BP oil spill, are we all going to die?!?

[Excision Rottun]

That is true depending on who you ask (environmentalists vs. oil companies)

They do release aprox. 40% of all the greenhouse gasses in Alberta.

As well the operations there currently divert 359 million m3 of water from the Athabasca River, or more than twice the volume of water required to meet the annual municipal needs of the City of Calgary (current pop. 1.3million people)

More info here.

[Daywolf]

Originally Posted by Toony [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Drilling at 5k feet presents problems shallow (500') drilling doesn't.

Any guesses as to why they were drilling at 5k?

5k? The avg on land is 2k and goes much deeper. This one is something like 20k feet.

Originally Posted by Taxi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Theyre running out of Oil along shorelines and on land. Thats not a scientific affirmation, thats what i could muster from reading recent articles about the spill here and there.

Sorry, no. We are running out of places that we are allowed to drill on land. They are drilling in the gulf because there are no insane restriction nor millions and millions of dollars in fees just to explore a site to find if it does have oil.

Originally Posted by Eyry [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

More oil leaks naturally out of the earths crust and into the ocean every day than what the Oil spill is doing right now. The only reason people are complaining about it is because its noticeable in one area.

There were tar balls before the spill and there will be tar balls after the spill. Deal with it.

True. I've even seen oil pools on land that have come up from oil caches below. This stuff is always coming up, not going down. It's more than likely a natural byproduct of the earth. Lets see you get a trillion "dinosaurs" 5 miles down where pressure is like 10000psi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] Oh yeah edit: problem is though that it's concentrated in one area. I'd probably go for the nuke option even though....

Originally Posted by smokiing [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But have no worries, we might just have one solution to save mankind. Drill down a nuclear bomb and blow that sucker up or... make it much worse human style!

Problem is, who is going to pay for the damage from the tsunami? In the US, we can't even seed our clouds in most places, because of the impact resulting in lawsuits. This would make for international lawsuits on a big scale after shores get wiped. Jones is an ass btw, shock jock radio. Wait until he smears you, he has it against everyone... unless you buy gold from him.

[Excision Rottun]

Originally Posted by Daywolf [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

5k? The avg on land is 2k and goes much deeper. This one is something like 20k feet.

It is 35,000 ft or 10km.

The water there is 5,000 ft deep, I assume that is what he meant.

[Daywolf]

Originally Posted by Excision Rottun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It is 35,000 ft or 10km.

The water there is 5,000 ft deep, I assume that is what he meant.

Ah yeah that is probably right, I was going to say 40k or 20k feet slipped my mind the exact depth it was. 5k below the ocean surface because it's not under environmental regulation. I've done drilling (for a season) and have family that does full-time for many years, the regulations on land are absurd. Like most industries, they are pushed outside our borders.

[Excision Rottun]

Originally Posted by Daywolf [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've done drilling (for a season) and have family that does full-time for many years, the regulations on land are absurd. Like most industries, they are pushed outside our borders.

Most of my friends either drill or work in the oil industry.

Some are pump-jack operators, crackers etc.

A couple drill in either Mexico or Saudi Arabia....serious $$$ there.

[Daywolf]

Originally Posted by Excision Rottun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Most of my friends either drill or work in the oil industry.

Some are pump-jack operators, crackers etc.

A couple drill in either Mexico or Saudi Arabia....serious $$$ there.

Pumpjack. That’s the pumping units they install after the well is in. Maybe they set those up? That’s good pay. On drilling you have ropeman (or worm), cahinman, motorman, derrickman and mud pit or mudman (mud pits you see the steam rising from rigs). Off the rig you have one guy hiding in a trailer or room monitoring the drill angle on a computer. Then a company man moving from site to site handling any issues, taking people to the hospital etc.

Outside of the company you have Haliburton that comes by once or twice to probe the hole with radioactive sensors, checking integrity. Then you have all the support crews like welders to attach the well head and truckers to move the rig. This is probably beyond that reality tv show most likely, I watched a little and thought it was a riot, made for tv etc.

When they blow out, it sounds like a jet engine, super sonic, usually everyone dies. But not always, depends on the pressure from the depth. Running doubles (derrick height for 2 pipe connects) we usually went 2k feet which isn’t bad, and is pretty avg on land, takes 3 or 4 days actual drilling. We had a 200 lbs cap for the well if it blew, that we would pick up by hand and screw in lol. Blow outs are very rare though, like what happened in the gulf. Mud rigs are singles and go pretty shallow, only need 3 in the crew maybe. Mud because they are not on a platform but in the wet mud on the ground doing their thing, and covered in it. Not as common these days.

Natural gas is the major hazard, silent death. Die in under 3 seconds. A big problem with the gulf blowout right now as natural gas is everywhere. They don’t even allow anyone into the area any longer, I mean like reporters or public etc. Have helicopters falling out of the sky lol. Does not take many natural gas particles to kill, I mean the deadly stuff in it.

Anyway, for this gulf blowout, no idea how they are going to stop it. Probably won’t be able to until next year unless they nuke it. Problems with using nukes though, like tsunami potential and then radioactive water seeping up in time. They would need to write off drilling that deposit again of course, probably shut down adjacent rigs. They should lighten up on land exploration restrictions though, it’s stupid how intensive the restrictions are. Wells are not that dirty, cleaner than coal really. It’s just politics, really-really screwed up politics. But in the end those hyper-aggressive regulations only make for bigger screw-ups as we are seeing.

[Excision Rottun]

1979 Ixtoc I Spill compared to Deepwater Horizon spill

That was Then, This is Then

[Daywolf]

Originally Posted by Excision Rottun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

1979 Ixtoc I Spill compared to Deepwater Horizon spill

That was Then, This is Then

Hmmm... well the transgender person said 30k barrels a day with the 1979 spill, but the deep water spill is actually around 100k a day as recent reports are saying. I mean the early estimates seemed odd, the pressure is very great compared to what they were reporting a few weeks ago regarding the spill estimate.

The technology has improved, such as with blow-out bags, but we are talking a much stronger pressure release, one that can actually cut through thick steel. I think any deep water well has a potential to blow, though I've heard there were some pretty poor measures taken to prevent such a thing from happening in this case.

But aint it so nice that while over the weekeknd about 200k barrels of oil gushed into the Gulf while British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward had time for a yacht race while Obama was playing golf?
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[Excision Rottun]

Originally Posted by Daywolf [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But aint it so nice that while over the weekeknd about 200k barrels of oil gushed into the Gulf while BP CEO Tony Hayward had time for a yacht race while Obama was playing golf?
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Nice...Best quote so far, Tony Hayward "I want my life back."

Ya...so do all the people whose lives are actually fucked from this.

Or maybe, you know, the 11 people who DIED.

[Daywolf]

Originally Posted by Excision Rottun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Nice...Best quote so far, Tony Hayward "I want my life back."

Ya...so do all the people whose lives are actually fucked from this.

Or maybe, you know, the 11 people who DIED.

Well Tony is British (British Petroleum), so I guess its a matter of "can't see it from my house". I wonder if he would have taken the weekend off if it was washing up on the shores of England and destroying their fishing industry. Obama has no excuse as usual, he's just a cheer leader by trade. I'm sure all the clean up jobs will factor into his positive job creation report efforts. Maybe they can dump kool-aid on the spill and make everything better. Little kiss on the forehead. Awwww... all better now.