Bush ok's Gulf of Mexico Drilling

[WarmWaterDiver]

I googled and found another link. Since this is in the UK, maybe Bush isn't involved.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2006-12-26T214149Z_01_N26289274_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-PIPELINE-OPERATIONS-PLAINS-DC.XML

Lots more details.

I suspect the leak continues, with oil flow through the pipeline shut down, due to gravity. The denser water entering the pipeline via the upture, displacing crude oil lighter than water through the rupture.

Since most GOM crude oils are fairly Newtownian fluids flowing in the pipeline, the instrumentation which showed a change signaled for pipeline shutdown - no waiting until 'see if someone sees a slick'. The USDOT is pretty stringent on instrumentation minimum standards, reliability, and record keeping. Outside the USA, this isn't always the case.

 

[ReefHound]

The largest quantity estimate, 400 gallons, is less than 10 barrels (42 US gallons to the US barrel). I think it's commendable the leak was so small - I don't know the capacity of this particular pipeline, but the High Island system I'm confident moves more than 10 barrels a day of crude in the course of normal operations (several orders of magnitude more).

???
The 400 gallons is what is still leaking per day after the pipeline was shut off.

"About 21,000 gallons of oil spewed into the Gulf on Sunday before the High Island Pipeline system detected a pressure loss and shut down, Chief Warrant Officer Adam Wine said."

 

[FredT]

that cant happen .. but even if it happened (whichit isn't), the fish will eat it up

come and get it, boys!

Actually it's the bacteria that will eat it up. The fish come about 2 weeks later up the food chain! Given the offshore wind and rough conditions this weekend none of this should see a beach, and it should be ingested by bacteria before the end of the week.

RUPE consortium tools should be on site in less than 2 weeks, once the break location is positivly identified and the line on both sides located. A ship's anchor can move a line several miles before the line breaks, so some searching is going to be in order. At the reported water depths a permanent repair patch is easy for the divers to install on a line up to about 36" diameter. Finding the right patch points is the hard part.

BTW the spill, the pipeline repair and any necessary cleanup are the $ responsibility of the ship owner. Dragging anchors in the Gulf is strongly discouraged.

FT

 

[Bill51]

Cool. Then the oil companies can say they aren't energy firms drilling for oil in the Gulf, they are really environmental firms cleaning up the Gulf. Their plants aren't refining oil to create fuels, they are disposing of a toxic substance called oil.

You would have fit right in at one very rum infested party where we free associated marketing ideas to rebrand Exxon and Shell as environmental clean up firms. We even developed a mock Senate presentation that instead of them paying royalties to drill, the feds would need to pay them to clean up all that nasty oil underground. Talk about reeking havoc on the world economy if the cost of oil production dropped by 75%.

 

[Bill51]

i was in Aunt-in-law hell in Nashville, with no computer. but at least the booze was free.

Counselor is excused from the SB bench if it involved booze and good music in Nashville.

 

[Bill51]

I'm certain the leak described at the link will be investigated as well. Note it was self-reported as soon as it was suspected. This allows maximum availability of response time for action.

The largest quantity estimate, 400 gallons, is less than 10 barrels (42 US gallons to the US barrel). I think it's commendable the leak was so small - I don't know the capacity of this particular pipeline, but the High Island system I'm confident moves more than 10 barrels a day of crude in the course of normal operations (several orders of magnitude more). However, if a total 'zero tolerance' policy is what some desire, we need to include all vehicle oil pans and transmission pans, and drips from them to the environment. Municipal storm water systems generally have little, if any, facilities for recovering the oil from the vehicle drips from all the mega-mall parking lots and Supercenters that goes through the storm water (not sanitary sewer) systems to point of discharge. Basically, Bill51 mentioned boats, but neglected to consider vehicles not traveling on water.

Now, does that provide a reasonable comparison with say Ixtoc 1, just for consideration?

These are just my impressions from growing up in South Texas, I have no scientific data, but I think Bill51 is most likely right in terms of offshore drilling and production in the Gulf of Mexico may have reduced natural hydrocarbon seep rates. I don't think drilling activities increased tar on the beaches while I was growing up, I think cheap imported oil was more likely the cause. When I was younger and domestic production was higher, tar on the beaches was very uncommon. As we got more imported oil, and when it was cheap, I think more was put into the system by the tankers leaving. With higher prices, and things like crude oil washing (COW) systems invented and used on the tankers, the tar is much less again (I last visited September 2005). Again, I have no data to back this up, just my personal impressions. So to me, improving domestic production also helps reduce risk factors for potential pollution.

I've noticed some of the same folks who say they don't want to be part of a climate experiment through increased fossil fuel combustion are the same who often point to the rising demand curve in China and India. I haven't seen what the predictions are if the USA quits consuming so much petroleum - what effect that is predicted to have on the rising demand curve outside the USA and western Europe. I suspect that with less competition, the portion that would not be consumed in the USA may well be added to the consumption of China, India, and / or other countries outside the USA and western Europe, with net consumption globally being little changed, if any. Only time will tell.

I left out oil contamination from ground source runoff since I didn’t want to get into the zero tolerance mentality any more than necessary – it scares me to think like that.

The only way to achieve zero emissions from mankind is for us to completely die out – and I’ll fight that one to the end. Any strategy that relies on the possibility of zero emission is starting from a false assumption that will only result in further contradictions in policy administered by idiots with no understanding.

It’s too late and I’m too tired to clutter my desk up with old files and specifics, but ground runoff dumps something like 15 to 20 times more oil into the ocean than all oil production or direct ocean spills. Furthermore the auto oil pan drips wind up in more inland waterways that lack both the size and circulation to disperse it, or the natural bacteria to digest it. Just a ballpark, but the numbers were something like 60-65% of the oil in the ocean is from natural seepage, and over 20% is from storm sewer and other ground runoff sources while over 70% of the oil found in streams and rivers is from ground runoff sources.

There are many economists that predict just what you do about any rapid reduction in American consumption and how that could actually increase global pollution. Oil prices today are just high enough to require greater conservation efforts in less developed nations that normally wouldn’t develop environmental standards on purely altruistic grounds. If we pulled out of the global oil market causing a rapid fall in oil prices, I don’t think anyone would expect the Chinese to use that windfall savings to implement either greater pollution controls or conservation efforts, they would just spill more in a rush to build their economy.

As I’ve pointed out here before, I’m still excited that we’re sitting on the gas reserves we are and hopefully we’ll develop them wisely enough to shift a fair bit of our energy and hydrocarbon raw feedstock consumption from oil to gas – which won’t cause any oil slicks. Let’s clean up our streams and rivers by producing so much natural gas that more cars and trucks start using it instead of spilling oil at the pump every time they fill up.

 

[deeper thoughts]

21000 gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico yesterday. The oil industry is already on the ropes with the new congress.

 

[H2Andy]

There are many economists that predict just what you do about any rapid reduction in American consumption and how that could actually increase global pollution.

black is white, white is black

paging Mr. Orwell...

 

[steeliejim]

There are issues with arsene / arsenic in shale oil. I have heard the de-arsenator(s) at one place could not be disposed of anywhere, so they were encased in concrete in place when they had reached retirement.

http://www.co.blm.gov/gsra/documents/textanvilpoints.pdf

http://www.blm.gov/nhp/news/legislative/pages/2001/te010626.htm

Bill51, you can probably cite the dates, but the cheap energy of the late 1980's through the 1990's meant US government support & subsidy for things like shale oil, coal gasification / coal liquefaction (used in South Africa) were dropped in the USA, while the Canadian government kept subsidizing tar sands upgrading. This has paid off recently with the Canadians, and I think their long-term viability in this arena is now certain.

The USA still has lots and lots of coal. Other alternatives like gas to liquids, gas to fuels, methane hydrate undersea field use, etc. New Zealand has been converting natural gas to gasoline for years.

http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2005/08/underground-coal-gasification-coal-to.html

http://www.techhistory.co.nz/ThinkBig/Petrochemical%20Decisions.htm

And I like to fish as much as I like to dive. I remember that even the usually pro-development locals in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, were pretty concerned about what shale oil extraction would do to the water table and great trout streams.

 

[Bill51]

And I like to fish as much as I like to dive. I remember that even the usually pro-development locals in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, were pretty concerned about what shale oil extraction would do to the water table and great trout streams.

I had an office in Casper Wyoming in 1982, when the feds and Shell pulled the plug on the oil shale program at the time and I was one of the first to celebrate. I carried that skepticism over into the new oil shale programs for many years until I saw the current processes to be completely different than what oil shale production was in the early days. I still prefer to see natural gas used wherever possible first (after nuclear), but it’s nice to know that we have plenty of backup reserves too.