Originally posted by Sunsnail
I've seen more than my fair share of the illiterate redneck thats missing some teeth, but nou, have you been to the south? It's probably nothing like you've built up in your head
He watched the Top Gear special. That really was the pinnacle of science and probably should have been published in the The Lancet.
The17sss
And the hits just keep on coming.....
We have 2000 skimmers in the United States. Florida Senator George LeMieux directly appealed to the president the other day on the Senate floor, why, after 61 days, we have only 20 out there working (reduced from 32 last week!).
quote:
Last week -- a week ago tomorrow, I met with the President of the United States and Admiral Allen in Pensacola.
At that time, I raised the issue of skimmers. Why are there so few skimmers in the Gulf of Mexico? Why were there only at that time 32 skimmers off the coast of Florida?
The President and Admiral Allen told me that they were making every effort they could to get more skimmers to the gulf and that they were welcoming foreign skimmers, skimmers from foreign countries come coming to our country to aid in the effort.
I told them at that time that there was a State Department report stating that 21 instances of help have been made and they were refused. Come to find out through discussions with my office that there are still offers and there have been offers from foreign countries and ports for skimmers and that, in fact, those skimmers were refused.
And I'll come to the floor tomorrow to talk about that in more detail. But the state of affairs is that there are only now 20 skimmers off the coast of Florida for.
When there were 32 last week, there are now just 20... while there are 2,000 skimmers available in the United States alone. That number comes from Admiral Allen.
Why are we only using 20 of the 2000 skimmers we have? Admiral Allen's answer: wait for it.... some of those skimmers are not available in case they're needed elsewhere for an oil spill. :wtf:
What the is going on!? That's like saying we can't send the fire truck to your burning house in case we need it for another fire. Why isn't this gross mismanagement being plastered all over the media outlets!? <---(rhetorical question)
What is the worst case scenario if the storm(s) will hit with full force ?
They are already doing controlled burns, and it is a good thing! If the surface oil and methane gas and H2S and benzene can burn off, then we don't have to worry about it anymore.
The problem is if it doesn't burn off. It could linger and build and build and then it could go off when we least expect it, without the benefit of torrential rains to control it.
The real danger here is the distribution of all this toxic soup into the Fresh Water reservoirs and the storm surge and wave action pushing this toxic soup into the bays and harbors and marshes and estuaries.
The second and larger danger is if the dissolved Methane gases are disturbed and decide to change state from solution to gas! Then we get a giant tsunami, toxic air for 100's of miles, and possibility of the large scale explosion that you mention. The rough seas and cooling rains could trigger just such a change of state, and the lightning could ignite the gases. Even if it doesn't ignite, the massive volume change would be devastating!
What is the worst case scenario if the storm(s) will hit with full force ?
That's very hard to guage without accurate information, and accurate information has been the thing in shortest supply (besides common sense) in this debacle.
But at a minimum, wherever the storm pushes a surge ashore, the land will be covered in oil to one degree or another.
The main two things I worry about are these:
1. Wave action churns the waters releasing the methane, hydrogen sulfides, benzine, and other gases into the wind streams. I'm not so sure that what will result will be lethal (probably not), but it surely will not be healthy to breathe it and will probably cause respiratory problems among the very young and very old.
2. After the storm passes, lightning strikes set an area of oiled water, marshlands, or a town on fire and that fire spreads uncontrollably because everything is soaked in oily water.
Might be way offbase.......but....seems like two logical progressions to me.
A very remote possiblity, repeat, REMOTE, is that IF this turns into a heavy-duty hurricane with extremely low barometric pressure, AND it passes over the wellhead, then the pressure gradients MIGHT change enough to trigger a large methane sublimation event. If that happens, all bets are off: anything could occur.
Before anyone flames me for fear-mongering I repeat: REMOTE, IF, AND, MIGHT. It is a possibility that should be acknowledged and prepared for, even if it turns out to be unnecessary. I'd rather have a plan and equipment in place that turns out to be unneeded that to have people be told "tough luck, we gambled and lost, sorry 'bout that."
Forecasters on June 25 had given System 93L in the western Caribbean an 80 percent chance of developing into Tropical Depression Alex, and weekends seem to always birth tropical depressions. The GOES-13 satellite captured a visible image of both System 93L and a second low east of the Leeward Islands that has a much lesser chance of development this weekend.
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite called GOES-13 captured a visible image of System 93L and the second area of cloudiness and showers east of the Leewards in a satellite image on June 25 at 14:45 UTC (10:45 a.m. EDT). The satellite image was created by NASA's GOES Project, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. GOES-13 is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Why are we only using 20 of the 2000 skimmers we have? Admiral Allen's answer: wait for it.... some of those skimmers are not available in case they're needed elsewhere for an oil spill. :wtf:
What the is going on!? That's like saying we can't send the fire truck to your burning house in case we need it for another fire. Why isn't this gross mismanagement being plastered all over the media outlets!? <---(rhetorical question)
:stongue: Are Americans even trying?
we_R_DNA
The ecological oil disaster has been solve.
They put a wedding band around the BOP and it stopped putting out.
