There are some pros and cons relating to the existence of "abiotic" oil here:

source

(From Roo, not me) While high methane does not prove abiotic origin, most theories of abiotic origin do predict high methane since in those theories methane is the precurser from which the oil is created at deep levels.... See More
That MAY be why the DWH well is blasting methane.

I put the word "abiotic" in quotes not because I am inclined to doubt the exiistence of deep oil on a planet wide scale but because some theories consider it to be primordial and of purely inorganic chemical origin. Others that the processes behind it are driven by deep rock dwelling microbes. If so it would still be "biotic" but not what is usually considered "fossil fuel".
Debates over the origin of such oil are, in my opinion, premature until it is actually verified to exist. Deep Water Horizon may end up doing that. Then the fights over where it cam from can begin in earnest.

[edit on 19/6/10 by cosmicpixie]

reply to post by wcitizen

YES.Let us pray and think positive.
Unicorns and magical rainbows will clean the mess up.

Originally posted by cosmicpixie
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

when you say a tsunami in all directions, do you mean all around the world or just around the area in question. I'm in the UK about 8 miles from the nearest beach but there are dozens of becahes 40 miles away from me

Just read this
www.helium.com...

Some quotes:

"How the ultimate BP Gulf disaster could kill millions

Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico—something far worse than the BP oil gusher.

Warnings were raised as long as a year before the Deepwater Horizon disaster that the area of seabed chosen by the BP geologists might be unstable, or worse, inherently dangerous.

What makes the location that Transocean chose potentially far riskier than other potential oil deposits located at other regions of the Gulf? It can be summed up with two words: methane gas.


According to worried geologists, the first signs that the methane may burst its way through the bottom of the ocean would be fissures or cracks appearing on the ocean floor near the damaged well head.


Death from the depths

With the emerging evidence of fissures, the quiet fear now is the methane bubble rupturing the seabed and exploding into the Gulf waters. If the bubble escapes, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will instantaneously sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists measuring the oil plumes' advance will instantly perish.

As horrible as that is, what would follow is an event so potentially horrific that it equals in its fury the Indonesian tsunami that killed more than 600,000, or the destruction of Pompeii by Mt. Vesuvius.

The ultimate Gulf disaster, however, would make even those historical horrors pale by comparison. If the huge methane bubble breaches the seabed, it will erupt with an explosive fury similar to that experienced during the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in the Pacific Northwest. A gas gusher will surge upwards through miles of ancient sedimentary rock—layer after layer—past the oil reservoir. It will explode upwards propelled by 50 tons psi, burst through the cracks and fissures of"

reply to post by james2009


the navy link to data from the blog is excellent, thankYOU!

NAVY oceanography

Well it's not uncommon knowledge that methane can cause the kind of problems Hoagland talked about...found this post from weeks ago on some forum :



Trapped in ice crystals and sandstone far beneath our oceans are vast amounts of methane gas. As long as the methane-ice stays frozen and as long as the methane clathrates are not disturbed there the gas will stay. From time to time, however, vast amounts of methane base under high compression escape to the surface as vast bubbles. Occasionally, methane gas escapes up from where the under sea oil is. This is what might have happened in the Gulf recently. It is thought that methane came up the bore hole into the drilling pipes and burst the seals. Escaping to the surface the methane exploded and killed eleven men on the drill right. The explosion also traveled down the bore hole causing the pipes which encased the drill shaft to burst thus releasing oil into the water.


Methane is the mostly quite but always dangerous "enemy below". If methane is released from the hydrates and clathrates in large quantities over vast areas we are in for pain. What we will have is oceans on fire. The explosion of the methane bubbles can cause tsunamis and we know what a tsunami can do.

The hazard has always been there. Long, long ago, this was a methane planet, before organisms evolved that could liberate oxygen to become our new new atmosphere. Now this ancient threat has come back to haunt us a bit. It will become necessary to evolve drilling technology that can release the methane in a controlled manner and lead it safely to a place where it can be either impounded or burned off safely.

source

[edit on 19/6/10 by cosmicpixie]

journalist and author David Degraw has read the Hoagland claim and thought it wild until he read the same article I posted in the OP. In response to the conclusions Hoagland made which he at first dismissed he says :

Given the new AP report revealing that “oil emanating from the seafloor contains about 40 percent methane,” I would think this is a serious and legitimate concern that urgently calls for much more investigation.

source

Don't know much about this guy , just posting as he's another person seeing the possible link



[edit on 19/6/10 by cosmicpixie]

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by Essan

 

The Gulf has a very large frozen methane and brine "lake." It is an odd sort of thing resembling another "ocean" beneath the ocean, complete with shorelines and waves and special critters that scurry from beneath the surface of the brine lake and onto the "shore" beneath the water.

Anyhow, the Gulf does have many frozen Methane deposits, but my concern is more with the dissolved Methane in the water itself. The methane coming from the leak is dissolved at the high pressures of the deep water. The water can hold a significant amount of dissolved methane, but as the water warms, the methane becomes less stable. There have been many reports around the world of volcanic lakes "exploding" when dissolved methane suddenly turns to gas and erupts from the lake. It can be triggered by heat or seismology or just saturation. If it occurs, it will create a tsunami in all directions as well as a deadly cloud of oxygen depleted atmosphere. All of that if the methane simply "expands" without "igniting." If it ignites, then the situation is infinitely worse!

Maybe not extinction level, but I am 15 miles from the coast, so my town could certainly be extincted.

I haven't read the rest of the thread yet, but there was a show on either History, or National Goegraphic, about a remote area village that was completely wiped out. Along with all of the villages livestock, and surrounding fauna. The event happened at night, but some of the surrounding farmers/ranchers that weren't killed said they heard an immense explosion, and thunderous rumbling for several minutes afterward. The conclusion the scientists came to was that a massive landslide on the steep side of a large lake had released a huge methane deposit that was settled at the bottom of this deep, volcanic crater, lake. The disturbance caused by the landslide activated the methane (kind of like if you drop a cold 2-liter bottle of Sprite, then pop the cap), which sent a gigantic plume of methane into the air. Since the methane is more dense than the surrounding air, the methane cloud flowed down the slopes of the extinct volcano, and silently crept into the village. Since it was late in the night, most villagers were sleeping, and were found dead in their beds. Some villagers had come out of their domiciles to investigate the noises, and they fell where they stood...killed by the cloud.

With the coming storm season in the Gulf whipping up those winds and storms...if I lived in the Gulf region, I'd be out as fast as I could pack.

NEVER trust what the media/BP/Gov are saying about this...they've been lying to us for the last two months...why would they stop now..?

Please read this article !

Methane burps disproved?

This was posted on a thread which you can find here :A post by Dewi winters


What it says as I have mentioned before is that methane burps in the past did not occur or there is no evidence it did.

So this means the methane from the leak is a big problem or our climate model is way of.
That is up to you.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse

Originally posted by Divinorumus
LOL, as a vegan, a wonderful thought came to mind. What if the amount of methane being release is such that, unless everyone stops breeding and eating cow flesh and blood, you're all doomed? If you care about any of this and saving the Earth, maybe ya'll should stop eating cow to offset this methane. Of course, don't eat any beans either, or you'll just end up canceling out that offset.

For crying out loud... You should seriously reconsider reading, re-reading, and researching something before you blurt out some incoherent rambling....
...
A person who is a vegan will release THE SAME AMOUNT of CO2 and methane than a person who eats meat....

Also...in case you dind't know if you don't eat meat YOU NEED to eat beans and other veggies that give protein, otherwise you will get sick...
...

[edit on 19-6-2010 by ElectricUniverse]

>> For every pound of meat it takes like 26 gallons of water to create it, vs. about a gallon with beans. Rice and Beans can give you about all the protein you need.

The point that Divinorumus is making is absolutely correct; Vegans carbon footprint is many times less than a person's who eats meat. Why? Because the fuel, plants and carbon expended creating each pound of meat is enormous. And when you eat a McDonald's hamburger -- it's likely coming from some place in Latin America where the destroy many acres of forest a day to raise cattle -- reducing the earth's ability to absorb Carbon.

There are very legitimate facts backing up this point if you care to look for them. I eat meat -- not a lot, but I feel a bit guilty because I realize that it is energy intensive. The tractor, the transport, the grain production -- raising a cow, takes a lot of Energy, food, and water, and that all requires gasoline, or coal or natural gas (for fertilizer), whereas beans are raised and picked and carted once and require far far less of all those raw materials to produce the same pound of protein.

Originally posted by TolanIsMaximus
I haven't read the rest of the thread yet, but there was a show on either History, or National Goegraphic, about a remote area village that was completely wiped out. Along with all of the villages livestock, and surrounding fauna. The event happened at night, but some of the surrounding farmers/ranchers that weren't killed said they heard an immense explosion, and thunderous rumbling for several minutes afterward. The conclusion the scientists came to was that a massive landslide on the steep side of a large lake had released a huge methane deposit that was settled at the bottom of this deep, volcanic crater, lake. The disturbance caused by the landslide activated the methane (kind of like if you drop a cold 2-liter bottle of Sprite, then pop the cap), which sent a gigantic plume of methane into the air. Since the methane is more dense than the surrounding air, the methane cloud flowed down the slopes of the extinct volcano, and silently crept into the village. Since it was late in the night, most villagers were sleeping, and were found dead in their beds. Some villagers had come out of their domiciles to investigate the noises, and they fell where they stood...killed by the cloud.

With the coming storm season in the Gulf whipping up those winds and storms...if I lived in the Gulf region, I'd be out as fast as I could pack.

NEVER trust what the media/BP/Gov are saying about this...they've been lying to us for the last two months...why would they stop now..?

The video is on the first page of this thread.

Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
Please read this article !

Methane burps disproved?

This was posted on a thread which you can find here :A post by Dewi winters


What it says as I have mentioned before is that methane burps in the past did not occur or there is no evidence it did.

So this means the methane from the leak is a big problem or our climate model is way of.
That is up to you.

The title is misleading. He's not saying that burps have not occured, but simply that they were not the reason for the end of the last ice age.

None of this means that marine methane hydrates don't occasionally erupt, however. Hinrichs has used fossil remnants of bacteria that flourish only under high methane concentrations to show that large quantities of the gas must have been released in the Santa Barbara Basin off California during an event some 44,000 years ago.

i don't suppose "mega explosion" to be so real: too deep well, gas dissolves in water with great pressure. another moment warm water will vapor entirely enough amount of gas to threat to seagoing vessels with fire & trouble breathing of crew. no doubt, enormous methane's concentration massacres Marine Life additionally with another horrible factors like crude & possible radioactivity's presence. situation seems to be far worse than Chernobyl. inland areas shall have to concern about oiled rains & increased CO/CO2.

reply to post by Iamonlyhuman


No, a suffocating, oxygen displacing gas cloud will certainly ruin your day!

Someone from the survivalist forum will probably have some good ideas how someone could go about preparing to survive something like this.

If i were only 15 miles away, I would certainly look into ways to have Oxygen on hand for emergencies at home.

A gas bottle and mask would be the ideal, enough to last a family a minimum of an hour.

A scuba setup, with spare tanks would probably last a fair while and be a cheaper option for some.

There are quite a few Youtube videos around showing how to make your own O2 from chemical reactions with H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide) and other chemicals. Probably a last resort thing, but better than nothing, especially if the cloud passes by in 10 minutes or so.

Another cheaper option would be to store your own compressed air somehow.

If space allows, a number of large tyre inner tubes, or wheel/tyres themselves fully inflated to a high PSI, will hold quite a lot of breathable air, hold down the valve pin when you want a breath. Not sure how long each inner tube would last the average person, but keeping calm and still and holding your breath between taking air breaths would make it last longer i'd imagine.

I'm looking into this for my family too, but i'm nowhere near the Gulf.

reply to post by spikey

oxygen bottles are pure bomb, & can't save life withing long time, moreover, stress makes breathing more frequent.

will this solve it?
www.youtube.com...