Tag Archives: oil

Deepwater Horizon: 40,000 Barrels Per Day or 70,000?

Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday, June 13, 2010. Oil continues to flow from the wellhead some 5,000 feet below the surface. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

The Deepwater Horizon spill. Sunday, June 13, 2010, AP Photo/Dave Martin

Part 6 in a Series that began after Earth Day (1 Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon, 2 Drill Baby Drill or Drill Baby Oops, 3 The Magnitude, 4 One Month After, 5 Like Chernobyl?)

Last month I wrote on Popoular Logistics “BP and the government say … 5,000 barrels per day is reaching the surface and most of the oil – 80%  to 90% – is below the surface. So I think it’s on the order of 25,000 to 50,000 barrels per day.” (click here)

This was a “back of the envelope” reflection of NPR’s analysis, reported May 14 (click here) that the spill was 70,000 barrels per day, with a margin of error of 14,000 barrels – so maybe as low as 56,000 Barrels per Day and maybe as much as 84,000 Barrels per Day.

In their article “Deepwater Horizon round up: it’s worse than you think (again) – June 11, 2010,” Nature.com noted “At the end of May the official estimate was raised again to between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels day. Now the Flow Rate Technical Group has produced a bevy of new estimates ranging from 25,000 to 40,000. Crucially, legal liability established for a spill can be linked to its size.” (click here) and here for the Flow Rate Technical Group.

It looks like I’m in good company. But I’d prefer to be wrong.

I also note that this is “business as usual” for BP and other fossil fuel companies, and compared it to the accident at the Kingston Steam Plant, 12/22/08, the Upper Big Branch Mine, 4/5/10, the Exxon Valdez, and Chevron-Texaco’s alleged dumping of 18 BILLION Gallons

of oil process waste in Ecuador between 1964 and 1990  (click here).

It is obvious to me that we MUST move to a post-carbon economy.

  • 100 gigawatts – offshore wind, $300 Billion
  • 100 gigawatts – land based wind $200 Billion
  • 50 gigawatts – solar $200 Billion (price is going down)
  • 50 gigawatts – marine current – $200 Billion.
  • Clean Energy Infrastructure: $900 Billion.
  • Save the World: Priceless.

Emergency phone numbers.

* Report oiled shoreline or request volunteer information: (866) 448-5816
* Submit alternative response technology, services or products: (281) 366-5511
* Submit your vessel for the Vessel of Opportunity Program: (281) 366-5511
* Submit a claim for damages: (800) 440-0858
* Report oiled wildlife: (866) 557-1401
* Medical support hotline:  (888) 623-0287

The Series, following “Earth Day for the Future”

(Here)

  1. Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon (Here)
  2. Drill Baby, Drill – or Drill Baby, Oops (Here)
  3. The Magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon Spill (Here)
  4. One Month After The Spill BP Siphoning 3,000 Barrels Per Day (Here)
  5. Deepwater Horizon – the Chernobyl of Deep Water Drilling? (Here)
  6. Deepwater Horizon: 40,000 Barrels Per Day or 70,000? (Here)

One Month After The Spill BP Siphoning 3,000 Barrels Per Day

Satellite Image of Gulf from New Orleans to Mobile, showing oil slick.

Satellite Image, courtesy of NASA, of Gulf from New Orleans to Mobile, showing oil slick.

Fourth in a series  1, 2, 3, 4) that began on “Earth Day” (0).

Steve Gelsi at Marketwatch (click here) reports that BP is now siphoning 3,000 Barrels Per Day from the Deepwater Horizon Spill. According to research by NPR, the spill was 70,000 barrels per day.  In the 30 days that have elapsed since the April 20 accident a total 2,100,000 to  barrels have spilled.  And BP is siphoning off 3,000 per day. At that rate the spill will be cleaned up in only 700 days if it were to stop gushing now. That’s less than two years.

Greg Bluestein and Michael Kunzelman at Gouverneur Times (click here) report that oil from the slick has entered the Loop Current – which is part of the Gulf Stream.

This could be for fossil fuels what Chernobyl was for nuclear power.

Full text below the click. Continue reading →

The Magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon Spill

The oil slick in the gulf

The Surface of the Oil Slick

Third in a series (1, 2, 3) that began on “Earth Day” (0).

BP and the government say they can’t measure the spill on the ocean floor. However, 5,000 barrels per day is reaching the surface and most of the oil – 80%  to 90% – is below the surface. So I thnk it’s  is on the order of 25,000 to 50,000 barrels per day.

But that’s my back-of-the-envelope estimate.  NPR, on Friday, May 14, 2010 reported that Steven Wereley, who teaches mechanical engineering at Purdue University, Tim Crone, a research scientist at Lamont-Doherty, and Eugene Chiang, an astrophysicist at UC Berkeley, believe they can make a pretty reasonable estimate of the amount of oil gushing into the Gulf. Wereley based his estimate on particle image velocimetry analysis of the video BP released. He says says 70,000 barrels per day, give or take 14,000 barrels,  is gushing from the Deepwater Horizon spill. Crone agrees with Wereley but said he’d like better video from BP before drawing a firm conclusion. Chiang estimates the flow at 20,000 to 100,000 barrels per day. 880,000 to 2,200,000 gallons of petroleum products into the Gulf of Mexico Each

DAY! That’s 6,160,000 to 15,400,000 gallons per week.

After 20 days that’s 400,000 to 2.0 million barrels. Each barrel could have been refined into 44 gallons of gasoline, jet fuel, and other petrochemicals.  But even at 5,000 barrels per day – 100,000 barrels in the first 20 days – this is a catastrophic event.

President Ronald Reagan

President Reagan

One hundred years from now, when historians, in energy efficient homes and offices powered by wind, solar, and geothermal, write about the end of the era of fossil fuel, they will point to the April 5, 2010 disaster at the Upper Big Branch, W. Virginia coal mine and the April 20, 2010 catastrophe at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

Historians may assign responsibility to the energy policies of President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney. They will note that President Carter put solar water heating system on the roof of the White House (click here for pdf) and President Reagan took them down in 1986. Their assessment of President Obama will be predicated on his next actions. Does he continue to embrace “Drill Baby Oops,” Coal with Carbon Sequestration, and Nuclear Power? Or do a 180 degree turn to sustainability?

President George W. Bush

Pres. George W. Bush

I don’t know what the pressures are at a depth of 5000 feet below the surface of the ocean. But there’s methane ice down there. At atmospheric pressure, Liquid Methane freezes is at -182.5 °C and methane gas liquifies at -181 °C (here)

The most important questions are:

What will be the effect of all that oil on fishing, tourism, the weather and the climate? It could be good for the maple syrup, solar power, and wind power industries, and the locavore food movement.

President Obama

President Obama

Given the severity of the spill, and what it demonstrates about our ability to operate at 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, I think we should rethink the Purgen Coal with Carbon Sequestration Plant, which will pump carbon dioxide into a well a mile below the ocean.

In addition, NPR reported on May 12, (here) that a House investigative subcommittee said Wednesday that the blowout preventer, had multiple defects — everything from leaky hydraulics to a dead battery.

How did it happen? BP and Transocean say the rig was built to handle working pressures of 20,000 PSI, but the safety equipment was built for pressures of 60,000 PSI.  Clearly, the upward pressure released by drilling 18,000 feet below the ocean floor, itself at a depth of 5,000 feet below sea level, exceeded the 60,000 PSI – that’s 60,000 pounds per square inch. In terms of reference, atmospheric pressure at sea level is 14 PSI. For more information and an exploration of this,  Click Here to “Moore Think, Less Confusion.

Full text of both articles by NPR are reproduced below the fold Continue reading →

Drill Baby, Drill – or Drill Baby, Oops

Second in a series  (1, 2) that began on “Earth Day” (0).

“In order to make Policy, you have to be good at Politics.”

– Deborah Stone, “Policy Paradox”

President Obama

President Obama, Official Photo

I like and respect President Obama. I think he’s a well educated lawyer and law school professor, with a good grasp of the Constitution, and the realities of Chicago machine politics and Inside-The-Beltway politics. He understands Stone. He’s also a moderate liberal. However, his economic advisors – Tim Geithner and Larry Sommers – only know what’s good for Wall Street, so every answer is “what’s good for Wall Street.” They don’t appear to know anything about ecological economics.  Obama needs to listen to Herman Daly, Robert Costanza, Paul Krugman, Robin Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, and others with a long term view and a better understanding of what neoclassical economists call “externalities.”

Perhaps worse, his energy secretary, Steven Chu, is focused on carbon sequestration, nuclear power, and what we might as well call “Drill Baby, Opps.” Continue reading →

Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon

Ships trying to Extinguish the Flames

Ships trying to Extinguish the Flames at the Deepwater Horizon Rig

The unfolding disaster at the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which promises to be an environmental catastrophe, (click here) the recent disasters at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, and the Kingston, Tennessee fly ash retention pond demonstrate that fossil fuels are dirty and dangerous.  Safety and environmental protection are expensive and cannot be guaranteed. The oil will adversely effect fisheries in the Gulf for years. If the oil gets into the Gulf Stream, it will curl around Florida and flow up the coast hitting Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virgina, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and if it flows around the Long Island Sound, Connecticut – all the original 13 states, then Maine and the Atlantic Provinces of Canada.

Rather than harnessing the Gulf Stream to push pollution from the Gulf of Mexico up the Atlantic coast of the United States, we should harness the Gulf Stream for clean renewable energy. (Here’s how.)

Solar and wind, which harness natural processes rather than consume natural resources, provide power without fuels, and without waste: with no arsenic, carbon dioxide, lead, mercury, methane, and other toxins, greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. These systems enable us to meet our needs and allow future generations to meet their needs – and flourish.

Rather than clinging to the dirty and hazardous infrastructure of the past, we must build the clean, renewable, and sustainable infrastructure of the future.

Cape Wind and the Staten Island Ferry solar array and the thousands of other solar and wind projects here in the U. S. and elsewhere on the globe are, to paraphrase Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, “small steps … yet giant leaps for mankind.”

This post is the First Installment of a series that will follow the unfolding catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

—

The index is below:

  1. Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon, May 3, 2010.
  2. Drill Baby Drill or Drill Baby Oops, May 7, 2010.
  3. The Magnitude of the Spill, May 15, 2010.
  4. One Month After The Spill BP Siphoning 3,000 Barrels Per Day, May 20, 2010.
  5. Deep Water Horizon – The Chernobyl of Deepwater Drilling?, June 2, 2010.
  6. The Deepwater Horizon: 40,000 Barrels Per Day or 70,000, June 13, 2010.
  7. The Deepwater Horizon After the Macondo Well Explosion, June 19, 2010.
  8. Deepwater Horizon – Bombs and Hurricanes, July 1, 2010.
  9. Like a Bad High School Math Problem, July 14, 2010.
  10. Crisis Management and the Gulf Oil Spill, July 16, 2010.
  11. The Deepwater Horizon: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, October 7, 2010.

Republican Alternative Energy: Coal, Oil, & Nuclear Power

“The Republican Road to Recovery”  according to John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence, Thaddeus McCotter, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, John R. Carter, Pete Sessions, Kevin McCarthy, David Dreier, Roy Blunt, who signed it, “Keeps Energy and Fuel Costs Low.” It mentions wind and solar, but focuses on coal, oil, oil shale, offshore drilling, and nuclear power.

The document says “Republicans want energy independence with increased development of all natural resources, including renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.” It doesn’t mention “global warming.” It mentions the term “greenhouse gases” once, stating, incorrectly, that nuclear power doesn’t produce greenhouse gases. Mining, processing, and transporting nuclear fuel, and managing radioactive wastes, produces tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases.

It points out that “Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry … have long fought a renewable wind project in waters off of Massachusetts…. Cape Wind, would provide 75 percent of the electricity demand for Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket island. “

The document focuses on coal, oil, and nuclear power. These are not clean, renewable, sustainable energy sources.  Ultimately, therefore, it attempts to “greenwash” coal, oil, and nuclear power.

the Administration has already taken steps to hinder the leasing of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) which is estimated to hold at least 19 billion barrels of oil, and Democrats have long championed the prohibition on drilling in the Arctic Coastal Plain – which is estimated to hold 10.4 billion barrels of oil. Furthormore, Democrats continue to block the procurement of advanced alternative fuels from sources such as oil shale, tar sands, and coal-to-liquid technology. U.S. Oil shale alone could provide about 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.

Republicans also support opening the Arctic Coastal Plain to energy exploration and development.

And despite expert agreement that nuclear power is reliable, clean, and affordable without producing air pollution or greenhouse gases, Democrats continue to block its development.

Republicans realize that there are better solutions to restore freedom and security in our energy market.  Republicans recognize the importance of exploring for American oil and gas in an envionronmentally-sound manner and support immediately leasing oil and gas resources in the OCS through an an expedited and streamlined procedure.

Republicans support removing government barriers to new nuclear reactors as long as they meet strict security and safety criteria.

Americans realize that the future of energy is in alternative and renewable sources. In order to promote the development of renewable and alternative energy, Republicans support promoting the leasing of federal lands which contain alternative energy such as oil shale. … spurring a market by using fuels derived from oil shale, tar sands, and coal.

1 Pound of Gasoline = 3 Pounds of Carbon Dioxide

) which is approximately 360 billion pounds of gas (each gallon of gas is 5.8 to 6.5 pounds).

Water isn’t normally thought of as a pollutant.  Up till November 13, the EPA refused to think of carbon dioxide as a pollutant, but big storms and rising sea levels are among the problems associated with global warming.  Storms, very simply, are water vapor in the air condensing and falling to the ground. More on this next time.

Data in this post came from Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economics, and one of the driving forces behind 350.org. Data on Gasoline came from Mad Sci Network and California Energy Quest.
Information on the chemical make-up of gasoline came from Wikipedia.

NY Times: Saudi oil production nearing all-time high

Cryptogonpoints out this piece in the Times which suggests that the Saudis are producing at exceptionally high capacity, trying to limit price increases. From  Plan Would Lift Saudi Oil Output

, from the June 14th times:

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, is planning to increase its output next month by about a half-million barrels a day, according to analysts and oil traders who have been briefed by Saudi officials.

The increase could bring Saudi output to a production level of 10 million barrels a day, which, if sustained, would be the kingdom’s highest ever. The move was seen as a sign that the Saudis are becoming increasingly nervous about both the political and economic effect of high oil prices. In recent weeks, soaring fuel costs have incited demonstrations and protests from Italy to Indonesia.

Saudi Arabia is currently pumping 9.45 million barrels a day, which is an increase of about 300,000 barrels from last month.

While they are reaping record profits, the Saudis are concerned that today’s record prices might eventually damp economic growth and lead to lower oil demand, as is already happening in the United States and other developed countries. The current prices are also making alternative fuels more viable, threatening the long-term prospects of the oil-based economy.