The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
[Gulf Coast Oil]: Spill, Baby Spill. Volunteer Info at the top of OP
Drake
Edgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered User regular
Edgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered User regular
Volunteer Info
http://www.oilspillvolunteers.com/ Seems to have stopped taking applications for volunteers. The website may continue to serve as a good resource, though.
The Alabama Coastal Conservation Association seems to be taking volunteers.
And the Audubon Society looks like they are focusing on the Pascagoula River area in Mississippi.
The Alabama Coastal Conservation Association seems to be taking volunteers.
And the Audubon Society looks like they are focusing on the Pascagoula River area in Mississippi.
If anyone has any useful volunteer info, please PM it to me so I may add it here.
NY Times- Size of Spill in Gulf of Mexico Is Larger Than Thought
So yeah, this just keeps getting worse and worse.
Here are some highlights from the article.
NEW ORLEANS — Government officials said late Wednesday night that oil might be leaking from a well in the Gulf of Mexico at a rate five times that suggested by initial estimates.
An explosion and fire on a drilling rig on April 20 left 11 workers missing and presumed dead. The rig sank two days later about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast.
“The leaks on the sea floor are being visually gauged from the video feed” from the remote vehicles that have been surveying the riser, said Doug Helton, a fisheries biologist who coordinates oil spill responses for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in an e-mail message Wednesday night. “That takes a practiced eye. Like being able to look at a garden hose and judge how many gallons a minute are being discharged. The surface approach is to measure the area of the slick, the percent cover, and then estimate the thickness based on some rough color codes.”
Wind patterns may push the spill into the coast of Louisiana as soon as Friday night, officials said, prompting consideration of more urgent measures to protect coastal wildlife. Among them were using cannons to scare off birds and employing local shrimpers’ boats as makeshift oil skimmers in the shallows.
On Wednesday evening, cleanup crews began conducting what is called an in-situ burn, a process that consists of corralling concentrated parts of the spill in a 500-foot-long fireproof boom, moving it to another location and burning it. It has been tested effectively on other spills, but weather and ecological concerns can complicate the procedure.
And here's the kicker.
Walter Chapman, director of the Energy and Environmental Systems Institute at Rice University, said a 50 percent burn-off for oil within the booms would be considered a success. Admiral Landry called the burn “one tool in a tool kit” to tackle the spill. Other tactics include: using remote-controlled vehicles to shut off the well at its source on the sea floor, an operation that has so far been unsuccessful; dropping domes over the leaks at the sea floor and routing the oil to the surface to be collected, an operation untested at such depths that would take at least two to four more weeks; and drilling relief wells to stop up the gushing cavity with concrete, mud or other heavy liquid, a solution that is months away.
The array of strategies underscores the unusual nature of the leak. Pipelines have ruptured and tankers have leaked, but a well 5,000 feet below the water’s surface poses new challenges, officials said.
This is pretty horrible stuff. The coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle are under threat. The Gulf Coast fishing industry is going to get hit hard by this, and if it hits the shore so is the tourist industry that is vital to the Gulf Coast. As a resident of the Gulf Coast, I'm terrified. It just keeps hitting me in waves. All I can think about is that the lives everyone has built here are in jeopardy. The economic fallout is going to hit us on a national level most likely.
I'm having a hard time remembering the last time I was this scared. This is bad, and I fear it could become a disaster of unprecedented proportions.
UPDATES
New Estimate! Possibly 25,000 Barrels a Day!
Gulf oil spill swiftly balloons, could move east
Here's a report on NOAA's latest worst case scenario.-Mobile Press RegisterSand is an integral part of the formations that hold oil under the Gulf. That sand, carried in the oil as it shoots through the piping, is blamed for the ongoing erosion described by BP.
"The pipe could disintegrate. You've got sand getting into the pipe, it's eroding the pipe all the time, like a sandblaster," said Ron Gouget, a former oil spill response coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"When the oil is removed normally, it comes out at a controlled rate. You can still have abrasive particles in that. Well, now, at this well, its coming out at fairly high velocity," Gouget continued. "Any erosive grains are abrading the inside of the pipe and all the steel that comes in contact with the liquid. It's essentially sanding away the pipe."
Gouget said the loss of a wellhead is totally unprecedented.
"How bad it could get from that, you will have a tremendous volume of oil that is going to be offgassing on the coast. Depending on how much wind is there, and how those gases build up, that's a significant health concern," he said.
NOAA Website Devoted to Deepwater Horizon Incident. This reads like a pretty sanitized version of what's going on in the Gulf but there are lots of maps, documents and forecasts in handy pdf format.
Image captured on May 1st.
Why is Jeff Childs a massive douchebag, you ask? Read the next two links;
BP official: 'We've significantly cut the flow' of oil from damaged rig
BP says oil flow from Deepwater Horizon remains unchanged, refuting executive
http://twitter.com/Oil_Spill_2010
http://twitter.com/lisapjackson
These were both linked by a site linked on the NOAA site, so I'm guessing the non-verified one is legit.
edit: Also useful: http://www.incidentnews.gov/incident/8220
Here's a timeline of the federal government's response so far.
Drake on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
but seriously, people wondered why I am/was so opposed to offshore drilling.
I feel kind of vindicated: Obama opens the way for more coastal drilling, and now the exact thing I was worried about happening happens.
Those fucking douchebags who spend Spring Break in Panama City?
It's a lot bigger than those human turds. Many people come down to the Gulf Coast to just chill on the beach with their family, eat some good local seafood and enjoy the local atmosphere. Spring Break is just the kick-off for what most of us living down here earn our livelihoods from. It's a huge chunk of our local economy. Probably the largest.
take a submarine, rig it to be entirely remote controlled, wedge it onto the the leak and either block the leak or use the sub as a funnel to direct that oil into a pipe.
the spill is going to be a (multi?) billion dollar disaster anyways, might as well go all out.
It is still spilling as we speak. And it will most likely continue to spill for weeks, because they haven't found a way to block the leak or turn off the valves.
vvvv the above quote also answers the below post
Furthermore, how come noone let us know that these undersea oil reservoirs are under pressure! I thought they required active pumping (which is why only rocks with high permeability were useful, since only they had a vast interconnected system of oil). I had no concept that once you breached it it was like a popped balloon just waiting to spill oil out everywhere. On land once you breach the well it erupts for a while, but then the flow dies off and you need to pump correct?
Thirdly, if this sealing dome can be used to close the leak. Why the hell wasn't one already prepared and in position. I mean, there are numerous rigs down there right and you are saying they have no capacity for ONE disaster sealing. Why don't they have a couple of sealing domes standing by?
Honestly the only hope is that the wind and tides keep this at sea for another week so it starts to harden and to give the coastgaurd more time.
Hell, I know this seems absurd but couldn't they just tow out a gigantic lump of concrete under a ship and drop it on the opening into the well. I guess I don't know enough about the operation of these rigs. I'm sure this 'dynamic pocket' must be a rarity in drilling, it can't be that any failure of any rig would cause this.
Don't they have those Drillships? Couldn't one of those move into position and drill 'upriver' from the leak. Or couldn't they move an empty oil tanker into place, and just put a massive pump on it, suck up the sea water and oil and treat it elsewhere. Any steps we can take now to minimize this spill are vital.
Not to be rude- but consider this: The oil is in the earth's crust under tons of seawater. Poke a hole and not only will the pressure squeeze the oil out, water will rush into the new hold. Add to the fact that oil and water are immiscible and suddenly you have a leak that just won't stop.
Christ this is even more horrifying.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Oh totally
get them drills fired up
Oil rig caught on fire and sank, so it's a well. There are actually at least 3 leaks collectively pumping out, I believe, 5000 barrels of oil a day.
Crude is also less dense than water, so they replace each other readily from surface/"oil hole".
Well that makes sense, and is an even stronger argument for the deadmans switch. It would seem that this leak is effectively unblock-able then unless the pipe can be closed. The only option is to get a new well into position and start collecting the oil.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Rigorous Scholarship
And when they do happen they are disasters of epic proportions
I think I would rather invest the money spent collecting and dealing with this in some other energy source, personally
Tell me this is a joke.
Please.
Kinda like planes being statistically safer than car rides, huh?
isnt there some way we can collect it, evaporate the water content and then sell it for great profit?
obviously not, i guess.
as if we havent been fucked hard enough these past few years.
Clearly the solution is to let every fly their own planes everywhere.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
The danger (both economically and environmentally) to the coastal states the slick threatens is much more distressing to me than the fact that BP takes a hit in the pocket book, even if it gets passed down to consumers.
Because maybe you know we shouldn't have an entire nation that is so completely dependent on this one fucking resource
Now that I realize that the wells are effectively time bombs waiting to destroy vast areas of the coastline and that the rigs are built without the most basic of safety features present then there needs to be an utter halt on development until a 100% effective deadman switch can be installed, and then multiple backups each using a different method also installed.
I was reading the excuses from BP that 'Oh, the cut off switch probably hit a stronger area of pipe' or ' the valves have jammed on each other'. It should be impossible for the system to fail. Like on a modern nuclear plant. If it becomes supercritical, the fuel rods just fall out of the core, and then the cooling water dumps itself onto the core automatically under gravity.
The oil industry hates spills as much as environmentalists do.
Rigorous Scholarship
it will get passed down to consumers in more ways than just increased prices at the gas pump
i hope you're aware of that
i mean, last time gas prices jumped above 90 bucks per gallon there was chaos
yes the poor poor oil companies
but then that takes away from the oil companies profits!!!! SOCIALIST!!!!!!!!!!!
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I do entirely understand that, and frankly I would not mind that. We seriously are wayyyy to dependent on this stuff
True that. When I get off work I guess I should go buy some rubber boots and gloves for the ritual cleaning of the oil-covered wildlife, huh? Except for the nutria rats. Those fuckers can rot in hell.
Well accidents like this are rare so obviously we're ok! Kind of like how car crashes are statistically rare so seatbelts are stupid.
DRILL BABY DRILL.
Not quite as simple as that. It takes money to transport and process that oil. The actual net income it generates is a lot less.
Not gonna happen. For some reason, NASCAR is too popular. Until you see Jimmy Stewart doing the Daytona 25 in an electric car, oil will be the ultimate in entertainment for rednecks.
And this is why I hate offshore drilling. I would honestly rather drill alaska then in the ocean because accidents are much less damaging.
No one is calling for an end to "seat belts" (i.e., safety measures on oil rigs). If this spill highlights a safety problem, it should be addressed.
Rigorous Scholarship
I have been calling for an end to drilling for a long time because I was concerned that this exact scenario would happen.
Also that analogy is terribad.
Oh hey there fixed that for you. "Addressing" safety concerns after an entire ecosystem is completely humped seems kind of... well, slow? Late? Insufficient? I don't think anyone in the thread has called for an end to all offshore drilling, but if you find somebody who has please let me know. *edit* aside from Arch, good timing sugar
Tragic but poignant timing. "Offshore drilling is safe, drill baby drill!" and our gulf is destroyed. What's next, someone makes fun of "volcano monitoring" and..., well, that would just be silly.