As you may know BP has been working hard to cap this "leak" of theirs. I say it with an apostrophe because the verb "leak" doesn't seem very accurate when writing about something that's spewing out fluid at a rate sufficient to fill well over 100 big swimming pools a day.
It's being reported now that BP, for the first time in three months, has made it so that oil is not flowing out into the Gulf. Oh yes, let me have this optimistic feeling for a moment and the realization that I now have something I could quote in another 8 hours when this cap eventually breaks. But otherwise, let's just break out the bottles of crystal and party, yo.
Besides that, this isn't really much of a fix. The oil isn't actually stopped, they're just controlling the flow of it like a water hose and blocking off the end. What happens when you do that but don't stop the pressure build up? Usually your pipes explode, so don't be surprised if other leaks appear, specifically ones that aren't in front of the under water camera. .
This pretty much means that everyone could stop caring about this even more and flip the news channel when any of the minor stories about this ever show up, which considering the small amount of coverage this was getting lately, means we'll stop seeing all reports altogether.
I guess it could be pinned on burnout. We've totally failed at actually stopping the damn thing, the best we can hope for is a gradual tapering off when the relief well is done, there's no news except "things continue to suck and we can't do anything about it." I guess that's not something as entertaining to hear like how long Lindsey Lohan is going to spend in the poky.
But perhaps this piece of news should be a little alarming to you, if you by chance enjoy fishing or ever hope to be able to see life in the Gulf coast again.
Biologists find 'dead zones' around BP oil spill in Gulf
Methane at 100,000 times normal levels have been creating oxygen-depleted areas devoid of life near BP's Deepwater Horizon spill, according to two independent scientists
Scientists are confronting growing evidence that BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is creating oxygen-depleted "dead zones" where fish and other marine life cannot survive.
In two separate research voyages, independent scientists have detected what were described as "astonishingly high" levels of methane, or natural gas, bubbling from the well site, setting off a chain of reactions that suck the oxygen out of the water. In some cases, methane concentrations are 100,000 times normal levels.
Other scientists as well as sport fishermen are reporting unusual movements of fish, shrimp, crab and other marine life, including increased shark sightings closer to the Alabama coast.
Larry Crowder, a marine biologist at Duke University, said there were already signs that fish were being driven from their habitat.
"The animals are already voting with their fins to get away from where the oil spill is and where potentially there is oxygen depletion," he said. "When you begin to see animals changing their distribution that is telling you about the quality of water further offshore. Basically, the fish are moving closer to shore to try to get to better water."
Such sightings – and an accumulation of data from the site of the ruptured well and from the ocean depths miles away – have deepened concerns that the enormity of the environmental disaster in the Gulf has yet to be fully understood. It could also jeopardise the Gulf's billion-dollar fishing and shrimping industry.
In a conference call with reporters, Samantha Joye, a scientist at the University of Georgia who has been studying the effects of the spill at depth, said the ruptured well was producing up to 50% as much methane and other gases as oil.
The finding presents a new challenge to scientists who so far have been focused on studying the effects on the Gulf of crude oil, and the 5.7m litres of chemical dispersants used to break up the slick.
Joye said her preliminary findings suggested the high volume of methane coming out of the well could upset the ocean food chain. Such high concentrations, it is feared, would trigger the growth of microbes, which break up the methane, but also gobble up oxygen needed by marine life to survive, driving out other living things.
Joye said the methane was settling in a 200-metre layer of the water column, between depths of 1,000 to 1,300 metres in concentrations that were already threatening oxygen levels.
"That water can go completely anoxic [extremely low oxygen] and that is a pretty serious situation for any oxygen-requiring organism. We haven't seen zero-oxygen water but there is certainly enough gas in the water to draw oxygen down to zero," she said.
"It could wreak havoc with those communities that require oxygen," Joye said, wiping out plankton and other organisms at the bottom of the food chain.
A Texas A&M University oceanographer issued a similar warning last week on his return from a 10-day research voyage in the Gulf. John Kessler recorded "astonishingly high" methane levels in surface and deep water within a five-mile radius of the ruptured well. His team also recorded 30% depletion of oxygen in some locations.
Even without the gusher, the Gulf was afflicted by 6,000 to 7,000 square miles of dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi river, caused by run-off from animal waste and farm fertiliser.
The run-off sets off a chain reaction. Algae bloom and quickly die, and are eaten up by microbes that also consume oxygen needed by marine life.
But the huge quantities of methane, or natural gas, being released from the well in addition to crude presents an entirely new danger to marine life and to the Gulf's lucrative fishing and shrimping industry.
"Things are changing, and what impacts there are on the food web are not going to be clear until we go out and measure that," said Joye.
So far the only positive out of all this is that it's socially acceptable to hate the English out in the open once again. Fucking people all sound like they have a mouth full of marbles.
I'm sure you're wondering if an oxygen depleted area affects the buoyancy of boats at all. I'm sure your rich uncle with a speed boat and you gotta make sure you're still able to go out for that ocean ride. I picture in my head this comical image of boats suddenly sinking for no discernible reason.
Sadly the answer is no. There would need to be lots of little bubbles bubbling up to the surface to sink a boat because that would reduce the density of the water and floating is all about difference in density. So, let's just say if I was Aquaman, I would probably run around the oceans ordering sea creatures to blow bubbles and sink cruise liners.
So the lesson here is.. um.. don't go boating in the Gulf as it's pretty clear that there's a lot of gas coming out of those cracks that will sink your boat.. maybe..
Now this next piece of potential doom and gloom is a long shot. But I've given up hope that we'll see Hurricanes covered in oil get lit by lightning causing a oilcane fiery death to all that it gets near. The closest thing I could hope for is the Corexit acid rain, more on that in a bit. But first let's talk about one potential death that is a long shot, but what a way to go out.
You know how I mentioned that methane gas under the crude that could be released if the sucker fails under pressure and cracks more? Well, that's the next doomsday situation for us...
Ominous reports are leaking past the BP Gulf salvage operation news blackout that the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico may be about to reach biblical proportions.You see that there? This sort of world ending event already happened! Global extinction about 250 million years ago! Don't you see that there's puzzlingly high levels of methane in the oil that's flowing out? Welp, I guess we should all wrap it up.
251 million years ago a mammoth undersea methane bubble caused massive explosions, poisoned the atmosphere and destroyed more than 96 percent of all life on Earth. Experts agree that what is known as the Permian extinction event was the greatest mass extinction event in the history of the world.
Now, worried scientists are increasingly concerned the same series of catastrophic events that led to worldwide death back then may be happening again-and no known technology can stop it.
The bottom line: BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling operation may have triggered an irreversible, cascading geological Apocalypse that will culminate with the first mass extinction of life on Earth in many millions of years.
...
If the methane bubble—a bubble that could be as big as 20 miles wide—erupts with titanic force from the seabed into the Gulf, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will immediately sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists participating in the salvage operation will die instantly.
Next, the ocean bottom will collapse, instantaneously displacing up to a trillion cubic feet of water or more and creating a towering supersonic tsunami annihilating everything along the coast and well inland. Like a thermonuclear blast, a high pressure atmospheric wave could precede the tidal wave flattening everything in its path before the water arrives.
...
At least this wont be a job killer. Looks like the recession is over! This is a choice quote to end that article;
Perhaps if humanity is very, very lucky, some may find a way to avoid the mass extinction that follows and carry on the human race.If we're very lucky, humanity will die. I was pretty certain that my species would destroy themselves thanks to their idiocy when it comes to energy, but now that I get to watch it happen, it's so much more exciting.
I'm taking bets now. Odds to follow that the relief well will:
1:4 finish the fracture of the seafloor; methane apocalypse. direct result of further bp cost-cutting during relief well construction.
1:2 finish fracture of the seafloor; methane apocalypse. unavoidable at this point.
1:1 fail, opening a second spill site, eliminating hope of successful top-kill.
2:1 fail, well continues to spill as usual, second relief well continues as planned.
5:1 fail, slow flow rate by <25%>These are good and fair odds. If you are taking me up on my wager, currencies accepted are: Arable land, firearms, ammunition, seed, fuel, bottled water, non-perishable food and preferred shares of BP stock.
When it comes down to it, this nutcases' theory has been debunked various times over and unfortunately I don't think Deppwater Horizon will be directly responsible for the end of humanity. Besides, we can't let Reagan off the hook that easy yet.
It should be noted that the writer of this article, Terrence Aym, also wrote an article about how North Koreans attacked the BP oil well.
But in the event of methane-death, you should know the general time line. It's an important question. You should know if there would be some sort of massive eruption or explosion that we'd experience right away, even from a great distance or if it would be like a leaking methane slowly killing us.
From my understanding, people within its range would immediately fall asleep and die. I guess in theory, people at the very edge would just pass out and wake up later not knowing what the fuck happened. Perhaps there would be a atmospheric shock wave and anyone hit by that would be obliterated by getting enough methane in their lungs to kill them.
To some degree and in smaller scale, this has happened in Africa several times now. You just lie down and be dead. I know what you're thinking, that's no fun. It really does sound like the most boring world extinction event ever. We need to think bigger. Like, Michael Bay bigger.
Well, in thinking about it some more, there's absolutely no way a cloud that size would not eventually be detonated by something so the effects would be more like several large nuclear explosions and most definitely affect the entire world.
The skies would literally burn. You know, cause it's methane. Just think about it. Methane fire death! You do have to admit that if America is killed by a giant far blast and ignites the atmosphere leading to a massive world war in the chaotic aftermath, it'll be pretty awesome.
Give me fart death. Fill my lungs with Gaia's shit gas! Ha. America is going to die by a fart, how fucking appropriate. If it all comes up at once, enough to displace a large amount of air, then ignited immediately, it would be a methanopocalypse. Like a big uneven blast-firestorm, with the sufficiently-mixed outer gasses detonating and the passing pressure wave pushing unburned methane and oxygen in chaotic ways, igniting when mixed.
I knew watching Bill Nye would eventually pay off. Basically a bunch of southerners will fall asleep and die and then the rest of the world will reenact the gas station scene from Zoolander. Either that or there will be a huge earth-shattering explosion that will fuck up weather patterns all over the world and lead to mass starvation and war.
In short, you better go pick up The Road and read it to prepare. If you're looking for something to do in order to survive and profit off of this catastrophe, your best bet is to move to the other side of earth and buy bullets.Seriously folks, The Road is The Great American Novel.The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions. He got up and went to the window. What is it? she said. He didn’t answer. He went into the bathroom and threw the lightswitch but the power was already gone. A dull rose glow in the windowglass. He dropped to one knee and raised the lever to stop the tub and then turned on both taps as far as they would go. She was standing in the doorway with her nightwear, clutching the jamb, cradling her belly in one hand. What is it? she said. What is happening?
I don’t know.
Why are you taking a bath?
I’m not.
Though let's forget the way-out-there sort of predictions and look at the real world shit that this oil spill and the collective fuck up of the clean up ended up doing. Firstly, dealing with covering up the oil with Corexit.
Aren't you glad BP ignored an order from the EPA and put plumes of deadly toxic oil in the water column by spraying 1,000,000 gallons of crime-cover-upper poison into the ocean? Goes to show what the free market is capable of when it's not tied down by big government.
So now the Corexit is raining down on the homes of those in the area. Ha! Death is certainly certain. Just one more sign that the end is near.
You remember all those years ago when people worried about acid rain and death from above? Yeah, that pretty much happened. Only it's over Texas, so who the fuck cares as long as there's a football game on Friday Night, Am I right?
My ultimate favorite quote, and the one that best exemplifies the whole reason we're in this shit situation where we dream up oilcanes and fart clouds of death is from this Yahoo news article."This thing's been going on for so long now, it's time to take a gamble," said Mitch Jurisich, a third-generation oyster farmer from Empire, La. "If it's going to blow the bottom of the ocean out, it's just going to blow the bottom out."In case you don't speak gibberish, this is the translation from Cajun to English"Welp, if it's going to fuck this gay earth, then just fuck this gay earth. I don't care anymore." -Shameful Cajun.Man, I sure love driving. I could drive all day. Oh shit Red light, guess I need to stop
*starts installing brakes*
*Shoots past red light at eighty, starts phoning in press releases about how brakes will be installed by August*
*Runs over endangered species as vehicle goes off the road*
Yup, that pretty much sums it all up right there. Then again, maybe the oil spill is just god punishing us for allowing homosexuality in America. You ever think about that, Huh Oregon?
http://www.thankgodfordeepwaterhorizon.com
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