Gulf coast oil spill

[xoxoxoBruce]

•The Mississippi River pours as much water into the Gulf of Mexico in 38 seconds as the BP oil leak has done in two months.
•For every gallon of oil that BP's well has gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, there is more than 5 billion gallons of water already in it.
•The amount of oil spilled so far could only fill the cavernous New Orleans Superdome about one-seventh of the way up.
•If you put the oil in gallon milk jugs and lined them up, they would stretch about 10,800 miles. That's a roundtrip from the Gulf to London.
•BP has spent more than $54.8 million lobbying federal officials in Washington since 2000; that's about 44 cents for every gallon of oil it has spilled.
•Take the 125 million gallons of oil spilled in the Gulf and convert it to gasoline, which is what Americans mostly use it for. That produces 58 million gallons of gas - the amount American drivers burn every three hours and 41 minutes.
•If all the oil spilled were divided up and equal amounts given to every American, we would all get about four soda cans full of crude oil that no one really wants.

link

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

link

If oil was the same density as water it probably wouldn't seem like such a big deal. Problem is that it floats to the top and we are basically measuring surface area instead of volume.

When oil is spilled or leaked into in waterways and the ocean, it spreads very quickly with the help of wind and currents. A single gallon of oil can create an oil slick up to a couple of acres in size! The BP oil slick had spread over 580 square miles in just three days.

http://www.greenlivingtips.com/blogs...il-spills.html

[Spexxvet]

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, who overturned the Obama administration's temporary ban on deep-water offshore oil drilling, has a lot of his net worth in oil industry holdings. Judge Feldman holds stock in Ocean Energy, Quicksilver Resources (KWK), Prospect Energy, Peabody Energy (BTU), Halliburton (HAL), Pengrowth Energy Trust (PGH), Atlas Energy Resources (ATN) and Parker Drilling (PKD).

Yes, that list did include Halliburton, which was a contractor for the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon project. The data uncovered by the Associated Press, is based on 2008 filings. The news agency also points out that other judges with similar holding have recused themselves from ruling on matters involving the oil and gas industries.


See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/ceK1WL

Bobby Jindal is happy that the moratorium was overturned. I wonder how loudly he'll blame the fed gov if there's another spill.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Bobby Jindal is happy that the moratorium was overturned. I wonder how loudly he'll blame the fed gov if there's another spill.

Loudly and with full conviction of finger-pointing and grandstanding, as per usual.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

If oil was the same density as water it probably wouldn't seem like such a big deal. Problem is that it floats to the top and we are basically measuring surface area instead of volume.

Lots of evidence points to the fact that oil disperses much deeper than the surface, and that has been aided by the chemicals they have been spraying on to facilitate that process.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Lots of evidence points to the fact that oil disperses much deeper than the surface, and that has been aided by the chemicals they have been spraying on to facilitate that process.

I'm not doubting that. I'm sure it affects marine life no matter the depth and I recently read an article about how the oil spill will be harmful to deep sea (no sunlight deep) marine life. My post was just a response to xoxoxoBruce's post, where many of the statistics pointed out the oil to water ratio is actually EXTREMELY small. Most of the oil floats to the surface, our main vantage point, so it seems much worst in that respect. And I'm sure even an extremely small ratio of oil to water is harmful to most marine life.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes the ratio of oil to water is small, but it only takes a little oil to fuck up a lot of water.

I only posted that quote as an example of the information war afoot.

Here's another.
Endangered Sea Turtles Burned In BP Spill Clean-up.