Forbidden Donut

I'm sure eating seafood will probably be a lot more expensive for a while too.

Fuckers.

You'll be able to save money on tanning beds every time you take a swim.

All joking aside, what's everybody think about the effects this is going to have on us?

Of course, fishing in LA is going to be lackluster, to say the least. And elsewhere along the Gulf Stream, which blows.
But at the rate this thing is growing, I wouldn't be surprised to see beach closings as far north as southern Delaware. Just in time for summer. Meanwhile, there will probably be some general shipping troubles. Transoceanic will surely be taking it easy for a while since they need to do investigations and triple check everything they're doing for safety. A second incident of any sort could potentially ruin them. Other shipping may be interrupted or delayed by the presence of an oil slick of unknown size in the middle of the Atlantic.

So while Europe gets raped by Icelandic Volcanos, we get raped by black gold.

wooo.

mother nature strikes back, followed by return of the jewfish

that is what will happen

The latest news is top U.S. scientists have suggested blocking the pipe with BP executives.

we're fucked

BP's latest attempts to stymie the flow and the continuation of a federal moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling.

Some news.

If the top kill fails, BP says it has several backup plans, including sealing the well's blowout preventer with a smaller cap, which would contain the oil. An earlier attempt to cap the blowout preventer failed. BP could also try a "junk shot" — shooting golf balls and other debris into the blowout preventer to clog it up — during the top kill process.

Last week, the company inserted a mile-long tube to siphon some of the oil into a tanker. The tube sucked up 924,000 gallons of oil, but engineers had to dismantle it during the top kill.

A permanent solution would be to drill a second well to stop the leak, but that was expected to take a couple months.

I'm pretty friggin confused as to why they waited to try this out until now. And I'm more confused about why they aren't preparing to drill the second well RIGHT NOW. Or at least why they haven't said they are doing so.

I understand that the President has the authority to stop drilling in federal waters, but is this moratorium also going to affect the territorial waters of each state? Anyway, there are still companies from like 7 different countries drilling in the Gulf and maybe we should ask them to do us a favor and stop while we are stopping.

I meant to get to this yester-week but had a lot of shit going on.

We could (and IMO should) ask that other countries cut it out for a bit while we mitigate the worst man made ecological disaster in a decade. It would be swell.

I don't believe we have the authority to demand it. I know we normally don't, so I'm assuming that even in the face of the oil spill we don't get any special powers.

It was my understanding that states are subject to the moratorium. I figured this is why AK was up in arms last week.

Do you have any more background on the sources for these questions? I haven't seen or heard them discussed anywhere and its kind of interesting.

Frankly, BP straight up lied about their ability to deal with this problem. They lied from the very beginning about what the worst case was and how much they were able to handle.

If you had access to all the gasoline that would normally have been made out of this oil (45.4% of each spilled gallon of crude) and you started driving 16 hours a day back and forth from LA to NY, you would be finished in July 2010.

If you started in 1891.

For the record that would be exactly 6 years after the first patent for a gas powered automobile was filed.

/I'm using the average mpg rating of 20, a 365.25 day long year and the estimated spill volume of 4,200,000 gallons.

Edit: FWIW I'm not at all pleased with the way this is being handled. We needed to take the kid gloves off when dealing with BP as soon as the incident occurred. W/E

I'm much more upset with the little war starting in Korea and the little failed drug kingpin extradition in Jamaica that has led to likely hundreds dead and no captured kingpin.

I'm kind of annoyed that this oil spill is dominating the news when so much is happening right now, but it's hard to sell 70 something dead Jamaicans and an extremely confusing narrative. People like to hear easy to digest things like OIL BAD! Obama's Katrina! BP EVIL! Which doesn't do anything except drive public opinion in certain directions.

Annoying press is annoying.

I guess I don't have sources, I just heard Michael Savage say it.

And why is the price of oil/gas going down? It is summer peak-oil season, there are tensions in the Middle East, and there is a large oil spill that has BP reeling.

Because rising oil prices would make people pissed off at the oil companies, which the don't want or need right now with the oil spill. At least that's my theory. Of course I've been drinking at the pool all day so I may just be rambling.

How much do you think this will effect us in the near / distant future as far as the necessity for oil goes? Obviously the planet cannot produce oil forever, and with this disaster, how many years are we cutting ourselves down by? Is any of this going to be salvaged once "cleaned up" in the waters?

I don't think in the end a few months of lost oil from one drill site would have that big of an affect to say that we would lose a years worth of oil. Its a lot of oil...terrible oil...being spewed into the gulf, but its not like this is the only place they get it from.

True, what made me question it was the extreme amount of oil lost, and what an example would be the statistic just mentioned by Andrew.

A few things about this:

Peak-oil is when supply is the highest, not demand; therefore prices are lower. Oil is seasonal, prices are highest going into the winter.

As horrifying as the oil spill is, the worst estimate is 80,000 barrels a day is being dumped into the ocean. The mode estimate is 5,000 barrels a day. To put that into perspective, the US alone consumes something around 20 million barrels a day. And that's 26% of total consumption. So this oil spill is just a blip in terms of supply. It's the environmental effect that has people reeling, not the lack of oil.

With the Euro getting hammered, the dollar has rallied. In it's most basic of terms, there is an inverse relationship between the value of the dollar and the price of oil.

On top of all of this, with everything going on with the European Union (slow growth), people are expecting China (the biggest reason why oil had climbed recently) to slow exports and capacity even further. This is the primary reason why oil has dropped in price, as people are afraid that China's demand for oil will continue to fall. I wouldn't be surprised if oil price mirrored China's economic growth over the next two years.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that this was so much oil that it was going to fuck with supply. Just that there is a FUCK ton of oil in the gulf right now.

Remember, it is enough oil for 1 car to drive at 55 mph for 120 years. Or 120 cars to drive at 55 mph for 1 year. Or 196 million cars to drive at 55 mph for 2.8051948 seconds.

It's not a lot of oil in terms of use. It's definitely a lot of oil in terms of being in the gulf.

I hear they are trying to use a giant condom to stop the leak.

Firstly I have been drinking, but I thought about this before the beer so here goes. I read a statement from a BP exec that said (and I paraphrase because I am too lazy/buzzed to look up the link) "relatively speaking the oil leak in relation to the amount of water in the Gulf is small"

I am not fond of Big Oil (there is a list and it grows longer) , but unfortunately I must agree on this point. The Ocean in toto contains something like 1.3 billion CUBIC KILOMETERS of water. The tiny gulf only contains roughly 660 quadrillion gallons (wikipedia). Too buzzed to comprehend quadrillions at the moment but I am thinking quadrillions = bunches.

Ok. before I lose the thought here goes.

Relatively speaking this oil spill is like a drop in a bucket (or less). The Amazing thing is that such a (relatively) small amount of material can have such a profound effect. Please forgive me, I am not trying to belittle anyone or anything like that. I understand the how and why such a "small" amount of oil can have such an effect, but it still boggles the mind.

(thank god/buddha/allah/etc... for spell check and the venerable backspace key)

discuss.

(p.s. gots ideas on how to seal the leak / reduce flow but no way in hell am I going to try and draw anything in this condition)

As I was typing this I wondered if Meaton had a spell check and backspace key and just totally ignored it? If I had this post would be totally incomprehensible. DAMN try to type incomprehensible with a period after it. It takes like 5 tries.

Oil floats. How big is the surface area of the Gulf?

1.5 million square kilometers, apparently.

At the best estimated rate, there are 4.2 million gallons of oil spilling into the gulf each day. Since April 20th. Let's be conservative and call that 40 days. 4.2 * 40 = 168

A gallon of oil is 3,785.41178 cubic centimeters. And 168 of them is 635949.179, and a million of that is 635949179000.

There are currently 635,949,179,000 cubic centimeters of oil in the gulf. Spread 1 millimeter thick, that's 635,949,179,000,000 square millimeters of gulf surface potentially covered in oil. How much of the gulf is that?

A square kilometer is 1,000,000,000,000 square millimeters. 6,359.49179 square kilometers of oil to 1,500,000 square kilometers of water.

Basically, this is the single greatest ecological disaster to occur in that body of water since it was hit by a giant fucking meteor about 65 million years ago. If it's higher estimates are accurate it's the 3rd largest oil spill in the history of ever. Second only to the lakeview gusher of 1909 to 1911 and the whole 1991 oil field thing... Which doesn't exactly count because that shit was intentional.

It's truly mindblowing.

Here's the fishing impact.

Now thats what I am talking about. Good ol' Benjamin Franklin noticed that on a pond less than a teaspoon full of oil covered an area of over HALF AN ACRE! This was about 2 nanometers thick. More oil and you get a thicker layer. I am not sure if we are fortunate or unfortunate that the nature of the oil (specific gravity and impurities), and the nature of the ocean seem to prevent a rapid and even spread of the oil. My guess is that we are fortunate that it does clump up.

Now the question is. Is it feasible to breed naturally occurring oil eating bacteria (Alcanivorax borkumensis as an example) in industrial amouns and dump them on the spill? An if so what would be the ecological impact of changing the natural bacterial content in the gulf? Probably less damage than a "chemical" fix. Of course the chemical companies would disagree I am sure. Just look into the industrial use of Cannabis. I don't really smoke the stuff but ignoring the uses of it should be the real crime. Might have to start a new topic on this subject.

Personally I think they should call Kevin Costner.

You are not thinking big enough. Aquaman. He can telepathically call in a few giant squid and some whales. Problem solved.

It's funny because Kevin Costner may actually be able to help. He's been working on some craziness since Exxon Valdez. I'll see if I can find that again.

Lol, first I had heard of that. Yes he is. Of course putting his name behind it didn't hurt his getting permission to test.

Unit can process up to 200 gallons a minute. Not bad but try these guys on for size.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W8_GpMz9nI

Up to 5000 gallons. Not bad. If Kevins does a better job of cleaning they should combine forces and use the high volume separator to handle the bulk filter and then use Kevin and brothers to do the final "wash".

Ok, that one is far better.

Well done.