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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Here's a dye simulation based on a 2-month long source term at 20 meters depth 132 days after the dye is released. The oil moves up the Eastern seaboard to about New Jersey then heads East toward Britain. The relief well should reach its target ~132 days after the spill began. That will be the best opportunity to shut off this well but even that isn't 100% full proof.
Here's physicist Michio Kaku, student of Ed Teller, on Nuking the well. The possibility for unintended consequences are enormous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfpqX0pAHmc
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Here's some economics on the oil side of the economics, from here
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/04-7
"Based on government estimates of the flow rate, the mangled well could produce oil valued at as much as $85 million over the next 60 days, until a relief well is complete and the well is capped permanently.
The people who own the deepwater site that's leased to BP - U.S. taxpayers - could see a more modest windfall. The Treasury could be due as much as $328,125 in royalties daily, or $19 million total over 60 days. Further, under its lease BP also must pay royalties on the oil lost in the spill, which would mean another $13.5 million.
McClatchy's calculation uses a government tally of 25,000 barrels flowing from the well each day and the 18.75 percent royalty rate applicable to oil from the BP well, and assumes that oil is selling at an average of $70 a barrel."
Could make a case that the government and BP are too cozy and that makes a conflict of interest with safety and the public interest. That could be said for our corporatacracy as a whole. The government (we the people) get a hefty chunk of that oil money cause it's OUR OIL! Oil leases aren't an issue if the oil company owned the land.
There is some interesting stuff about the industry at this site although some prices are dated.
http://www.gravmag.com/gasoline.shtml
"he 42-gallon barrel of crude oil makes about 19½ gallons of gasoline, 9 gallons of fuel oil, 4 gallons of jet fuel, and 11 gallons of other products, including lubricants, kerosene, asphalt, and petrochemical feedstocks to make plastics. [See also this EIA page] That adds up to more than 42 gallons because of something called "refinery gain" - the processing and chemical changes decrease the density and hence increase the volume of the refined components. So, crudely (pun intended), a $37 barrel of crude represents about 88 cents a gallon to start with. That 88c represents the cost of production plus producer profit. Go up from there.
Numbers that I found some time ago had this for other increments of the cost per gallon:
refiner cost - 13c
marketing cost - 5c
transportation cost - 15c
retailer cost - 5c
refiner, marketer, transporter, retailer profit - 10c (total, not each)
Add that to 88c, add the average 43 cents tax, and -- rather remarkably - that adds up to $1.79, if I added correctly - just about what you are paying. All the numbers vary depending on a long list of things -- refiner costs go up when they have to make specialized local blends (one reason for CA and Chicago having higher prices), marketing costs are higher in competitive markets (i.e., big cities), transportation costs are higher in the boondocks, or generally in places distant from refineries, retailer costs depend on number of employees, whether or not it is a franchise (some rural stations that I know of here in Montana have to pay many thousands of dollars per year for the "right" to be branded Conoco, or whatever); and the total price also depends on differing state and local taxes. So these numbers would be ball-park, approximations."
from
http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/gasoline/margins/index.html
Distribution Costs, Marketing Costs and Profits $0.27
Crude Oil Cost $2.03 $1.66
Refinery Cost and Profits $0.48
State Underground
Storage Tank Fee $0.02
State and Local Sales Tax $0.25
State Excise Tax $0.18
Federal Excise Tax $0.18
Retail prices $3.05
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Karl,
You're free to pay an extra 30% on your income tax TODAY if you think it's a good investment. Just write The Government a check! They'll accept it.
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Mimi
climber
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Having done a fair amount of fishing down there, the bird population sizes you're citing can be over a very large area. In other words, the groups are dispersed and the actual number killed won't be as high. Let's wait to get more facts. We know a guy who travels globally to clean up wildlife caught in oil spills. He didn't ship out until very recently because there was nothing yet to do. Now that it's come ashore, all of the activist groups have mobilized. The government and BP are controlling information flow way more than anything we saw for Katrina.
The brown pelican was endangered when I was growing up. It totally recovered. It will survive this incident. So will all the other birds down there. Even if the bird populations are severely reduced at the spill area, the northern gulf coast is fairly uniform east to west and the damaged area will be repopulated in a relatively short time. It's a high energy ecosystem. The rest of the wildlife is also fairly uniform. I'm remaining optimistic.
One key to the recovery is to do a very good job replanting the marsh vegetation that may be lost in order to prevent erosion and to support the nesting substrate that provides the larval food source for the birds, fish, etc. Talk about green jobs. Planting thousands of marsh veg plugs, growing the supply, and providing all that labor would be well worth it. Unfortunately, a hurricane could come along and destroy the entire effort. BP stated this week that they will see this through and restore everything the way it was prior to the spill. Bold statement.
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Mimi
climber
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Yes, but an ESA delisting is a very long process. As a local, we were all very excited seeing the bird come back so well. You see them all the time now. Thanks for the photo warning. Will avoid.
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MisterE
Social climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 5, 2010 - 09:08pm PT
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^^What a dumb-ass^^ Political BS = *yawn*
Hey! More bad news - the prediction is for a possible record hurricane season, as well...
The 2010 hurricane season officially started on June 1, and homeowners, businesses and insurers alike are bracing for what could be enormous losses. The reason for rising concern, apart from it being that time of year again: Weather Services International predicts that this season, which runs to Nov. 30, will be the most active since 2005's record-breaker.
See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/a1PMm1
WSI/Weather Channel link
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Karl,
Get the stick out of your ass.
Skip
The fiber keeps me regular
;-)
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nb3000
Social climber
Bay Area
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No personal offense meant to anyone here, but ... if you think just blowing stuff up is the best way to solve a problem, you have been watching way too many Hollywood movies. Yes the USSR had success plugging 4 out of 5 natural GAS wells using nuclear devices, but the GOM leak is an OIL well spewing liquid (considerably different conditions than a gas well). And the USSR would NEVER try to spin things as anything other than a complete success, would they??
This leak is around 10,000 psi ... it would take miles upon miles of rubble to resist that pressure, AND a tight seal to boot. This cannot even be remotely assured using explosives. And they would have to drill down very close to the reservoir itself ... which is what they're doing anyway with the relief wells.
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MisterE
Social climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 6, 2010 - 08:49pm PT
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Question for BASE 104:
How much will the two additional drill holes reduce the 10,000 PSI coming from the leaking well-hole?
Enough to staunch the flow from all 3?
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Mimi
climber
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So much for my optimism about volunteers mobilizing to save oiled animals. From the articles over the weekend, there's virtually no one down there helping out at all. I recant everything I've posted about this situation being remotely salvageable. Where the heck are the many activists (like the ones pouring oil on their heads in protest) that usually do this?! BP showed an ad yesterday on TV showing pics of workers doing clean up for their image. They're spending $50 million on these ads. This would go a long way toward pay for workers.
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lostinshanghai
Social climber
someplace
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“What Not to Say When Your Company is Ruining the World”
Newsweek June 02 2010 Ravi Somaiyu
Among Hayward's bizarre statements since the accident:
On April 29, The New York Times reported that Hayward, apparently exasperated, turned to fellow executives in his London office and asked, “What the hell did we do to deserve this?" (A possible answer might be the company's 760 safety violations over the last three years. ExxonMobil, in contrast, has had just one.)
On May 14, Hayward attempted to persuade The Guardian that "the Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume."
Only a few days later, he told Sky News that "the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest." That might surprise the many scientists who see the spill as a true environmental calamity, the full extent of which remains unclear.
On May 30, Hayward was less bullish and decided to play the sympathy card. He told the Today show that "there’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back." (He has since apologized for those remarks.)
On May 31, he told the world that ecosystem-threatening underwater oil plumes—consisting of droplets of partially dissolved oil suspended in water that many scientists have observed—do not exist. He said simply, "There aren't any plumes."
On June 1, Hayward responded to claims that cleanup workers were being sickened by the fumes from the oil they were exposed to by suggesting another possible, non-oil-spill cause. When nine workers fell ill, according to Yahoo News, he told CNN that "food poisoning is clearly a big issue."
But Hayward is not alone in his manful struggle to spin the news in the face of daunting factual evidence. His colleague Bob Dudley, managing director of BP, told NBC's Meet the Press on May 30 that "I think Tony's doing a fantastic job." To paraphrase President George W. Bush during another poorly managed Gulf Coast disaster: heckuva job, Tony.
Fattie: How is Anne Womack-Kolton going to coach him on what to say and what not to say?
Look for an ear piece [hearing aid] in either his left or right ear. When he is asked the question, there will be a ten second delay in his answer.
C-span: June 17 10.00 am. 7am Pacific Coast
Fattie: 50 bucks says he will break.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Jun 10, 2010 - 11:07pm PT
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Reviewing the film documentary, The Corporation (2003), might be especially insightful at this time with regard to BP and "Pandora's Well". Talk about so-called externalities, whew! and shareholder selfishness, shareholder responsibilities or lack thereof, whew!
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mrtwidlywinks
climber
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Jun 11, 2010 - 01:05am PT
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To be honest, everyone is overreacting at BP. They were trying to hit a very (relatively) small area a long ways below the water. They had no idea there was a methane pocket there or else they wouldn't have drilled. This is not an attack on our country, as the media and president are trying to make it out to be. Yes, it's their fault, but that doesn't mean it was preventable, these things happen.
For all you guys out there who claim we shouldn't drill for oil anymore, I hope you like driving on dirt roads, because 15% of the oil we get out of the Earth goes into paving. Let's not be looking for "who's ass to kick", let's look for a way to stop the problem. And seriously, who cares if the president said "ass" on television. Grow up, right wing critics. Sorry, had to throw that in there.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 11, 2010 - 02:01am PT
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The government now estimates that 25,000 - 30,000 barrels of oil per day are being lost from the wellhead, almost double the previous estimate, and much more than any from BP. The installation a week ago of the gadget to trap some of the oil, after the main pipe was cut, may have increased the rate of flow. The capture device is getting about 15,000 barrels per day, but the underwater camera still shows a lot escaping. The new figure is based not just on video, but on ocean floor sonar. 25,000 barrels a day is roughly equal to an Exxon Valdez every 8 - 10 days.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/us/11spill.html?hp
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