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[Earthquake Damage]

the wrath of Poseidon.

Get off my lawn!

[x2yzh9]

What if some dick just went and threw a match into the oil spill? Makes you think.

[Luke_Prowler]

A single match probably won't light it, as oil is not quite as flammable as gasoline.

I realized that someone might have already asked this but: don't we already have oil eating bacteria, and why aren't we using them?

[smjjames]

A single match probably won't light it, as oil is not quite as flammable as gasoline.

I realized that someone might have already asked this but: don't we already have oil eating bacteria, and why aren't we using them?

There are naturally ouccuring oil eating bacteria already in the waters, it just takes sime for them to get all of the oil.

[Jackrabbit]

I'm guessing it's going to be a long time.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

A single flame couldn't eat up all the oil. It would grow from its source untill it became big enough to starve itself by reacting with too much of the surrounding oxygen, cutting off its source of power. The Coast Guard has already set the spill on fire a few times. It isn't effective.

[Kogan Loloklam]

I think we already discussed the match before.
The bacteria could use a little more discussion, as could Poseidon doing more to ruin his ocean out of spite for the humans.

"If I can't have it, Nobody can!"

That's the REAL purpose of the oil, it's Poseidon's WMD to MAD. And you all thought it was just dinosaurs trying to be useful. Silly people!

[Nonsapient]

Are the relief wells actually going to stop the leak, or just reduce the pressure and make stopping the leak easier?

The relief wells are going to work like this:

1.  They'll pump a bunch of mud into the original wellbore, performing a more targeted topkill,  but without the dangers of bursting the damaged pipe on top.

2.  They'll fill the intersection of the two wellbores with concrete and allow that to dry.

3.  They'll mill out the concrete from the relief wellbore, thus making the only exit path possible be the relief well itself.

4.  They'll produce it just like a normal well.


The original wellbore is borked beyond belief.  After they use the relief wells, they might go back and cap the original, but that'll mostly be a PR stunt;  no more oil will come out of it anyway.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Are the relief wells actually going to stop the leak, or just reduce the pressure and make stopping the leak easier?

The relief wells are going to work like this:

1.  They'll pump a bunch of mud into the original wellbore, performing a more targeted topkill,  but without the dangers of bursting the damaged pipe on top.

2.  They'll fill the intersection of the two wellbores with concrete and allow that to dry.

3.  They'll mill out the concrete from the relief wellbore, thus making the only exit path possible be the relief well itself.

4.  They'll produce it just like a normal well.


The original wellbore is borked beyond belief.  After they use the relief wells, they might go back and cap the original, but that'll mostly be a PR stunt;  no more oil will come out of it anyway.

Yea, They will certainly cap it, and make a big deal about it too to "prove" they did something.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Would that be before or after the government absolves them of liablity?

[Kogan Loloklam]

Would that be before or after the government absolves them of liablity?

After. It'll be the absolvement, then the big internal investigation that ends with the official Tony Hayward resignation, then the capping of the dangerous well that has polluted the system so badly. I think the promises of change will occur after all that though, so that there will be less looking at the ineffectiveness of their planned changes.

[Nikov]

So I read somewhere that all of the oil spilled thus far could be used by the United States in only four minutes.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Now the estimate is down to four miniutes? That's not good news for the gulf, if the oil well is as rich as other estimates claim.

[palsch]

So I read somewhere that all of the oil spilled thus far could be used by the United States in only four minutes.

Hard to get a particularly accurate measurement of how much has spilled, given the messy nature of measuring amounts of oil in water and the lies told, but lets take a high end figure for how much has leaked. Being lazy and just taking the high end from wiki gives 307 million gallons of crude spilled.

Current US oil consumption is ~21 million barrels per day. 1 barrel is 42 gallons, giving a US consumption of 882 million gallons per day or 36.75 million gallons per hour. At that rate it would take less than eight and a half hours to consume as much oil as has leaked.

So not quite four minutes, but then there are lots of very low numbers floating around for the size of the leak (some old, some lies, some estimates based on lower flow rates). I almost used a figure from the 1st of June instead of July myself. The error bars on this calculation are pretty big.

[Nonsapient]

Now the estimate is down to four miniutes? That's not good news for the gulf, if the oil well is as rich as other estimates claim.

The U.S.A. passed peak oil a long time ago.  That's why we're looking at using tar sands (a net energy loss on the oil retrieved, if you don't include the energy used in producing our current transport infrastructure).

The oil supply is dying with a gradual whimper, not a big bang.

OPEC uses highly problematic ways to increase their current profits;  by improperly fracturing a well, or using water/CO2 injection wells, you can get a significant peak in oil production in the area.  the problem with this is that you're reducing the TOTAL amount of oil you can get out of the reservoir.

Assume a reservoir holds 100 barrels, and will produce at 1 barrel per day.  You can boost the amount produced per day to 4 or 5 barrels by fracturing and such.  However, in the end you'll only be able to get maybe 70 barrels out total.  The rest is absolutely untouchable.

The more that demand escalates and such irresponsible drilling practices are allowed,  the more of a catastrophic curve we are looking at in terms of oil supply.


There's no overarching theme in that post I guess, just a collection of items for thought.