Spill baby spill
- Thread starter dante
- Start date
Gravity, couple a miles of stuff on top of it creates a whole lot of pressure.
also, tectonic plates are pretty fvckin' heavy
But they are actually light enough to float on the rest of the heavy **** the earth is made out of.
Indeed....so sea water is rushing in to fill the void being left by the oil.....
Too bad there isn't some chemical treatment that could somehow react with the oil to increase its molecular weight so that it was heavier than water. So at least when it came out it wouldn't rise to the surface.
I'm sure there are a few bugs to my plan they have yet to be worked out. Magic fairy dust is also an option.
Toothpaste...heavier than air, but it somehow comes out of the tube anyways when you squeeze.
Better get Bill Nye on the case...
and liquid oil is lighter than tectonic plates...
Um yeah...it squeezes out because the volume of the tube gets smaller.
So the void where the oil was collapses as the oil evacuates the cavity? Is that what you are suggesting?
I thought it was all the fire extinguishers in the world
BP internal technical presentation going over the timeline, components, pressures, etc. seen in the preceding days/hours before the oil rig explosion. Dry and over my head (personally) but gives a little perspective on the complexity of this mess:
http://www.yousendit.com/download/YWhNYlJlcTI5RlpjR0E9PQ (link good for 7 days/100 downloads)
http://www.yousendit.com/download/YWhNYlJlcTI5RlpjR0E9PQ (link good for 7 days/100 downloads)
Lighter than water solution available now. Company can make enough to absorb 25K gallons every week:
Sweet, so that means that at 19m barrels of oil spilled we'd only need....
1,596,000,000lbs of this stuff to actually clean up the gulf. I'm sure that'll be easy to manufacture, simple to transport down there, and effective at containing into an oil slick the size of Ohio....
1,596,000,000lbs of this stuff to actually clean up the gulf. I'm sure that'll be easy to manufacture, simple to transport down there, and effective at containing into an oil slick the size of Ohio....
The Union Carbide route?
Well that's what I'm wondering about. In this case it's an "open system". The oil is being forced out by the sea water. in other words the sea water is displacing the oil. In the case of normal oil pumping operations, is the oil cavity being refilled by sea water in the same way? I realize we're not talking about vacuum chambers here.
I could see that (in theory) once the eater has displaced most of the oil, and pressure begin to equalize, that the weight of the sea floor would start to bear down on the cavity and squirt the water back out again.
Flush a $102b market cap down the drain to avoid $1.5b in cleanup costs?
So far we're at $1.5b in cleanup costs, and their annual dividend payout is $10b.So they could cut back the dividend by 15% and still pay for the cleanup costs outright. Or if the cleanup costs end up being 10x what they think so now, it means that they'll suspend the dividend for 1.5 years and then be back rolling as normal.
Sounds to me like some traders shorted BP and are now spreading rumors, but that doesn't happen in the industry, does it?
NPR reported BP saying something along the lines of, "we have enough reserves to pay for the cleanup operation and civil claims".
Personally I don't doubt it at all.
Personally I don't doubt it at all.
I'm not an expert but I know that in some operations nitrogen gas is pumped into the "cavity".
What he said. Fluid is not really compressible (at least not under pressures present near earth's surface), so the oil is resisting the lithostatic pressure exerted by the overlying rock. The resistance to compaction is why hydraulics work. This is pretty much standard for oil exploration geology: oil resists compaction, so it tries to escape upwards to areas of lower pressure. That is, until it encounters an impermeable layer (like an extensive layer of dense rock -like shale) or trap (like an anticline). This is why when wells were drilled in the ol' days, you'd end up with a geyser initially. Same reason why they're having such a hard time capping the BP well.
The oil is not being forced out by the sea water; it's migration upwards (and outwards) is a product of lithostatic pressure only. Granted, the ocean water is exerting further force downwards on the Gulf plate, but that can be viewed as a contribution to lithostatic (effectively). Pressure equalization will occur as the oil is expelled, and its cavity in the crust contracts under intracrustal and lithostatic pressure. Basically, it won't stop on its own unless: (a) all the oil is expelled, or (b) the intracrustal cavity is stable on its own and will maintain is integrity without hydrostatic pressure (the pressure exerted outwards by the oil inside it) resisting lithostatic pressure.MMike said:
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WTF are you talking about? Someone gave you an engineering degree?
Here is a simple demonstration for you. **** in a strong ziplock bag, preferably a greasy runny ****. Fill up your bathtub with water or urine, stand on the bag then poke a hole in it. See if the ziplock back mysteriously fills with water then starts to pump it out again.
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But that's not an accurate demo....just like the toothpaste example was not. The volume is not collapsing like the bag..or is it? I guess that was my question. Is it really being forced out solely by lithostatic pressure (my new word for the day). In which case, the answer to my question is that YES, the volume of the cavity is shrinking as the oil escapes.
Because assume for a moment that the cavity that the oil was occupying stayed a constant size, The oil would only be "floating" out of the cavity.
It had not really occurred to me that great expanses of sea floor collapse as oil reserves are removed from the ocean floor. It's not that I find it surprising. I just hadn't thought about it until I was watching video of the oil spewing out of the BP pipe.
And I'm a manager now. I don't need to be smart anymore.
Did you read where I cited an example of the ground subsiding due to oil drilling
I can't say that is what is happening in the gulf but it certainly could be.
Not an expert or anything, but generally speaking...anything thousands of feet beneath the surface of anything else is going to be under some extreme pressure. You give it a way to evacuate, and it's going to do so. You know in the movies when they strike oil, and it comes exploding out of the ground? That actually happens...so just because there's water on top of the earth on top of the oil wouldn't necessarily make it a special situation.
Yup. Ocean water flowing into and occupying a pressurized void in the crust is not possible. Unless physics are to be waived in their entirety, you'll never find movement from low pressure/energy to high pressure/energy environments.
MMike; also keep in mind that this "void" is most likely not a big open space somewhere in the crust, but is instead a very porous/permeable sedimentary host rock. And like any rock deep in the crust, it's going to be under a lot of pressure...
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Jesus people. Land surface........pressure.........no different under water.
edit: gsweet got in under control yo
So here's what I really want to talk about. After hearing some numbers on BP's annual profits, I really don't give a fvck what they have to pay. Yet now there's some whining about pensions and such here (and mostly in England) about no dividends being paid. Does anyone else find it a little annoying that now we're supposed to feel bad for people who support incompetent companies?
edit: gsweet got in under control yo
So here's what I really want to talk about. After hearing some numbers on BP's annual profits, I really don't give a fvck what they have to pay. Yet now there's some whining about pensions and such here (and mostly in England) about no dividends being paid. Does anyone else find it a little annoying that now we're supposed to feel bad for people who support incompetent companies?
Just being RM's local geological consultant....
That's a bit of an oversimplification, don't you think? Do you feel bad for the lower level Enron employees? Regardless of the competency of the company, the people who worked for it signed a contract for a pension/benefits/whatever expect that contract to be honored. They didn't make a bunch of stupid decisions themselves (assuming the vast majority of the "pensioners" were lower level employees), so why would you pissed at them for bitching about having to absorb BP's ineptitude? In other words, I think BP needs to deal with both sides of the table: they need to pay their pensioners and they need to deal with the spill.
Absolutely. But I can say with complete honesty that I've turned down jobs with several companies of the same ilk (getting all profity at the expense of things like the environment, worker safety, and general human morality). So I'm better than all those people
One just seems like a much bigger issue to me right now. Sure pay, the old folks. Everyone else can suck it for not investing soley in trader joe's and sister fat mu mu's patchuli works
Well, you're certainly a better man than I*Absolutely. But I can say with complete honesty that I've turned down jobs with several companies of the same ilk (getting all profity at the expense of things like the environment, worker safety, and general human morality). So I'm better than all those people
*Typed out while finishing a thesis for many of the world's largest gold exploration companies and getting ready to start developing a large deposit inside US boarders
Fair enough; I concede that given the option, I'd prefer BP spent its entire cash reserve on cleaning this crap up. That said, I'd be willing to bet that a lot of BP's stock is held by people who are having their money invested for them and have no idea what they own. The pensioners are just getting the short end of the stick through no fault of their own. Unless, of course, you consider working for an oil company a fault. Which I think you do. So there; we've resolved nothing and I don't feel like delving into the necessity of natural resource development to sustain a semblance of our current lifestyle. With the pretext that I am a hiker, biker and general outdoor lover (and was raised as an environmentalist hippy of sorts), I will leave you with this: If it's not grown on this planet, it's mined.
*resisting pointing out glen beck reference*
Right. But that goes back to my earlier allusion to the fact that this whole blind investment thing is not exactly the best system for humanity. Of course it keeps penny counters like the joker and his clients rich with no attention whatsoever to the downfalls of each investment avenue, just what pays.....so it's not going anywhere any time soon.
Not really. I own a lot a plastic things and drive my truck as much as the next guy. But there's a difference between working for an oil company and working for an oil company that holds a record in safety violations, lets projects go ahead with little to no contingency plan for catastrophic accidents and does things like help institute dictatorships in the middle east (I've been doin mah readin on BP lately). I'm not some delusional hippy who thinks we can subsist on hugs and good vibes. But I do believe this shlt can and should be handled much more responsibly. When a company confidently states that it can handle several billion dollars in liability and cleanup claims, why the fvck wasn't some of that money (a much smaller sum) have been spent doing some damn research on disaster response and making sure your friggin safety mechanisms actually functioned properly?
I don't care what a company produces or does. If they do it in an irresponsible way, they shouldn't have people falling over themselves trying to give them money for a turnover.
I know you get that.
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^I think that's a south american boarder
No gold inside him. The spanish took it all.
No gold inside him. The spanish took it all.
No no, please do. I could use a little comedic entertainment for the afternoon.*resisting pointing out glen beck reference*
I couldn't agree more...
The more I've gotten into the industry, the more I realize that international resource development is a complete and utter clusterfvck (on humanitarian, environmental, socio-political and economic terms). Perhaps BP's previous (and current?) violations of moral and international law are more egregious than others, but I'm willing to be that if you look into the past business practices of any international resource company, you're going to find something similar. And to their credit, it's not always their fault (though they could certainly take the moral high ground more often); in many less-than-developed countries (i.e. frequently where the resource is), the skids have to be greased before you're even allowed to set foot on the dirt. And even then, once you find something, local gov't wants its share and wants to run the project. The end result: all environmental/humanitarian regulation is out the window. Case in point, Cu-Au-Mo-Ag exploration and development in the Baguio Mineral District (northern Philippines) under the Marcos regime. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
I agree (again), and think that you're starting to get into the issues surrounding corporate entities (i.e. maximization of profit at the expense of morality). My view is really along the lines of the this: the human race isn't going to stop growing, and our demand for resources isn't about to start shrinking, so from my perspective, the industry needs to reassess its approach to resource development. This is part of the reason why I'm really not comfortable working in exploration in a third world country, and would rather develop resources in the US/Canada/Aus. where I know there will be significant environmental/humanitarian oversight.
By the way, I have no idea what the skateboarder reference was...care to give a hint?
Edit: No, wait. I got it. Spelling and reading comprehension be damned!
Nonsense! They can't possibly be that inept.
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Straight up instituting government coups to get a regime in place more favorable to resource raping is taking things a little far in my opinion. And BP has done that. So again, hearing people whine about their stock dividends doesn't really make my heart bleed too much. People still have control over their investments and who they chose to work for.
But yeah, sounds like we're mostly on the same page.
I have two very conflicting opinions about the Spill, now pass day 50.
My marine biologist friend based in Grand Isle is now at her wits. 10 days on, 3 days off. Looking for tarballs, taking birds to be cleaned, plus 10x the BS she normally deals with.
On the other hand, I have been thinking about my friend at BP who explained to me what is Deepwater, back in 1998. He was a geophysicist back then, and was recently the vice president in charge of exploration. Now he is charge of claims against his company.
I can't imagine that my friend would knowingly allow his department to behave so irresponsibly to allow the spill to happen. Unfortunately, the fact remains...
Not that anyone cares about me, my BP friend, or my biologist friend, but it bugs me when I see commentary from people who know nothing about the industry, who use gasoline as indiscriminately as they did before the spill, and who are doing nothing to stop the spill.
My marine biologist friend based in Grand Isle is now at her wits. 10 days on, 3 days off. Looking for tarballs, taking birds to be cleaned, plus 10x the BS she normally deals with.
On the other hand, I have been thinking about my friend at BP who explained to me what is Deepwater, back in 1998. He was a geophysicist back then, and was recently the vice president in charge of exploration. Now he is charge of claims against his company.
I can't imagine that my friend would knowingly allow his department to behave so irresponsibly to allow the spill to happen. Unfortunately, the fact remains...
Not that anyone cares about me, my BP friend, or my biologist friend, but it bugs me when I see commentary from people who know nothing about the industry, who use gasoline as indiscriminately as they did before the spill, and who are doing nothing to stop the spill.