LibertySteward
LibertySteward
Sea-State Threshold Catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico,
The Truth about Deepwater Horizon
by George-Luis Dewey, Libertysteward May 15, 2010
Sea state catastrophe, the Gulf of Mexico defiled, national moment of truth whatever you choose to call it, this is a time when you can smell the heavy salt of fate in the air. It is ancient in our make up to shrug off chaos until we are well over the edge and pummeling to the bottom. Man paints his preconceptions into the essential whole of his canvas of predilection and this clever ethos slavishly enhances his greed and acquisitive desires in the web of the political world. It is a subconscious process whereby he defines what things and souls are going to do for him before he even gets to know what essentially defines them in their own right.*Choyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism He builds into the genetics of the process that which others are going to do for him as paramount and continually minimizes the need to concern himself with the essential needs of the fostering community he is going to thrive in. Meet Mr. Businessman, and yes, he’s in Oil. Boiling, vaporous, disintegrative, blobs of burning oil!
When this whole thing happened, my first instinct was the perfect memory of the smell of the refinery I grew up in, the wind would carry the scent everywhere. I flashed to the Bay of Maracaibo and the sordid hellish constantly burning oil spill I witnessed there. And then that dull pit in the gut where you know instinctually that the media is already lying or doing their “stupid talk” where they purposely skew or salt the facts with paltry analysis and sound-byte “facts”, often huge understatements issued to them by the guilty parties themselves.
The first one I heard was 5, 000 barrels a day. The red light went off right there since I remember reading that this well was a rather prolific producer. Then add to that the margin the oil companies would have routinely understated their production to the government as, and the excess profit they would have made by manipulating the price on the market; these are essential aspects of oil man accounting we pay for every day. It is, of course, characteristically as infantile and unprofessional as oil man engineering, which as we have witnessed in the last three weeks is as witless. When you can see their gross mis-statements from space and logic out the size of the spill for yourself with some basic calm sea assessments and some earth based geometry you know they are lying on a vast scale.**See Google.com/sat: http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/oilspill/
Let’s just consider for a moment some of our own accounting here. There is plenty of blame to go around and if you want to see who is guilty you don’t have to look past the core of our most intellectually dishonest institutions - Congress, you can start with that. Heck lump all the politicians in there, then the Business Community down to the last “drill baby drill” sound byte chirper, and you can toss in the essentially extinct fourth estate that is a holy owned subsidiary of the corporatist plutocrats. And you can throw in our environmental angels of our better nature the EPA and the “revised figures” “science” community of post 911 experts that will rubber stamp your preconceptions of science for a fee and reinterpret any aspect of that bureau of standards to their own level of metaphysical presumption....you know the type - they will tell you that jet fuel can melt and even pulverize steel reinforced girders and concrete. Weird, in the science class I went to they never lied to us like that and got away with it, but alas stupid and credulous has an entirely new definition in America in today’s etiology .
So for a moment here, while we confront the wall of their curious indifference to the public good, let’s just look past that and look at a few of the lies that have indeed been confirmed by clownish little nondescripts like you and me my fellow citizen.
Most people don’t have a clue what a barrel of oil is. Let’s start by looking at that, because if you want to know the scale of something you would like to start with some form of measurement. A barrel of Oil is 42 gallons of oil. It is equal to 5,800,000 Btu and it takes 7.333 barrels of oil to make 1 metric ton of oil and this is equivalent to 307.986 gallons of oil. Don’t be confused with the three place decimal you can round it off to 308 gallons.
Now that we know what our base measurements are and how they are relevant to one another lets consider what kind of pollution routinely goes on around the planet to understand what we have been considering both acceptable and routine up to the present, based on what we honestly know about the level of pollution. 6,000,000 metric tons of oil pollute the planet every year from cumulative calculations of routine oil spills and from leaking or pooling waste oil around rigs planet wide. This represents 1,848,000,000 gallons per year (all dumping sources, not just that which ends up in the ocean and we really don’t know what amount gets to the sea) .***EPA-600/2-81-199, Sept 1981 Oil Slick Dispersal Mechanics, Osamor/Ahlert, Dept Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Rutgers University.
Now BP and it’s bootlicking media buddies reported 5,000 barrels a day leaking, so I instinctually figured they must be understating this to a factor of 10 so as to not cause a furor. Well, within a few days that lie was confirmed by google sat an a few relatively simple calculations. And as they usually do they only succeed in throwing gasoline on the fire of public opinion.
In three weeks 2,100,000 gallons has leaked into the bay each day when we accept 50,000 barrels a day as the level of real leakage and it may be greater than that. ((50,000 barrels X 42 gallons ) = each day load.)
In 23 days since the beginning of the spill that is equivalent to 48,300,000 gallons are currently in the gulf.
If it goes on to 90 days, as predicted, (before capping), we will have defiled the bay with roughly 189,000,000 gallons of crude. That represents 613,665 metric tons of crude that will be all over the place in the gulf. And since BP’s operatives TransOcean has been submitting the mess with a litany of dumb things such as dumping even more toxic dispersants on the oil and burning off distillates they probably haven’t made their own job any easier in reality and this will be monstrous to even attempt to contain or clean up.
That’s equivalent to 37,800 tanker trucks the size you commonly see driving our highways to their way to some gas station to off load.
Using the length of the average semi-truck fuel transporter as 75 feet that’s 2,835,000 total feet divided by 5280 feet or the length of a mile and the size of this spill in 90 days will be equivalent to a line of semi truck fuel transporters 537 miles long.
So much for the scale of things...as they are.
To understand the preparation both the government and the oil industry had gone to in order to prepare for such an even I found the amount of literature and its quality too paltry and bordering on childish in is depth of analysis and level of responsibility.
The base line literature designed to protect us from such events was a single EPA research paper sponsored by a grant project EPA Doc- 600/2-81-199 dated 1981 and titled Oil Slick Dispersal Mechanics.
I cannot see one iota of change in their procedures, directives and presumptions to date other than of course all the schmoozing that has gone on with the pipe and drilling permitting process which is mindlessly cozy with the disaster-makers themselves. From a preventive standpoint the last line of defense from such a disaster was always the bony intrusive clutching fingers of politics, not a safety valve to avert catastrophe at 5000 feet below the ocean floor, not to mention substandard pipe purchased from China that burst under the pressure of both greed and elements improperly assessed and calibrated.
Essentially this study was foolishly documented.
Primarily it was based on some absurd assumptions such as calm seas, observable phenomena only and primarily analyzed from the surface of the sea without further in depth environmental analysis and subsurface studies, etc, etc, etc....
The science stuff is all there - a hodgepodge of obscure statistical analysis, dispersal rates, clever names for aspects of a spill, charts and graphs up the bazoo, but bereft of any real integrity as a comprehensive in depth analysis of probabilities with a high level of predictable lethality.
We certainly would not give a potential terrorist this kind of access and confidence if they intended to play around with such potentially devastating probabilities. We would be applying electrodes to their testicles while they stood on one foot on a block of ice with a hood over their heads! With friends like the oil companies who needs enemies. Isn’t it interesting that out of one eye we would pursue terrorists with the above mentioned typical knee jerk Republican Bush tactics and yet reserve suits and ties and gentle conversation and bottle water, tea and crumpets for our oil drenched counterparts. Softly spoken gentility laced with legal-sleeze and politically acceptable contempt spoken like good little manipulative legislooters. A disgusting dog and pony show of ineffectual Congressmen and Senators; a ridiculous farce fit for a clown.
A clown just like you if you are buying any of other their bull winkle any more!
According to the authors of the study, Chukwuka A. Osamor and Robert C. Ahlert:
“It is impossible to predict accurately the rate of spreading of an oil slick. Spreading rates are site dependent and are influenced by the hydrodynamics of the underlying water and surface air columns.
A few theoretical studies which have improved the knowledge of oil slick transport have been reviewed. More recent experimental investigation have involved actual field studies in which large volumes of oil have been spilled intentionally at sea.” The writer goes on to bemoan the high cost of such studies and proceeds...”Usually, the spreading of oils on water is considered to consist of two independent mechanisms (Hoult, 1972). The first mechanism is the tendency of oil to spread as a gravity wave on calm water,”...at this quiet stage, lacking wind, the main bubble of oil is referred to as a “lens”; “the second mechanism comprises the gross transport of oil masses in the presence of external forces, i.e. the convective forces of winds, currents, tides and waves. The total area covered by an oil spill is a combination of the areas covered by both spreading mechanisms.”
They go on to note that “Evaporation causes volatile components of the oil to be lost to the atmosphere and dissolution causes soluble components to leach into water...the effects of other weathering processes, e.g. microbial degradation, photo-oxidation, etc., may be significant also, depending on the duration of oil exposure.” But the study of course grossly neglected such fine points as what happens to your presumptions of microbial degradation when you have a spill in an area already terminally ill from deadly Hypoxia (i.e. the total lack of oxygen in dead parts of the ocean like the northern coast of the Gulf Region and a myriad of environmental consideration that were not extant at the time and are hopelessly wanting for critical research as yet unfunded and undone.
How glorious their intellectual dishonesty, how blind their consideration of catastrophic probabilities and how ultimately cavalier their piratical philosophy of greed and disinformation! Both the US Congress/Senate and the Business Community are profoundly at fault here.
All these factors and huge gaps in credible science abound and are not taken into account by people who continue to presume that something of this scale can be effectively cleaned up, as there are other levels of pollution barely taken into account.
Think about this: the use of dispersals to break up the spill at the top of the surface...what exactly was the point of that? If you use oil-man logic it gets rid of what you can see on the surface and sinks the crude to the bottom in calm water. That process is also self-defeating as it makes to oil go clear to the bottom where public opinion might not be able to see it, but trust me - it’s there. And when the hurricanes come and the deeper ocean currents take the oil around the Gulf in the four directions and then out to sea then I wonder what the geniuses will come up with next.
And then the writer of the Rutgers University Study goes on to say, in the one glimmer of revelatory truth in the whole document, that should have begun loud peals of alarm bells all across the land:
“The importance of dealing with oil spills by diversion, containment and collection of floating oil cannot be underemphasized. The methods are not practical in all spill situations,...For Example, there is a sea-state threshold beyond which containment and recovery of oil slicks is impossible. Dispersion of oil slicks by chemical treatment may be the only option available to reduce adversed impacts on the environment.”
Of course the study makes no mention or mere consideration of at what point there mere risk of such a possibility becomes unreasonable. Reason need not apply with these folks, all they see is profit.
And then the last glib admission by the writer states: “Furthermore all the mathematical models used in this study and used to assess the size and scope of an oil spill are only relevant in the case of calm seas.” And we all know from what we have seen in the Sea State Catastrophe of the the Gulf of Mexico that presumption only lasted three days until the wind began to blow and it was really out of our hands at that point. The moment we started throwing dispersals on it, it was already too late.
I invite the reader to go to the NCCOS and NOAA websites to examine for him or herself the 5000 km2 region of the dead zone in the gulf documented from space. It already threatens a $2.8 billion fishery in the northern Gulf. That is an area the size of New Jersey which is entirely a dead zone devoid of life giving oxygen. This additional disaster will threaten the economies of 5 states and the environment of the planet for many years to come and it is very probably the very perceptible end of the very life of the ocean if this degrees of mindless load of pollution continues as any kind of acceptable standard into the future.
We are at the crossroads of the Sea-Stage Catastrophe of the Oil Age and whatever future we want to have left. We have to evolve to a new level of intellectual honesty in our consideration of each others real needs and limitations and on how we choose to manage our environment from now on.
This is not just an environmental crisis, it is a full fledged crisis of the nation state and the entire business community going forward. Reasonable honorable people have got to evolve some reasonable control here in America or I doubt the planet will have a prayer and I really hope our Chinese pals are paying real close attention or even give a damn.
Cleaning up our act has to be done or we will never move forward from here. And at the heart of cleaning up the corruption we have to wrest ourselves from the grip of corporate hogs who want to over-run our political system. Our own Supreme Court has seen to that. Congress must reform the laws of the Senate and get rid of the foil of the fowler - the infernal filibuster and it must get beyond the mechanism of campaign contributions from corporations that claim the rights and privileges of individuals and stop cooperating with people who subvert any kind of responsible policy of the commons or for that matter the mere discussion on a national level of its essential nature.
When is enough enough and what about any of this is even reasonable or responsible or honorably scientific? There is nothing redemptive in unretrievable sea-state catastrophes or fascist state politics.
Update: May 18, per numerous new reports there is a plume of under-water oil that is supposed to be 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick. If you suspect the oil companies of lying to us as to the scale of this leak consider the following:
Let’s use the above statistics as to the size of the underground plume that is said to be the largest. Let us assume rectangularity just for the sake of argument. These dimensions in miles are converted into feet and then multiplied times each other to give us cubic feet: 275,616,000,000. I used the following website address to calculate this spill size: http://www.easycalculation.com/unit-conversion/volume-unit-converter.php
Next convert the cubic feet into US barrels of oil and you get 49,089,306,060 Barrels and you get 1,716,769,330,144 gallons! Significantly more than we have been told about it. If the oil comprises only 50% of this single plume we are still being grossly misinformed as to the real size of this disaster.
Update: May 22, per numerous news reports the truth about the scale of this spill is starting to come out. Scientists now say that the daily spill amount is more accurately placed at somewhere between 95,000 and 110,000 barrels a day ( 3,300,000 barrels in 30 days), equivalent to 4,620,000 gallons per day or in 30 days = 138,600,000 gallons total spilled into the Gulf. 450,020 Metric tons in 30 days. That is equivalent to two-thirds of a 90 day load originally estimated at 5,000 barrels a day and revised to 50,000 barrels a day. This is equivalent to a line of fuel transport semi-trucks 355 miles long so far. That is longer than the state of New Mexico is wide by a few miles. These figures are probably still a low estimate. I was heartened to see that the Tibetan Lama was on the Today Show this morning as I had quoted his predecessor Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in my article. He said that this event is the real mark of the beginning of the 21st Century and spoke of the need for responsibility and positive solutions. To all my brethren: Nemaste!
Update May 23, 2010: I was relieved to see that scientific confirmations have been made of the 100,000 to 110,000 barrel a day load limit. Of course this could be revised even higher after the density of the subsurface oil is known. It is gratifying that my figures have been confirmed and my figures are accurate. And it remains to be seen as to whether they will admit to a leaky well long before it actually blew. The next very big immediate issue is going to be the recognition by the public working on this that they have been sent to do a dangerous job with no safety equipment on the order of gas masks etc. The reason why is simple and has only been accentuated by BP in their efforts to sink the crude to the bottom to get it out of the public view. Crude petroleum is a combination of toxic gases and natural distillates found in the oil that are extracted and used as fuels such as gasoline, kerosene etc. These enhanced and refined products in their natural form of distillation contain many numerous toxic substances.
I will focus on the one that is probably the worst and that is Benzene. It is said to be immiscible in water, i,e, it doesn’t mix and it tends to float as a narrow band of gas clinging to the ocean surface and just above the water. By telling these fishermen to go out and place booms in the water they had to know that these fellows would have to lean over the side of their boats to place booms in the water and they would be breathing tons of the stuff over a period of days. Benzene causes cancer and is known as ID# 1114 in the 2000 Emergency Response Guidebook used by first responders and various aspects other agencies. It says in Guide 130 for spills of raw benzene that the vapors are heavier than air or floats just over the surface of water and in concentrations it evinces a yellowish tinge.
To clean up this type of spill you must use self contained breathing apparatus a plain filter is wholly useless. The risk of explosion is real and the ignition point can simply be a lack of an adequate ground - on water that’s a difficult concern as this stuff can be real fluky if it gets into contained areas . On the ocean much of it will go into the atmosphere but a great deal of it will be added into the ecosystem on shore and in the ocean depths.
People are going to suffer horrendous long term effects from this stuff and anyone who is already pushing the limit with a smoking habit would do well not to expose themselves to this stuff for any amount of time without the proper safety equipment. Also Benzene alone, not to mention a myriad of other distillates in heavy oil, has several other byproducts produced by industry and these involve elements found also in sea water or the oil itself, so many other dangerous gas combinations will be adding to the toxic load of the benzene. The government and BP are going to experience lots of liability here just like what was done to the victimized fire-fighters during 9-11. They are being asked to do a job that may have mortal consequences and not being properly warned or protected. The effects can be delayed and often show by very difficult breathing problems that get much worse over time in the case of a high exposure. Oxygen therapy can be used to treat minor exposure, but long term effects of benzene exposure is not good. Nobody in a refinery lives right in the compound, they live a good distance away because of the long term danger of benzene exposure in particular.
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