Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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so it's a little like the old days: got *really* shitty news about which there is nothing obvious to be done certainly nothing in the way of Manly Intervention, then release it during the national teevee news/infotainment hour and hope that most people will be watching the celtics/lakers tonight and so will miss the second infotainment cycle.
Quote:
Panel Sharply Raises Estimate of Oil Spilling Into the Gulf
By LIZ ROBBINS and JUSTIN GILLIS
A government panel raised its estimate of the flow rate from BP’s damaged well yet again on Tuesday, declaring that as much as 60,000 barrels a day could be gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
The spill was already categorized as the largest in the nation’s history, and the new figures sharply increase previous estimates, suggesting a flow equal to an Exxon Valdez — every four days.
Scientists on Tuesday released a flow rate that ranged from 35,000 to 60,000 barrels — up from the rate they issued only last week, of 25,000 to 30,000 barrels a day. It continues a pattern in which every new estimate of the flow rate has been dramatically higher than the one before.
The current range is far above the figure of 5,000 barrels a day that the government clung to for weeks after the spill started after the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
The estimate of 25,000 to 30,000 barrels released last week, however, were based on readings taken from before June 3, when BP cut an underwater pipe called a riser to install a new device to contain the oil.
The number is far greater now, as scientists and BP officials had predicted, because when BP cut the pipe, the oil began flowing out of a single, concentrated source instead of several openings.
Over the past week, scientists placed pressure meters to the containment cap to better read the rate of flow. Energy Secretary Steven Chu himself, was involved in using those pressure readings to help make the latest estimate, the government said.
The new estimates seemed in line with the images of voluminous clouds of oil shown from underwater video over the last several weeks.
The numbers came on a day when BP’s ill-fated relief efforts to stop the damaged well hit yet another snag, underscoring once again the fragility of the containment effort: lightning struck the vessel that had been collecting the oil from the well, suspending operations for nearly five hours from 9:30 a.m. Central time until 2:15 p.m.
Considering BP had only able to collect about 15,000 barrels a day at its peak with the containment cap, these numbers released on Tuesday show just how much of a small impact the method had been making to stop the oil from flowing into the Gulf.
“This estimate, which we will continue to refine as the scientific teams get new data and conduct new analyses, is the most comprehensive estimate so far of how much oil is flowing one mile below the ocean’s surface,” Ken Salazar, the Interior Secretary, said in a statement released by the Coast Guard.
The staggering estimates and the small fire set the stage for President Obama’s primetime speech from the Oval Office, when he was expected to press BP on its cleanup and claims payment plans. Mr. Obama wrapped up a two-day trip to the Gulf coast with an appearance at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla., on Tuesday morning.
“Yes, this is an unprecedented environmental disaster, it’s the worst in our nation’s history,” Mr. Obama told an audience of sailors, marines and civilians at the base. “But we’re going to continue to meet it with an unprecedented federal response and recovery effort. this is an assault on our shores and we’re going to fight back with everything we’ve got.”
Mr. Obama added: “My administration is going to do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes to deal with the disaster.”
The disaster shows no signs of abatement.
BP said in a statement that the fire, which started after lightning struck the derrick — the familiar looking tower used to lift the piping — was quickly extinguished, and there were no injuries. But as a precaution, the containment operation was shut down for about five hours.
The containment cap is still the most successful method BP has had in collecting some of the oil that has been leaking from the undersea well, and it has only been partly effective. A series of attempts by BP to cap or plug the well before June 3 failed.
Phone calls to BP requesting comment on the lightning strike and containment shutdown were not immediately returned on Tuesday afternoon.
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Panel Sharply Raises Estimate of Oil Spilling Into the Gulf - NYTimes.com
on the other hand, there is to be a presidential address to the country tonight about this fiasco so maybe it's connected to that somehow.
it'd be good were obama to turn back to the carter speech on energy policy cited above because we are living through a colossal demonstration of the prescience of the words.
a new thread from the oil drum which outlines the possibility that all the various numbers have been approximately true and what explains the variance in the flows (and by extension the numbers) could be erosion. this is interesting:
The Oil Drum | BP's Deepwater Oil Spill -Why Flow Rates are Increasing and Open Thread
and some bad news for transocean:
Quote:
No cheap way out for Transocean
Offshore drilling specialist Transocean cannot limit its liability in the Gulf of Mexico oil slick disaster as the company with headquarters in Zug had tried to do.
A federal judge in Houston, Texas, ruled on Monday that the owner of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded and sank cannot use a 159-year-old maritime law to cap its damages at $27 million (SFr30.8 million).
The Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 states that a vessel owner is only liable for the post-accident value of the vessel and cargo as long as the owner can prove that he had no knowledge of negligence in the accident.
The so-called “Titanic-clause” was used effectively in 1912, when the owners of the Titanic tried to limit their liability after the ship’s accident.
On April 20, an explosion and fire killed 11 crew members and destroyed the Transocean-owned semisubmersible Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, positioned near Venice, Louisiana, in water nearly 5,000 feet deep.
The rig, one of the largest and most sophisticated in the world, had been under contract to BP, the London-based oil giant, since September 2007.
The Deepwater Horizon accident spewed thousands of barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico, and experts said it could become the largest oil spill in history.
The group’s Chief Executive Tony Hayward is expected to face harsh questioning at a congressional hearing on Thursday.
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Offshore drilling specialist Transocean cannot limit its liability in the Gulf of Mexico oil slick disaster - swissinfo
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
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