26 June 2010 Pandora’s oil barrel

26 June 2010 Pandora’s oil barrel


Both of us woke up early today after 5-6 hours of interrupted sleep. At some point we’ll both run out of energy and wind up dozing. In my case it will probably happen when I am sitting on the couch, trying to read. Gloria will stretch out for a nap. I don’t nap easily or well. It’s hard to surrender that time.

I have a new fly pattern I want to try in the coming week. It produces extended body, hollow-winged flies using closed-cell foam for the body and PVC dual surface wings. I ran into the pattern as “the Johannson dun.” With judicious use of markers it should allow production of any morphology one prefers.

http://www.flytyer.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2993&Itemid=0



I need to site the scopes on my rifles more closely. Mike has offered the use of his range and bench; and would most likely spot for me. Since these are both fixed power, 4X, low end scopes, having a good spotter could save a lot of time and aggravation.

The presence of TS Alex in proximity to the Gulf oil spill promises to be a matter of grave concern for anyone with personal or professional interests along our Gulf coast waters. The 5 day forecast currently has the landfall in the western gulf. At least two of the potential inland tracks will bring the downgraded low pressure center up into the mid-south, tracking over our region of the Appalachians. This could provide much needed rain to the region. If it stalls over us, it could also bring flooding.

Models can be seen at:

http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at201001_ensmodel.html#a_topad

And a great topographical presentation is at:

http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?lat=17.0&lon=-85.3&zoom=6&type=hyb&rad=0&wxsn=0&svr=0&cams=0&sat=0&riv=0&mm=0&hur=1&hur.wr=0&hur.cod=1&hur.fx=1&hur.obs=1&fire=0&ft=0&sl=0

We can only wonder how many species will become extinct as a result of this oil spill. To hear GOP elected officials describe it as an “act of God” is truly repugnant. There is nothing divine about the greed that drove BP to cut corners that even Halliburton recommend not be cut There is nothing divine about the rush by the GOP to lessen any responsibility that falls on BP. And there is nothing divine about the grip the oil industry lobbyists have on the U.S. Congress and Senate. This spill is an act of man, driven by greed to over-reach our technical capacity to repair what we have broken.











BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Storm Threat, Current Production, and Other News - and Open Thread

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593/648967

Extractions from the Oil Drum Commentary.

“OK let's get real about the GOM oil flow. There doesn't really seem to be much info on TOD that furthers more complete understanding of what's really happening in the GOM.

As you have probably seen and maybe feel yourselves, there are several things that do not appear to make sense regarding the actions of attack against the well. Don't feel bad, there is much that doesn't make sense even to professionals unless you take into account some important variables that we are not being told about. There seems to me to be a reluctance to face what cannot be termed anything less than grim circumstances in my opinion. There certainly is a reluctance to inform us regular people and all we have really gotten is a few dots here and there...”

“These are clear and present dangers to the battered subsea safety structure (bop and lmrp) which is the only loose cork on this well we have left. The immediate (first 1,000 feet) of well structure that remains is now also undoubtedly compromised. However.....as bad as that is?...it is far from the only possible problems with this very problematic well. There were ongoing troubles with the entire process during the drilling of this well. There were also many comprises made by BP IMO which may have resulted in an overall weakened structure of the entire well system all the way to the bottom plug which is over 12,000 feet deep. Problems with the cementing procedure which was done by Haliburton and was deemed as “was against our best practices.” by a Haliburton employee on April 1st weeks before the well blew out. There is much more and I won't go into detail right now concerning the lower end of the well and the troubles encountered during the whole creation of this well and earlier "Well control" situations that were revieled in various internal BP e-mails. I will add several links to those documents and quotes from them below and for now, address the issues concerning the upper portion of the well and the region of the sea floor.

What is likely to happen now?

Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don't, they are inviting disaster that much sooner.

Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? ...it won't be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov't must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.

All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn't any "cap dome" or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?....is the only real chance we have left to stop it all.

It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo.

We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates. The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said.

Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can "get there first"...us or the well.

We can only hope the race against that eventuality is one we can win, but my assessment I am sad to say is that we will not.

The system will collapse or fail substantially before we reach the finish line ahead of the well and the worst is yet to come.

Sorry to bring you that news, I know it is grim, but that is the way I see it....I sincerely hope I am wrong.

We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.

The magnitude and impact of this disaster will eclipse anything we have known in our life times if the worst or even near worst happens...

We are seeing the puny forces of man vs the awesome forces of nature.

We are going to need some luck and a lot of effort to win...

and if nature decides we ought to lose, we will....”

And the odds are that we will lose. We have no way to repair fractured sub-sea strata that should never have been opened. We have no way to bring this spill to an end by our actions. We’ve opened a Pandora’s Box and now all the things we wish had not escaped are loose and unconcerned for our regrets.