Posts from — May 2010

From the Houston Chronicle energy blog: Republican senators call oil spill hearing a distraction

“The people testifying today at all these hearings should be spending their valuable time (focused on) the response effort,” said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.
…

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., warned that the hearings are a distraction from engineers’ work in Houston and command centers along the coast to devise strategies for stanching the flow of an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil daily from crumpled pipe about a mile underwater.

“Having this and many other hearings on Capitol Hill while there is still an ongoing disaster in the Gulf — while the flow is unabated (and with) 5,000 barrels a day continuing to come up — I think is a mistake,” Vitter said.

So, what are the odds that any of the people testifying knows which side of the car their gas filler cap is on, much less how to cap a gusher.

There is this wonderful invention called the telephone that can be used if someone really needed to get in contact with them. Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton, where is his brilliant idea to stop the oil? How about the Shrubbery?

For the duration this will be at the top of the page, with new posts below it.

Please note that PBS is having to make changes to this meter, as BP changes its story. The new default is the Department of Energy’s final figure of 2,604,000 gallons [62,000 barrels or 8,454.9 metric tons] per day. The total on the meter is the oil that went into the Gulf, as PBS deducts what BP has collected.

Via Pensacola Beach Blog, PBS has a new widget that includes the live feed from BP.

July 15^th Update: BP puts the stop time at 2:25PM CDT.

The BBC reports on the newest national leader: David Cameron is UK’s new prime minister.

I wish him luck, and hope he doesn’t mind the early election. There is pain in store for everyone’s economy, and “conservatives principles” are not up to the problems that have to be dealt with to get things moving again. The one bright note is that the UK did not convert to the Euro, so they have more room to maneuver that the rest of Europe.

Gordon Brown was an effective Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he just wasn’t comfortable with being Prime Minister. He was good at the technical side, but he was never able to master the public relations side.

Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats has the deputy’s spot, but the LibDems may regret their decision, given the probable course of things in the near future.

Labour needs to recharge after being in office too long and bring in some new people.

The good news for Britain is that even the Conservative Party is to the left of the US Democratic Party.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune is still a functioning newspaper with actual reporters who attend hearings and ask experts.

David Hammer is “live blogging” the Rig Explosion hearing being held by the US Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service in New Orleans. There are actual witnesses to what happened who are sworn in and testify to what they saw and did when the well blew up.

Also of interest is the David Hammer and Mark Schleifstein piece relying on the information they had pieced together:

Powerful puffs of natural gas, called kicks, are a normal occurrence in many deep-ocean drilling operations.

But one intense kick of natural gas caused the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to be shut down because of the fear of an explosion just weeks before a similar release succeeded in destroying and sinking the platform and sent millions of gallons of oil on a collision course with Louisiana and the rest of the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Shortly before the accident, engineers argued about whether to remove heavy drilling mud that acted as a last defense against such catastrophic kicks, and the decision to replace the mud with much lighter seawater won out.

Hammer and Schleifstein consulted with Robert Bea, a University of California at Berkeley engineering professor, who led the investigation into the New Orleans levee collapse, and is a trusted voice in the Crescent City. Bea is conducting his own investigation into the incident.

At the time of the blow-out they were pumping out the drilling mud and getting ready to insert the concrete plug to close down the well. This was the endgame for the Deepwater Horizon. They were finishing up and preparing to leave.

The well had given them fair warning of the possibility of a blow-out, but they decided to replace the mud with seawater to speed their exit. The mud is toxic and expensive, so it is pumped out of the well. This is normally one of the last things that occurs before the drilling rig disconnects.

This is the flag that was flying on the Deepwater Horizon that was drilling in Gulf.

This is the flag of the corporation that owns the Deepwater Horizon.

This is the flag of the corporation that leased the Deepwater Horizon to do the drilling.

How precisely is a British corporation using a Marshall Islands vessel owned by a Swiss corporation to obtain oil that will be sold on the world market assist the energy independence of the United States? The oil will go to the highest bidder and the profits go to a British corporation, so why is the American Gulf Coast expected to put up with the pollution that is caused?

Updated to include Transocean.

CNN reports that Medical marijuana stores firebombed in Montana.

Actual Molotov cocktails were used and set two stores on fire with the message “Not in our town” spray painted on the wall, but this isn’t terrorism. No, this is a state arson case, although ATF has been contacted for technical assistance.

I guess the Attorney General only gets involved in failed arsons, not real ones. 😈

The BBC reports that Gordon Brown ‘stepping down as Labour leader’, which is not a surprise, given the poor showing of the party in the election, but everyone assumed that he would be replaced as a matter of course at the party’s next conference.

The timing of the announcement seems to be tied to negotiations over the next government, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats has always maintained that he wouldn’t work for, or even with, Gordon Brown, so it would appear that the timing was to make it possible for Labour and the LibDems to get down to some serious horse trading.

Clegg may just be using this to prove to the Conservatives that he has options, so the Tories had better improve what was on offer, or Clegg’s membership may have indicated that they don’t want to cut a deal with the Tories.

Of course the “moneyed interests” have their knickers in a twist that this wasn’t settled election night. They want to know who they have to bribe and/or invite to parties so their crimes won’t be noticed.

At 10:00AM CDT the Leak Meter hit 4,200,000 gallons which is 100,000 barrels of oil. That is a minimum figure which other people think is off by a factor of 5.

The Pensacola News Journal carried the report: Oil leak is 5 times greater than reported by officials

The amount of oil gushing from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil disaster is five times more than what the oil company and the U.S. Coast Guard are currently estimating, said a Florida State University oceanography professor on Saturday.

At an oil spill environmental forum at the Hilton Pensacola Beach Gulf Front, Ian MacDonald said the blowout is gushing 25,000 barrels a day.

The Coast Guard and BP estimate 5,000 barrels a day of crude is spewing into the Gulf.

MacDonald said his estimate is based on satellite images and government maps forecasting the slick’s trajectory.

Florida universities and colleges have formed the Oil Spill Academic Task Force (OSATF) to provide as much information as possible about the spill, but they are facing a desert of data from BP and the government who are treating the spill as classified. I understand about BP, they are a corporation and lie, stall, and stonewall reflexively, but the government needs to start acting with some transparency if they don’t want to look like an unindicted co-conspirator in BP’s problems.

I fail to understand why Florida’s government refuses to back water-sampling in the Gulf. They are going to need facts when they file suit against BP to be reimbursed, and this would provide them. BP has a long history of not paying until being sued, so the state should be working on the law suit now.

First off I have a large map of the Gulf Coast with place names to give you an idea of where this is taking place.

NOAA has a PDF map of the predicted spread of the oil through Tuesday. Because of the winds, it is going West now.

Pensacola Beach Blog noted that Rick Outzen of the Pensacola Independent News turned down a BP Oil Spill ad. Rick feels that if BP has anything newsworthy to say it will be printed for free, and they should be spending their money on keeping the oil off the beaches, not PR. Rick, like all independent weekly owners, could use the money, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

Like most corporations today, the PR and Marketing departments are orders of magnitude larger than their R&D departments, so all problems are PR problems.

On to what confuses me. Does BP understand that the goal here is to stop the leak as soon as possible?

The reason I ask is that my reaction to the ice crystal build-up in their “dome” was not “how do we prevent the build up of hydrates so oil can flow?”, but “why don’t we induce crystal formation in the leaking pipe to stop it from leaking?” BP is talking about pumping in warm water or anti-freeze, while I wonder why they aren’t wrapping tubing around the pipe and circulating refrigerant?

I first considered liquid oxygen, but remembered the nasty result of oxygen and oil. Carbon dioxide is already too widespread in the ocean and the air. How about liquid nitrogen?

Obviously you have to cool the pipe slowly, and make sure it doesn’t get so cold the metal becomes brittle, but it should work, and after the pipe is plugged, you cut it and cap it.

It seems like BP has decided that the only way to stop the flow is to drill the second well. So, essentially, the same people who had their first well blow up are going to drill into the same oil pool that blew it up, and then use the cementing process that may have caused the original well to blow up. Our guarantee is that the second well will stop the leak, or we’ll have twice as much oil gushing into the Gulf from two wells that will need to be capped.

To everyone who functions as a Mother, take the day off and annoy your kids, especially those that “don’t call” or live in an alternate universe and haven’t seen the sales. Even small children need to be inculcated with guilt early and often.

The AP filed a story based on interviews with survivors from the Deepwater Horizon. It matches what was said in the earlier firsthand account that I linked to, with one important difference concerning the gas.

The AP referred to the gas as methane [CH₄], which is the major component of natural gas. The problem is that the survivor was very specific about the gas that caused the explosion settling on the platform. Methane is lighter than air and would rise, not settle.

There are many different types of gas in an oil well, while the majority is methane, there is also a possibility of propane [C₃H₈], which is normally generated during the refining process, but does exist in wells. Propane [AKA LP or bottled gas] is heavier than air and is the most probable culprit.

Both are colorless, odorless gases. The “gas odor” is an additive to make people aware of their presence. The difference may seem minor, but when you are looking at the cause of 11 deaths, and how to prevent another fatal accident the small things can be important. Possibly a propane detector and some way of blowing the propane away from the rig could have averted the first explosion.

Do ice cubes float? Does your refrigerator and air conditioner work by compressing gas and then allowing it to expand?

McClatchy reports on the latest BP screw-up Gulf oil spill setback: First effort to place dome falls short

A mammoth white containment dome placed over a leaking oil well 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico had to be moved away from the well Saturday after ice-like crystals clogged the massive steel-and-concrete box.

The buildup of crystals also made the box too buoyant, BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said.

“I wouldn’t say it failed yet,” he said. “What I would say is what we attempted to do last night didn’t work.”

This is why I wanted the pipe already connected so the oil flow wasn’t constrained in any way. The oil is being pushed out of the well by gas pressure. When the pressure is reduced by exiting the broken pipe, the gas expands, drawing heat to itself as it expands, the process used for refrigerators.

Update: Hydrate crystals are ice crystals with something trapped in them, in this case gas, like a methane slushy. In ancient times when Cokes were a nickel and kept in water filled coolers with ice floating, you often saw the process when you opened the bottle, ice crystals formed around CO₂.

McClatchy reports that Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf

WASHINGTON — Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded on April 20, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.

The waivers were granted despite President Barack Obama’s vow that his administration would launch a “relentless response effort” to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the gulf. One of them was dated Friday — the day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was temporarily halting offshore drilling.

Minerals Management Service has some song and dance that these weren’t the final drilling permits, but just the start of the process. The process should start with oil companies running the numbers on the costs of what happens if there’s an accident. They should be aware of the costs at the beginning, and post a commensurate bond before a drill touches the sea floor.

After they have done all that, then MMS can tell them it will be a cold day in hell before they are allowed to drill in the Gulf of Mexico after the total screw-up we are now dealing with. Any politician who wants more drilling is going to have to provide a 100% certain way of shutting down a gushing underwater well in less than an hour before they suggest it.

The local county officials along the Florida Panhandle are not happy campers about the “Well from Hell”. They are geared to hurricane response, with them leading the way and then the back-up and support from the state and Feds showing up a bit later. That’s why the Local Puppy Trainer is reporting Okaloosa officials vent frustration at spill bureaucracy. The counties have to wait for BP, the state, and the Feds to approve any action before it can take place.

Apparently even getting approval isn’t permanent, as State rejects Santa Rosa’s plan to contain oil spill. It was rejected after it had earlier been approved, and they had already started to implement it. Because of seriously reduced budgets, no one has the money to just do their own thing and then apply for reimbursement.

My county, Okaloosa, has jumped on a ‘chevron’ booming strategy, because it is the plan used by the Air Force for military oil spills in local waters.

All of these plans and strategies depend on using floating booms to corral the oil. In the “3. Boomtown” section of Pensacola Beach Blog’s Friday Gusher round-up, people who have inspected the boom lines express sincere doubt that the booms will do any good. The booms capture oil on the surface, but BP has dispensed so much dispersant into the oil that it isn’t coming all the way up, and will probably flow under the booms until it reaches beaches.

Walton county as already bought hay to use to absorb any oil because it is available locally and is biodegradable. Okaloosa has asked barber shops and salons to save hair clippings, which will be stuffed into pantyhose [I’m not making that up] and used as an absorbent. [Note: look, you dillweeds, don’t try to use cat litter, OK? It might work in your garage, but it won’t work on the beach.]