Mother of all gushers - BP Oil Disaster in Gulf of Mexico

If a regular storm can displace oil like this, what would a hurricane do in the upcoming hurricane season? So when it comes to disasters the PTB are either responsible or completely fail to mitigate it and clean up, and usually both. The amount of people affected by this is ludicrous, and nobody is doing anything other than pointing fingers. I think we're only seeing the beginning of the effects of this :(
 
So, I'm assuming that particulate matter from the surface burn off they are doing in a few places is being carried in the clouds to the shore? That's the only way I can figure 'oil' would get into the clouds since it wouldn't just 'evaporate', to my understanding. So, what am I missing?
 
If clouds can dump fish and frogs I see no reason why oil couldn't make it up there too. The surface burn off thing could be a factor. And apparently oil does evaporate a little bit:

Oil is semi-volatile, which means that it can evaporate into the air and create a heavy vapor that stays near the ground -- in the human breathing zone. When winds whip up oily sea water, the spray contains tiny droplets -- basically a fume -- of oil, which are small enough to be inhaled deep into the lungs. We know that's happening in the Gulf Coast, because people are reporting a heavy oily smell in the air. Already my colleagues in Louisiana are reporting that people in the coastal community of Venice, Louisiana are suffering from nausea, vomiting, headaches, and difficulty breathing.
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Quote from: _http://www.grist.org/article/2010-05-03-burning-oil-sends-heavy-vapor-toward-gulf-residents/
 
There is this:

_http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem03/chem03025.htm

Oil Evaporation


4/24/2003

name Rzvana F.
status student
age 9

Question - Does oil evaporate? Why?
----------------------
Rzvana,

When a liquid evaporates, its molecules must separate themselves from their attachment with
others in the liquid and then move off into the air space above. Heating the liquid makes the
molecules move faster and weakens their attachment to each other. That is why warm liquids may
evaporate more quickly than if they were cold.

Nevertheless, the molecules in some kinds of liquids, like oil for example, are rather large and
well-tangled up and attached to each other. This means that evaporation, if it occurs at all, is
very slow. That is why cooking oil, even though sometimes heated to a very high temperature,
does not evaporate to an appreciable extent.

Regards,
ProfHoff 652
=====================================================
Rzvana,

Let us define 1 'mole' of Chemical X the same as 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of
Chemical X. This is also
called Avogadro's number. For example, one 'mole' of methane, for example, is the same as
602, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 molecules of methane.

YES. Oil does evaporate. But it evaporates in a weird way. Oil is not a pure compound. Oil
is a blend of many different sizes of what chemists call 'hydrocarbons' or 'molecules'. These
molecules range from very very small (16 grams / mole ) to very very large molecules
(100s-1,000s of grams / mole)

The lighter molecules will evaporate quicker than the heavier molecules. WHY?

Let us pretend there is an oil called Rzvana's Blend. It is made of only 10 different
molecules:

Molecule 1 weighs about 16 g / mole.
Molecule 2 weighs about 32 g / mole.

.
.
.

Molecule 10 weighs about 160 g / mole.

If you want to understand how oil evaporates you need to know how evaporation really works.
Evaporation happens when a molecule has enough energy to leave its fellow liquid molecules
surrounding it. For any given temperature, or energy, the smaller molecules will move quicker
than the larger molecules. Think about kicking a soccer ball versus kicking a bowling ball. OF
COURSE I DO NOT RECOMMEND KICKING A BOWLING BALL. However, if you imagined it, the soccer ball
will travel much faster than the bowling ball. This is what happens in oil. The temperature is
the energy from your "foot" and the 10 balls that have 10 different masses are the molecules in
the oil. Now you can imagine that over a long period of time the lighter molecules will tend to
evaporate away leaving the larger and heavier molecules behind.

If this does not completely answer your question, or if my explanation was a little fuzzy please
feel free to email us back.

But I hope this helps.

Darin Wagner
=====================================================
"Oil" can be a lot of different things. It could be the "stuff" you put into a car's engine. It
could be what you cook with. It could be what you put on a bicycle chain. Many liquids and
solids have a certain amount that is also present as a gas or vapor. Water is an example. The
amount of the gas or vapor depends upon what the chemical makeup of the liquid or solid is, and
upon the temperature. Again, using water as an example, at the boiling point there is a lot of
water present as a gas, so it evaporates
fast, but at the freezing point there is much less water present as a vapor or gas so ice (solid
water) does not evaporate very quickly. Most things that we think of as being oils do not have
very much of the liquid present as a gas, so they do not usually evaporate quickly at room
temperature. However, if the oil is heated to high enough temperature it can evaporate too.
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There is also the dispersal agent Corexit 9500 that BP has used in unprecedented amounts (700,000 gallons). Sounds like very toxic stuff (it's banned in many countries around the world because it is so toxic), and fishermen have already reported getting sick from inhaling it. What are the chances that any oil that may fall will have this mixed in with it?

Btw, when you see images of the oil slick and it appears as orange, the orange is the chemical dispersant.
 
Here's a direct link to the "spill cam"

http://globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam
 
Rabelais, I merged the topic you started "it's raining oil in Florida" with this one, given that it is the same topic
 
Perceval said:
There is also the dispersal agent Corexit 9500 that BP has used in unprecedented amounts (700,000 gallons). Sounds like very toxic stuff (it's banned in many countries around the world because it is so toxic), and fishermen have already reported getting sick from inhaling it. What are the chances that any oil that may fall will have this mixed in with it?
Click to expand...

:mad: Just HOW did anybody think this was a good idea?
 
I just bought the latest "Shape of things to come" report. Cliff goes into the "Oil Volcano" that was he thought would be related to a attack on Iran. According to the webbot this disaster will be a [sacrifice (both for the US population and TPTB] and [upsetting onto its head].
I will try to see if I can get some excepts from the text, working on it now.
 
This "BP official" should be tried, and if convicted, executed for crimes against humanity.


"At a Coast Guard hearing in New Orleans, Doug Brown, chief rig mechanic aboard the platform, testified that the trouble began at a meeting hours before the blowout, with a "skirmish" between a BP official and rig workers who did not want to replace heavy drilling fluid in the well with saltwater."

_http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill

BP's top kill underway in attempt to plug oil leak


An image from a live video feed the oil plume is seen on the BP.com website early Wednesday, May 26, 2010. The oil company planned a AP – An image from a live video feed the oil plume is seen on the BP.com website early Wednesday, May 26, …
By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writer Greg Bluestein, Associated Press Writer – 6 mins ago

COVINGTON, La. – BP started pumping heavy mud into the leaking Gulf of Mexico well Wednesday, the company's boldest attempt yet to plug the gusher that has spewed millions of gallons of oil over the last five weeks.

BP hoped the mud could overpower the steady stream of oil. The company wants to eventually inject cement into the well to permanently seal it.

The stakes are high. Fisherman, hotel and restaurant owners, politicians and residents along the coast are fed up with BP's so far ineffective attempts to stop the oil leak that sprang after an offshore drilling rig exploded April 20. Eleven workers were killed, and by the most conservative estimate, 7 million gallons of crude have spilled into the Gulf, fouling Louisiana's marshes and coating birds and other wildlife.

The top kill has worked above ground but has never before been tried 5,000 feet beneath the sea. Company officials peg its chance of success at 60 to 70 percent.

President Barack Obama said "there's no guarantees" it will work. The president planned a trip to Louisiana on Friday.

"We're going to bring every resource necessary to put a stop to this thing," he said.

Meanwhile, dozens of witness statements obtained by The Associated Press show a combination of equipment failure and a deference to the chain of command impeded the system that should have stopped the gusher before it became an environmental disaster.

In a handwritten statement to the Coast Guard obtained by the AP, Transocean rig worker Truitt Crawford said: "I overheard upper management talking saying that BP was taking shortcuts by displacing the well with saltwater instead of mud without sealing the well with cement plugs, this is why it blew out."

At a Coast Guard hearing in New Orleans, Doug Brown, chief rig mechanic aboard the platform, testified that the trouble began at a meeting hours before the blowout, with a "skirmish" between a BP official and rig workers who did not want to replace heavy drilling fluid in the well with saltwater.

The switch presumably would have allowed the company to remove the fluid and use it for another project, but the seawater would have provided less weight to counteract the surging pressure from the ocean depths.

Brown said the BP official, whom he identified only as the "company man," overruled the drillers, declaring, "This is how it's going to be." Brown said the top Transocean official on the rig grumbled, "Well, I guess that's what we have those pinchers for," which he took to be a reference to devices on the blowout preventer, the five-story piece of equipment that can slam a well shut in an emergency.

A live video stream Wednesday showed pictures of the blowout preventer, as well as the oil gushing out. At other times, the feed showed mud spewing out, but BP said this was not cause for alarm.

A weak spot in the blowout preventer could blow under the pressure, causing a brand new leak.

Gene Beck, a petroleum engineering professor at Texas A&M in College Station, said the endeavor would likely fail quickly if the mud could not overcome the pressure of the oil.

"The longer it goes, maybe the better news that is," Beck said.

Frustration with BP and the federal government has only grown since then as efforts to stop the leak have failed.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, both outspoken critics, led a boat tour around the oil-fouled delta near the mouth of the Mississippi River. Through the Mississippi's South Pass, there were miles-long passages that showed no indication of the oil, and the air smelled fresh and salty. Nearby fish were leaping and tiny seabirds dove into the water.

But not far away at Pass a Loutre, the odor wafting above the oily water was that of an auto shop.

"We have yet to see a plan from the Coast Guard, a plan from BP, a plan to keep it from coming in, a plan to pick it up," Nungesser said of the oil.

"There's no wildlife in Pass a Loutre. It's all dead," Nungesser said.

___

Associated Press writers Mike Kunzelman and Kevin McGill in New Orleans, Jeff Donn in Boston, Julie Pace in Fremont, Calif., Ben Nuckols in Covington contributed to this story.
 
I came across a link when reading through the "Boycott BP" page on Facebook and thought I'd share:

_http://paulrademacher.com/oilspill/#

It's a tool that lets you superimpose your city over the spill (as of May 21st) to get an understanding of its size. Scary stuff.
 
Is anybody else watching this? It looks like the attempt to plug the leak has resulted in constricting the flow aperture, but just like a nozzle on a hose it is now flowing faster (with likely the same overall rate)?
 
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