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BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Details of the Cement Kill - and Open Thread
Posted by Heading Out on August 9, 2010 - 10:25am
This thread is being closed. Please comment on http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6832.
BP's website is now showing that the cement plug is effective:
The pressure testing following the cementing operations indicates we have an effective cement plug in the casing which was the desired outcome.
In recent days, additional details of the Deepwater Horizon well cementing operation have emerged from the press conferences of Kent Wells and Admiral Allen.
Admiral Allen held the first and shorter conference on Friday, and there were only two external questions, so perhaps interest is now fading fast as the well is now effectively plugged. It is not yet legally plugged and the need for certain procedures to comply with regulation was part of the discussion today.
Admiral Allen noted that after injecting the well with cement, a separating fluid was injected and then the cement pumped down to the bottom of the hole by injecting mud behind the separating fluid. He again spoke to the finding that the cement had only gone down the production casing, and not the annulus.
As I’ve told you in previous briefings, we’re starting about 4-1/2 feet away from the well horizontally, and we’ll drill down at a very, very slight angle. If for some reason they penetrate the annulus in the process of doing that, they’ll prepare – they'll be prepared to go ahead and assess the condition of the annulus at that point and go ahead and submit the well in.
We do not believe that the second try will be needed to go into the casing pipe because the indications are from the cement that was put in from the top is that the casing has been filled with cement down at that level, but we will not be sure of that until we finish the pressure checks that I mentioned earlier. But if the – if the pressure checks hold and we have indication the casing has been sealed off with cement, then the killing alone would require only going into the annulus. But we will not know that until the pressure checks are complete on the – on the cementing that was done yesterday and we actually enter the annulus itself and understand what the condition is at that time.
The sense of those comments is that if the cement followed the oil path and sealed it, then there wasn’t a leak in the annulus, since all the cement went down through the casing. Thus he likely is now expecting that when the relief well intersects the annulus and the cement within it, it is not going to find any hydrocarbons. (These will be detected in the returns of the mud to the surface as they continue to circulate fluid through the drill bit on the relief well.)
It is going to take another week or so to reach and penetrate the annulus and assess its condition, but after that the finale will come quickly. Kent Wells noted that the relief well has drilled beyond the last set of casing, that was just set, for an additional 15 ft, and this has given them the space to run the cement bond log and the first ranging run to ensure the positions of the wells remain as desired. The next drilling run (of about 30 ft) will likely take place on Sunday, and he too felt that the intersection would be in the August 13-15th time frame. (Incidentally the finding that the leak was from the cement in the shoe of the well, and not in the annulus could well mean that the cement bond log test, even if run, would not have found the original leak in the Deepwater well, since it was below the range over which the instrument would run - as the need to drill out the cement in the relief well before running it illustrates. Similarly the discussion about the number of centering pieces on the production casing may also no longer be pertinent to the failure).
However, if the oil flow was constrained only through the center of the production casing, then there should be no hydrocarbon in the annulus, and to verify that they may, perhaps drill longer and further down the annulus than otherwise planned. (This to get down to the area of the shoe to ensure that the cement job already completed has sealed off any possible paths upwards outside the casing).
In response to a question, Kent Wells stated that BP had pumped 500 barrels of cement down the well, and of this roughly 200 barrels went into the formation, with 300 barrels left in the casing.
At the time of the conference ( 3 pm Central) BP was running the pressure test on the well, having raised the pressure above the plug, it was being held constant, watching to see if there is any leakage that would drop the pressure and indicate the need for a fix.)
He also pointed out that for the abandonment procedure required for the well, BP will have to replace the current BOP with a functional one that would allow them then to insert a new drilling pipe into the top of the well. They will use this pipe to create a second plug up near the top of the well, prior to carrying out the removal of the top sections of the casing (as I showed in an earlier presentation) at a level below the sea bed. This will provide the original BOP for forensic examination. The final top plug might look something like this:
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Can someone explain to me how they know that 200 of 500 bbls went into the formation? TIA.
snake -- just a guess but I think the logic went the other way: the pumped enough cmt to put the top of cmt 300 bbls above the bottom of the csg. Thus 200 bbls had to go somewhere else. I think the assumption is up the annulus and not the formation. After all the cmt can't get to the reservoir without traveling up the annulus. I wouldn't make a guess as to how much was left in the annulus or if any actually invaded the reservoir. But the 300 bbls of cmt above the bottom of the csg should just be a plain math problem.
Thanks ROCKMAN. That's pretty much what I figured.
I think I am going to disagree, with your indulgence. The consensus from the initial kill was that the failure had been through the shoe, and that the oil only flowed up through the production casing. This suggests that the cement job in the annulus around the casing was therefore still intact and if so, when the cement was injected, presuming that it is relatively thin, it might well have flowed into wormholes and other eroded features of the damaged formation. That would suggest that the well flowed a fair bit of sand over its life, but that wouldn't be unexpected under the circumstances.
A million thanks, HO. You answered my question too.
HO -- I pretty much agree. But I was talking about flowing up th annulus between the bottom of the csg and the reservoir. Are you thinking the all flow might have gone down the annulus or thru some hole in the csg? If I recall the well bore diagram correctly there's only two potential paths to the reservoir: down the production csg annulus or up the annulus from the bottom of the csg. Or maybe I'm remebering wrong.
Rock: I thought I was following, but now I'm baffled again. Kent Wells talked about the extra 200 bbl. pumped into the formation, but in your reply to Snake you seem to indicate the 200 bbl had to go into the annulus after leaving the production casing, as that was the only route to the reservoir. The reservoir and the formation are the same thing, aren't they? Where I'm confused is, are we saying the production casing doesn't penetrate to the reservoir but the annulus space does? So the cement route would be down the production casing, out its bottom, then preferentially up the annulus as that is a void space easier to penetrate than the reservoir rock?
In no particular order, and not a driler, but my take would be that
1) the well has been producing sand and there is now a small cavern at T.D. which was the first thing to fill and could take 200bbls.
2) to get a lot of cement into the reservoir sand they'd need to be above the fracture gradient and fracture the sand (a decent hydraulic fracture could take 200bbls but I'm not sure I see the point, beyond forcing the cement as far as possible into pores and microcracks before fracture). If so they should be able to see the fracture signature in the pressure vs. volume records.
3) The production casing may end above the reservoir sand (I know the depths are published but I don't have them to hand). Then the original plan must have been for an openhole completion, installing pre-perforated tubing or perhaps a gravel pack when the time came to produce the well. In that case a plug failure would expose the oil-bearing formation.
4) Or the production casing may end deeper than the reservoir sand, and they intended to perforate it later for production. In that case some of the cement around the shoe and annulus would also have to fail. The annulus is sealed and filled with a near-incompressible fluid, whereas the casing is open to the rig and thousands of psi lower pressure after displacing the mud. Flow would naturally take that path and erode any additional damage further. But in the worst case there might only be inches of intact cement between the annular fluid and hydrocarbons in broken cement, and I'd want to stick some more good cement on top from the relief well before walking away.
quaking -- Here's the published well bore diagram. It might help explain some. http://www.energy.gov/open/documents/3.1_Item_2_Macondo_Well_07_Jun_1900...
Have a look at this Haliburton briefing. At least you will be able wax eloquent about using a liner; a liner with tieback or a full casing string, at your next BBQ. All the best Acorn.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100614/Halliburton.EC.Staff....
Gordo - First terminology: The reservoir is a formation...one of hundreds penetrated by the well. Reservoir denotes a formation with hydrocarbons in it. The bottom of the production csg is at 18,304'. The base of the reservoir is at 18,206' so there's about 100' of annulus that cmt has to go up thru to reach the reservoir. The area between the production csg and the rocks below the reservoir is also called the annulus. I think this is what's confusing folks: there is annular space below, across and above the reservoir. It's this lower annulus that cmt had to pass thru to reach the reservoir. In theory they could not have pumped down the annulus outside the production csg from the well head. It's sealed off. Or was at least initially. If that seal has been lost then it's possible. Otherwise the only route for the cmt to reach the reservoir is down the production csg and then back up the lower annulus to the reservoir. here's the released well bore diagram:
http://www.energy.gov/open/documents/3.1_Item_2_Macondo_Well_07_Jun_1900...
Thanks, Rock. Getting warmer. So the path of the blowout would be from the reservoir downwards from its base through the lower annulus and then past the damaged casing shoe and up the production casing to the surface?
Gordo - That's the ASSUMPTION some are making...including me. The success of the top kill adds some support for that idea. When the cut the upper annulus with RW1 and determine if it's dead or pressured might give us some final resolution.
Gordog, seems so. But then the question is, how did the oil get to push through 100 feet of annulus supposedly full of cement, and the cement sitting inside the casing between the casing shoe and the location where a collar is set for the cementing plug to bump? Or did they not use one? I've asked the question before, what's the pipe tally for the casing string from the shoe to say 200 ft off bottom?
I found this report interesting, is this similar to what could have also happened...?
Investigation of Blowout
Main Pass Block 91
OCS-G 14576
August 23, 2007
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PDFs/2008/2008-053.pdf
Thanks, Isaac
Interesting Isaac....thanks. I've had a nagging concern from the start that a shallow csg shoe might fail. Right now the success of the top kill seems to have made that possibility much less likely. But I still won't be happy until they set all the shallow cmt plugs required by the regs. That should eliminate the shallow shoe failure potential.
Rockman:
I have trouble keeping track of all the facts about this well, so this question may just be the result of my mis-remembering a fact.
I'm looking at the well diagram that you gave a link to above,
http://www.energy.gov/open/documents/3.1_Item_2_Macondo_Well_07_Jun_1900...
I see a line towards the bottom:
"M56 Formation 18,083' MD to 18206' MD DP"
I take this formation to be the reservoir. Correct?
The thickness of this formation is 18206-18083 = 123 ft.
But I remember from other postings, that the reservoir was only 65 ft thick. What was it that was 65 ft thick?
geek -- find my answer to rainy please.
Fdol: Thanks much, and that's precisely where I'm still flying blind. If the ASSUMPTION is correct that the lower annulus supplied a flow path to a badly executed shoe, then I have to believe that for some reason said cement never sealed that 100 feet of annulus and that cement above the shoe in the lower end of the production casing was also defective in some way. (Back in 1976, as 21-year-old paralegal, I read through a gazillion pages of internal documents relating to New York City's then-incomplete Third City Water Tunnel. The subsurface geology turned out to be way different from what the geological maps had showed, and securing the rotten rock found there, 700 feet below Manhattan streets, proved a huge challenge, requiring some deft improvs. This taught me that the best engineers are the ones who have a little witchcraft in their blood.)
Rockman, thanks for the reminder to look at the source document. I've been relying on an early NOLA.com well diagram when trying to visualize what has been happening. I knew it had a couple of errors, but it has served as a nice, compact representation. Didn't realize one of the errors was showing the termination of the well in/at the reservoir, not below it, so I was one of the readers confused by the discussion of cement having to go up the annulus.
Now, of course, I have a couple of other questions that the official diagram raises...
- Is the reservoir what is referred to as
"M56 Formation 18,083'MD to 18,206'MD DP
(18,066'MD to 18,190'MD VVLM)
12.6 ppg pore pressure"
If so, is the depth(height?) of the reservoir double the 60' that has been referred to so often here?
- when the final cement was poured before 4/20 would the expectation likely have been that the cement went out the bottom of the liner and then up the annulus to the bottom of the reservoir? up part of the way through the reservoir? (basically, can you cement across the face of a porous reservoir if the pressure is below the frac gradient?)
TIA
rainy - I hope I'm using the right diagram. It shows the top of the reservoir at 18,066' MD with base at 18,190' MD. I saw the LWD log. I counted 60' of massive reservoir sand. But geologists don't pick tops/bottoms like that. The formation top to the formation base could be 124'. But tops and bottoms as geologist define them don't necessarily mean that's the limit of the reservoir. In fact a geologist might say there's a formation that's 100' thick yet only has 20' of porous reserve quality rock. We use the terms gross and net thickness just to confuse people even more.
The bottom line: the reservoir is best characterized as a 60' thick sandstone. The 12.6 ppg (11,900 psi) reservoir pressure should be reliable. They ran a pressure gauge tool (the MDT) on the end of wire line and got a direct measurement. And yes, that's the primary way you cmt csg: pump cmt out of the bottom of the csg string and thus pushing the cmt up the annulus across and above you productive reservoir. In fact, you want to keep the cmt pressure below frac gradient. Remember the primary purpose of cmt: it's not to hold the csg in place. It's to prevent any fluid movement thru the annulus. That's why they pumped enough cmt to move up the annulus above the reservoir. That's one reason I wouldn't use a cmt bond log to prove the cmt has isolated a reservoir. It might be well bonded to the csg but still have flow channels in it that could allow the oil/NG to escape. The pressure test is the best proof of isolation IMHO.
thanks.
I assume the first MD in the numbers I copied from the energy.gov doc - the MD DP - refers to the depth of the total formation as measured by the drill pipe?
and the second MD VVLM is the area that exhibits at least some slight sign of HCs (I've been googling VVLM with just enough results to guess it relates to oil somehow) with 60' of that the actual reservoir?
rainy -- In 35 years I've never seen "VVLM". Must be that new secret code i keep hearing about.
no, no Rock ... don't say that. I've been depending on you to know the answer to everything oil or ice-cream related.
Hell rainy...they stumped me good. I could't even make up a funny/stupid answer. That's rare for me.
Umm... Rock, how about WLM? That one look a bit more familiar? Just a funny font.
ETA: Oops. Opened the page, had to step out on the deck to check on the hands, came back, and bignerd had beaten me to it. For the record, 1' per 1000 was the maximum error we were allowed when I ran e-line, so 17' would just be acceptable, but just barely.
spartan....ding....Alex...what is Wire Line Measurement?. The cable the tool is lowered into the hole upon is called wire line.
Rainy:
Betcha even Rock can't name every Blue Bell flavor....
rainy,
I'll take a punt at that one - I think its WLM not VVLM, and refers to a depth measurement by wireline.
As you say, the MD DP is measured depth by drillpipe - we normally call this 'drillers depth'. Accuracy depends on the drill pipe tally - not all sections of pipe are the same length and all are measured individually.
The wireline measurement comes from lowering tools down the hole on a thick cable that comes of a large drum (in this case a MDT tool since they are referencing the pressure it measured at 12.6 ppg). The wireline engineer has to compensate in his depth measurement for cable drag and stretch, and this can be quite significant in deeper holes.
A depth discrepancy between the LWD log (drillers depth) and wireline log of 17ft is high but not unheard of. The wireline contractor will normally look closely at the data and try to reduce this before issuing a final log print; this is probably a first cut.
Yes... on closer look it does look like WLM, as rendered by a dot matrix printer.
Sorry about that Rock. (and thanks again bignerd)
rainy,
Here is what rockman is talking about :
This is the only log data that I've seen from the well so far. It looks like it is data acquired while drilling via sensors in the bottom hole assembly, rather than the higher quality data you would expect from running tools in hole on electric wireline.
The left hand track is a gamma ray log. This measures the natural radioactivity of the formation; shales are 'hot' and have a high gamma count (to the right of the track). Sandstones have much less radioactive clay minerals and have a low gamma. You can see there are 2 clean sandstone beds in the section I've showed at roughly 18085-18105, and from 18145-18205. There is another thin stringer at 18250. Above this section there are a few other thin stringers but comparatively poorer in quality.
The right hand mirror image track is formation resistivity. This measures the ability of the formation to conduct an electrical current. Shales conduct a bit, so their track lies over to the left. Water bearing porous sandstones conduct a lot; their position would be even further left. Hydrocarbon bearing porous sandstone conducts hardly any, and the more porous it is and the higher the hydrocarbon saturation, the higher the resistivity. As you can see in the sandstone units the resistivity kicks over hard. In this situation this track is probably not a bad porosity indicator so you can see the most juicy part of the reservoir is probably the part right in the middle of the main sand unit where the track wraps around.
So the net sand count for this reservoir is probably greater than 80ft in total, but the 60ft people have been referring to is the main lower unit only. There is no good reason for this; we should probably call it 80ft.
Incidentally, at the time of drilling, BP took large losses at various points in this final hole section and thats why they called it a day and stopped drilling. The well was permitted to 19650 ft but the primary target was expected at 18400 ft pre-drill and they must have felt that was the one they encountered.
They were leaking mud even after reducing the weight, and ended up doing the final cement calculations using a fracture gradient of 14.5 ppg, ie much lower than the 16.2 ppg they got at the previous shoe leak-off test.
I notice that during the recent kill cement job, they were calling the fracture gradient as even lower at 13.5 ppg. This may be a result of the reservoir depletion that might have occurred during the blow-out. In any case, it seems likely that they will have exceeded this during the cement job. I also think that quaking's view that there has been wellbore enlargement due to sand production is probably also true; for calibration note that a hole size of 2.5 ft radius over 60ft interval would account for the 200 barrels.
So I personally would not be betting that they have cement very far above the reservoir up the backside of the casing.
As usual, very helpful, bignerd. You have no idea how many noobs here thank you for such clarity.
Perfect big! Rainy see that 18,080' top and the 18,200' bottom. That is what a geologist might call the top and bottom of a FORMATION (that's the 120' thick "zone") but I would call it two reservoirs: one 30' thick and the lower one 60' thick. But if I had to guess the 60' sand was flowing wild and the 30' was probably flowing too.
The lower section appears to have much higher resistivity so would assume that most of the hydrocarbons were flowing from that zone. On the assumption that the individual curves represent various depths of penetration/interrogation, seems curious that there is little/no separation between the curves.
Thanks big and Rock.. your interpretations make a lot of sense.
One of the things I've learned at TOD is just how generous and patient many of you in the oil industry are when it comes to answering the questions of us noobs.
Amen, if I haven't thanked you all lately - thank you!
Who you callin' a noob, Willis?
I see some really interesting sedimentary geology there too. The lens between 18110 and 18135 almost certainly represents a flood-plain clay-silt layer. I can picture in my imagination a river channel meandering over the delta, laying down the sands and the flood plains as the channel migrates. Your reservoir is a snapshot in time.
Rockman
I know your guts were telling you it was shoe failure from the beginning, where as i was in the failed casing camp as I believed this gave an understandable sudden increase in pressure that we saw on the Haliburton last 2 hr chart.
With a shoe failure there would have been more of a traditionial flow increase and pit gain, which does not reflect good on the crew. To me there are two separate events when it comes to the explosion that seem to have happen at the same time.
1/ Maybe by the time they closed the annular the gas was passed the BOP and in the riser, it kept coming and evacuated the riser. Water to the crown gas in engine room intakes, boom.
2/ They closed the lower 5000psi rated stripping annular with minimal closing pressure, (Sub Sea eng states he bumped up the closing pressure of the annular to above 1500 pis, The Cameron DL operares between 1500-3000psi, but the crew did not open the choke line, close the 15000psi Inside BOP (IBOP)on the top drive and left the drill pipe lined up to the pumps. Pressure rises above pop off pressure (5000 to 5500psi) and bang, gas in the pit area and explosion.
If this is the process, what caused the stand pipe pressure (SSP) to increase so fast? The drill pipe was closed in and the gas would only travel up under migration only. The rate of pressure increase just seems too fast for this. It rose from 500psi to 1500psi in 6 min, then took off rising from 1500psi to 6000psi in two min. Maybe the gas hitting the drill pipe and increaseing its vertical velocity or were they bleeding off the SSP as there is also gain in the flow out, though usually the bleed off line by passes the flow metre.
I applogise for the ramble, basically thinking it out as I wrote. Interested to hear any other thoughts as just about all the industry people including myself had it pinned to casing problems.
"Suddenly the lights changed. Did someone turn a knob or was there an electrical fluctuation or something?"
Dr John Smith - Evidence on telemetry to Hearing.
Cameron lawyer implied that a BOP annular may have been manually opened with a gas bubble under it and Smith answered in a way that implied (to me) he thought that was possible consistent with telemetry. Equipment failure causing a sudden and unexpected opening would also seem to be consistent but clearly that wasn't what the Cameron lawyer was suggesting.
However, and it's a big however, there was no cross-questioning or challenging on this point from other lawyers (which was bizarre in itself). Also Dr Smith's report has not yet been made public so we only have snapshots of the report that were read in the Hearing.
This raises an interesting question. (Well interesting to me anyway.) The nature of the control link from the platform to the well head. The BOP seems to be entirely hydraulic in operation - which is no surprise. However there electrical links for monitoring, and we occasionally hear of the option on installing an acoustic backup channel for emergency operation of the BOP. So I assume there is an electrical package in the BOP control that commands the system.
I would hope, I would really really hope, that the communication channel uses a very robust and noise tolerant protocol. The idea that electrical interference on the link could cause incorrect operation of any part of the wellhead system would leave me in serious fear for my life working on a rig. One notes that the ROV's use a fibre optic link to talk to the surface. Which has lots of advantages, especially with the reasonably high bandwidths the video feeds need.
But even within the rig's own control systems, the idea that serious electrical noise or overvoltages on the supply could precipitate a false command suggests a serious design oversight. It isn't as if there aren't many other industries that have a lot of experience with just such issues. (The rigours that even a humble car's electronics are tested with would astound many. Then consider the safety destruct system on the Space Shuttle.)
Francis,
The BOP is powered by hydraulics but the signals are sent by fibre optic. There is an option of installing an acoustic package, the DWH did not have it, therefore there should be no electrical interference.
Undertow,
Thanks for the input, I suppose the lawyer is suggesting the pressure drop at just after 20:37 was the annular being opened and then closed at 20:38. The sub sea engineer stated it was closed when he arrived on the bridge, strange place for a BOP panel, normally in the Toolpushers office, anyway I digress, this could have damaged the annular to the point it would not seal fully again but still provide enough back pressure on the well, this would also allow the bubble to flow freely up the casing into the drill pipe, and with the annular leaking the bubble is free to expand.
According to Dr Smith he believed that the crew noticed well flow at 9:30pm and pumps were switched off. At 9:31pm he said the BOP was successfully closed in his opinion. Between then and the explosion actions were taken consistent with well control (he said BOP components and valves were opened and closed). At 9:47pm something clearly happened from telemetry and the surge to surface began. The text of his report is not scheduled to be made public until January 2011.
In his opinion well flow was first obvious at 5:55pm (during the pressure testing) but was explained away as something else.
The subsea supervisor stated that the lower BOP annular was closed but the upper was open when he arrived at the bridge. The OIM testified that the lights on the panel did not show the configuration he expected when he saw the bridge panel but was not more specific that I recall.
There seems to be an inconsistency in testimony about who was present at the bridge BOP panel though. The OIM said he was there at the time the EDS was initiated however Subsea Supervisor Chris Pleasant testified that he wasn't and that instead it was BP Company Man Donald Vidrine at the panel with him. However it was quite some time ago now that I listened to OIM testimony and it is possible I have recalled something incorrectly.
Chris Pleasant testified that himself and Vidrine then witnessed the BOP perform the EDS sequence electronically but that hydraulics did not charge so nothing physically happened.
Undertow,
Yes, pumps off 21:30, BOP closed 21:31, SSP increasing slowly. Choke press #1 & #2 reading zero, and stay that way, until the end. It is possible they were lined up and the crew were reading local gauges. Maybe they had not been hooked up to, or were isolated from the Geo services shack, BUT the thing they did not do was close the IBOP, or otherwise we would not have a SSP reading. This could have been a plan, but then the plan would have involved closing the 2 manual mud pump valves. Why would you close 2 large manual valves when at the flick off of a switch from the drillers chair you could shut the IBOP, and the wash pipe would still be exposed without the IBOP closed.
The 21:47, "something clearly happened". The casing failure line had this point covered, gas sneaked up the back side of the casing to the point it lifted, collapsed the casing or dislodged the seal assembly,take your pick, then came the surge. Now we are back to shoe failure it is much harder to find the reason behind the "surge" in pressure. We certainly do not want get involved in all the methane hydrate hype that has been going on. The only thing I have come up with is the gas finding the small diameter of the drill pipe an the increase in vertical velocity that it allowed.
The sub sea engineer should have been pissed to find them using the lower annular instead of the upper, as the lower involves a lot more work to change, unless of course he already knew the upper was U/S. Remember the stories of the large lumps of rubber at the shakers? I am sure the OIM would have expected the rams to be closed and the drill pipe hung off on them.
I think it is going to be a long wait to January for the release!
pusher -- early on BP posted the mud return record that was sent to the onshore server in real time and thus survived the explosion. Sorry i don't have that link handy but I sure someone here does. Reflect poorly? Wait till you see the charts. Not only does it show the well kicking almost an hour before the explosion but it also shows they continues to displace the riser during this time. That's been the most bizarre aspect of the accident. Hard to tell for sure but I think they had a wild blow thru the kelly before anyone even gave a thought to closing the BOP. You probabaly have a lot more experience understanding the flow monitors. But other than assumptions I haven't seen any info that indicates csg failure. The csg was in spec for the pressures involved so if the csg blew it must have been a very bad joint which no one inspected. But the records say they inspected and tested every joint. Yep...rather confusing.
Rock,
I understand the casing failure theory has been blown out of the water, no pun intended,as the kill mud and cement has gone straight down the casing with no deviations on the way. I am just trying to get my head around what would have been happening on the floor at the time. I have the Halliburton charts for the last two hours and nearly all the info is there that you need to know. Certainly all the later stuff anyway.
I believe the blow out came up the drill string but the BOP had to be closed to record 6000psi, but it is the fact that they seemed to get gas both up the DP and the riser at the same time at high pressure. Normally with two weak points are exposed to the same pressure, one blows and relieves the pressure for the other. The fact that two blew at the same time has got me. The two being the pop offs and the annular. We know the annular was leaking from the photos with gas flaring out the diverter.
I guess I will have to patient and wait for the official info to come out.
I hate that!!!
Basic question....What was the average mud weight inside of casing + riser at the time of the blow out?
From testimony of the driller, he had 14 ppg mud all the way around. Not much context to this statement so it's hard to know the details. Did they trip in after the cement job to tag the cement inside casing and circulate? Frustrating that after weeks of hearings, this very basic question has not been at least posed.
Assuming the casing had 14 ppg mud before the start of seawater diplacement, when they finished diplacing, the well would have about 10,300' of 14 ppg mud and about 8,000' of 8.5 ppg seawater. This would compute to a weighted average of 11.6 ppg. Just a pound-per-gallon under the 12.6 ppg pore pressure of the Macondo Sand.
The upper 8000' of the well would not have been clean seawater at the time of the blow-out. Several factors would have raised the average weight in this portion of the well:
1) Some of the 14 ppg mud in the well prior to displacement would have mixed with the seawater.
2) Some of the 16 ppg spacer that was pumped with the seawater would have mixed with the seawater.
3) Just prior to the blow-out a sheen test was performed on the spacer fluid that had reached to surface. Was some of the 16 ppg spacer still in the riser when well kicked?
Has anybody seen a mud weight estimate of the fluids inside of the well at the time of the kick?
NU - As I recall they had 14 - 14.2 mud in the csg/riser before displacing. That would be an initial 18,000' column. You're correct: frustarting. I don't recall if it was made clear if they began displacing with salt water from the bottom of the csg or not. But at one point the end of the DP was 3,000' below the sea floor when they continued to displace. Also, I had not heard of a 16 ppg spacer and not sure what it would have been for. As far as average weight in the well bore I'm not sure we can guess right now. Other than the column weight had to be less than the 12.6 ppg reservoir pressure. I doubt there was a lot of mixing though. I do recall eye witness accounts that the initial blow was water (presumably salt water) and not mud. That would make sense if they had displaced most of the upper csg/riser with salt water before the well kicked. It would have only been any mud left in the bottom of the csg that would have reached the surface late in the event IMHO.
Rockman,
Thanks for the reply.
Regarding the 16 ppg spacer, it was discussed during Dr. Smith's testimony:
[The 16 ppg spacer was a combination of two "lost circultion pills" that were on hand. The volume of the spacer was quite large, 454 barrels. Since it was water based mud, it could disposed of in the gulf.
It was also mentioned that they pumped 775 barrels. It's presumed 775 barrels is volume needed to get the spacer above the BOP.]
It was a rather disjointed part of the testimony regarding the negative test. Dr. Smith's premiss is the negative test was not valid because some of the 16 ppg spacer entered in the kill line. The implication is the 16 ppg spacer leaked thru the annular or they didn't pump enough volume to get the spacer above the BOP.
My guess is; At the time of the negative test, the casing held 10,300' of 14 ppg mud, 3000' of seawater and the riser was full of the 16 ppg spacer. If this is the case, the average mud weight in the casing/riser at the time of the negative test(s) was about 13.65 ppg.
NU
Before the last thread closed, Activated 05b posted the following:
That is really beautifully expressed, David, and elegantly compact. So what happens when we do that hard work and come to understand our parents' motivations and feel deep down compassion for them, and thence ourselves? Do we take over those roles for ourselves?
Now, how does that help me in dealing with others? Let us say I now understand that my creepy coworker is actually suffering the tortures of the damned. Is there anything I can do about it?
Two people telling me, respectively, that I have "an economy of words" and I'm "elegantly compact?"
That's really scary, because, as you might have noticed, I believe I ramble on.
But on to two very apropos and interesting questions.
When we understand our parent and feel compassion for them, that can only influence our actions. We can't do their work, although we may find opportunities, which we wouldn't have found before, to make it easier for, and perhaps even encourage, them to allow their underlying feelings to emerge.
An example. Shortly before my mother died, we were walking down the hall of the adult home chatting. I suddenly became aware that she was effectively apologizing to me for not being a better parent. I had four options, as I see it: I could have glossed over it with platitudes. I could have recognized it as an opportunity for some healing for both of us. I could have taken advantage of the opening and unloaded all my anger on her. Or I could have ignored it and let it pass.
I was too healthy and smart to utter platitudes, I wasn't brutal enough to attack her, and I wasn't healthy enough to seize the opportunity for healing. I chose what some would call the coward's way (and I would be hard pressed to challenge that [unless I was my therapist, in which case I would have said "That was the best you were capable of at the moment. Maybe next time you'll be able to take advantage of the opportunity."]), and didn't respond at all because I was still too angry with her to help either of us heal.
No, it's not our job (nor are we able) to do anyone else's work, nor judge their efforts. Almost by definition they are doing the best that they can at the moment. We can try to understand them better, so that we can approach them with understanding rather than hostility. Then we can make it safe for them to, without nearly as much fear, confront what they have done, why it was profoundly counter-productive, and the true consequences were not even what they wanted to happen, when they understand the full dimensions of their acts.
Then they have to accept responsibility for their actions and confront what are, with any justice, the natural and appropriate consequences of their actions. If they have the opportunity and the wisdom, then they will apply the lessons learned to their future behavior, so that they can make the future better than the past.
When we become adults we have to set aside the pain of the learning process, and the anger toward those who have brought us that pain. We have to accept responsibility for our actions, take the appropriate consequences, understand our actions in full (not just the event, but what led up to it, what we intended, how we justified it, what the real, as differentiated from the expected, or hoped for, consequences of our actions were), and how we could respond to such a situation in a healthier fashion in the future. Then, as I said before, if we're wise, we'll apply those lessons to our future behavior, and make the future better than the past.
Can anyone do any better than that?
Edit: to remove ill used html code
Almost by definition they are doing the best that they can at the moment.
A minister of my acquaintance was fond of observing that everyone always thinks they're doing the right thing.
Don't get me wrong, Dave. Sure you ramble, but you're so charming about it I like to listen to you. The economy I meant was the few words you took to map out the long journey back into one's history, confronting what we find there, and then slogging back to the surface with a changed perspective. If more people took that guided tour we might have a little less hostility floating about the place.
Thanks,
I'll confess it was a long journey to get here, with a few missteps along the way, but it's been nothing if not interesting. As I am wont to say, another 200 years and we'll look back on all of this and laugh.
David,
Just a quick reply (I hope!) in reference to your comment to me about my views concerning the seafloor methane hydrate eruptions.
I certainly know what you mean about projection in this instance. Often I 'think' I see a geyser of oil coming from the seafloor. But in fact I don't. It's just the pixilation of the video and the scrolling upward of the screen that causes the blackness to appear to be gushing when really there's nothing there at all. I've learned what ROV thrusters do to the seafloor and no longer mistake this for all havoc breaking loose. What I find absolutely amazing is that there should be any disagreement at all about the cathrates coming from the seabed. It seems a bit coincidental to assume that this has nothing to do with the well. But perhaps it is just a coincidence and doing sonar scans of the sea floor is just par for the course. I have no expertise at all in oceanography or oil drilling but if you take the time to learn about methane cathrates and their presence in the GOM and then watch the videos of the seafloor, I don't know how you could not agree. It's not difficult to see these small eruptions. They're completely obvious. It's not a matter of perception or interpretation OR projection. I'm only sorry that someone from BP or the government hasn't taken the time to explain why this is happening. If there's nothing to worry about, no one would be happier than me. Btw, none of the akamai feeds are working at the moment: 2:48 EDT. First time that's happened.
Don't shrink away from that ignorance - he'll be lucky if the massive hydrate formation that WILL form if the leaking doesn't stop, NOT to mention the possible massive organic based hydrate formation that's ALREADY there AND possibly caused the disaster, disassociate - When they DO, in the most peaceful-to-DavidEBrown manner...like to the atmosphere...which i suppose would be the ONLY "peaceful" manner possible, being that the theorized common and usually benign-to-DavidEBrown mudslide blowout disassociation would probably take out the wellhead...
I'll leave the Tsunami predictions to the experts...i'm sure they're already heavy into that math...
Question: Can hydrates SEAL up the leaking pathways and actually keep MORE methane and then oil from leaking...???
Yes
this brings me back to an idea, from very early on they had a connection to the original bop via the choke and kill lines. why not pump seawater into the bop and let hydrates freeze the thing up? even if its not perfect, it would seem that might have blocked the flow considerably until the special BOP from cameron was ready or the rw. they did not do something like this because of concerns about leaks?
I don't think hydrates have the strength to hold 7000 psi in this geometric set up. You asked if hydrates could hold gas and oil, I said yes. But you didn't specify the pressure. I believe hydrates can hold a few psi when they form within sea floor sediments. But if you put 7000 psi to a hydrate formed in a mud matrix, the whole thing blows out rather nicely.
Several weeks ago we discussed the weight of a cement block needed to stop the well flow were it to be placed on top of the well, and I estimated a 20 ton block would fly off the well at 24 mph. Others estimated the block would have to weigh as much as 1600 tons to hold the well pressure. So I invented a 600 ton steel cylinder to stop it, and it got pretty zany right around that time.
lol...I had the same/similar idea back when this all started, using a cap/box and 2 valves to gradually gate the flow to another riser connection, with some ultrasound to take care of hydrates . I'm sure it got some laughs when I sent it in.
http://mentaljudo.blogspot.com/p/capture-and-tame.html
Yes, johnebe. In fact that's exactly what happened with the Top Hat.
What a fascinating post!
I suspect that it's going to take a while to understand it if understanding is indeed possible, but I'm going to try.
I got enough to wonder if you know the exact time this disaster will happen?
I want to be paying attention, so I won't miss the lesson I'm supposed to draw from it.
But if I'm asking too much, let's just leave it as a surprise.
Thanks anyway,
The thus-far-unrattled-DavidEBrown
Last things first, I believe there have been complaints about the screens all going blank before.
I suspect that it takes a lot of training for an ROV operator to learn how to drive one of those things without destroying it, and then a lot more training to begin to understand what they're seeing, especially considering marginal visibility, the enormous impact on interpretation that the difference in light levels and camera settings create in the screen images, no depth perception, and a need to master a number of different disciplines to distinguish flora from fauna, natural from unnatural, etc. To imagine that I can see something they don't takes a lot of hubris, and even I don't usually have enough of that.
When rovman speaks, I listen. If I call something to his attention and he defines it as benign, I feel 99% confident that he's accurate when he says there's nothing to worry about. Even if I'm only 51% confident, I'm unlikely to worry about it unless I have expert and/or unambiguous evidence that he's wrong.
The people sitting right over their rovers are not going to ignore anything that seems like a threat to them. They aren't that stupid or brave. As Alaskageo said in the now closed thread: 'Very early in my career, a wise old geezer said "Son, if yur ever headin' to the rig, and you see people runnin' towards you, DON'T wait till they git to ya to ask what's goin' on. You turn around and start runnin' too. If they catch up to you, then you can ask what's goin on!"'
When I see the ROV men, and others, sitting right over that place, run, I'll take the old geezer's advice. Until then I'm not going to worry, because I have other things that I need to attend to more urgently.
As for BP and the government's response to these issues. I believe they already have responded. They appear to be aware of what has been said, or believed, by a variety of groups, and have tried to address those concerns.
One of the realities about human behavior is that we often have fears which are not a product of current experience, but have taken root because of some, as yet unresolved, past experience. In those situations current experiences can trigger, even though they aren't the origin of, those fears.
Fear is such an important clue for us, that when we experience it we look around for the source and, invariably pick what we believe is the best candidate.
Thus, when I walk in the door at home and the wife, kids, and dog are all clamoring for my attention so I feel overwhelmed and afraid. So I may kick the dog, swat the kids, and yell at or swat my wife, not because they've done any thing wrong, but because they remind me that I'm always being asked to do too much at work, my finances are a mess, and I'm wondering why I have difficulty urinating lately.
Usually it isn't that dramatic, it's more like being uneasy about someone because he looks dangerous, or, feeling I'm not being listened to any more than I was when I was a kid. It's a mild form of ptsd, and can be easily addressed, but often we're afraid of what we might find out.
And no, I'm not trying to diagnose you, only help you understand that there may be other factors than what the things you see on look like to you that may be the roots of your interpretation.
Oh, blah, blah, blah, David. I never said the cathrate eruptions were dangerous. I'm not one of the conspiracy crowd who believes the GOM is going to explode. I stay away from websites that deal in those catastrohic predictions. The only thing I claim is that methane IS seeping from the sea floor. To assume that I am one of the 'doom-sayers' is insulting my intelligence. I would appreciate help in understanding this phenomena amd why oil drilling might contribute to it. Simply denying something that is obvious isn't any help at all. No TOD experts who have seen this sort of thing before? I'd really like an explanation. I think I'm going to google it. Perhaps there's info out there that would explain it.
Then what's the point??
Would you be as frustrated if you thought it was fresh water coming out?
I understand curiosity, and academic interest, I like to know details too. I'm eating up all this technical data. But I'm asking questions, and if they aren't answered I let it go. I asked earlier what a spacer was composed of, but nobody was focused on that so I didn't get a response. By being patient I've picked up a lot more information, so I believe I have a pretty good idea what it is now.
Anyway, I'll let you alone.
Methane always seeps from the seafloor. It forms there, and there are shallow buried sand stringers that accumulate methane and like to release it because they are geopressured. The only way oil operations normally "contribute" to it is by mechanically stirring up the sediment - which all those ROV thrusters have been doing very well. IMO, the methane seeps are expected and of no real concern.
David et al, given the discussion about hydrates at / near the seafloor, this might be of interest.
http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil-gas/FutureSupply/MethaneHydrate...
With apologies for continuing OT-ward (after this, I won't persist) . . . some fresh evidence of what I discussed in the last thread, the brokenness of the US Army.
Today, CNN quotes opposing views of the 22-year-old "WikiLeaker" who sits in solitary confinement under suicide watch in Quantico, while NYT suggests that, as much as anything, homophobia brought disaster upon Brad Manning, the US military, and possibly others in Afghanistan. But NYT's story also echoes (strangely, without mentioning) the case of Nidal Hasan.
Quoting milblogger Crispin Burke's Tweet "Tons of money spent on Top-Secret clearance investigations, and they’re granted to emotional train wrecks?" Adam Weinstein expands:
Sure has begun to look that way. Again.
US law forbids considering homosexuality and any associated behaviors as part of the 'whole person' concept used to approve or deny a security clearance.
This law was the result of blanket denials of security clearances to homosexuals based on historical statistics. (A very percentage of people who illegally transfer classified information were also homosexual. Since they tend(ed) to do this at a rate significantly higher than their representation in the population being a homosexual was considered to be something that increases the security risk for a person with access to classified information.)
IMO - we are leaving ourselves a huge security hole by failing to include homosexuality and secondary behaviors related to that homosexuality as part of the 'whole person' concept used to determine a person's level of security risk.
Trivia note - anybody with access to classified information is considered to be a security risk. What the government attempts to do is determine if the level of security risk presented by any particular individual is acceptable in relation to the sensitivity of the information they have access to or the position they hold.
(I manage security clearances for my employer.)
"a homosexual was considered to be something that increases the security risk for a person with access to classified information"
The reason for that was that the society was not yet able to accept homosexuals. Decades back outed homosexuals would be shunned by the society. This made closet homosexuals prone to blackmail.
As society has opened up and homosexuals are mostly accepted the problem simply went away. Hardly anyone (other than prominent folks at the right like some closet homosexual evangelical preachers) is today prone to blackmail because of his/her sexual orientation.
You are incorrect. Homosexually was considered to be an issue because of the number of homosexuals who illegally divulged classified information.
The decision that homosexuality cannot be considered to be a factor in security clearances was based on political concerns - not security 'best practices.'
In determining whether or not to grant a security clearance you have to consider the entirety of a person - arbitrarily leaving out a particular aspect of personality due to political concerns does nothing but place political correctness above real national security issues. Add to the fact that homosexuals have illegally transfered classified information at a rate much higher than their representation in the general population and it is doubly reckless to forbid including homosexuality as a factor. It is even worse when you consider the fact that heterosexual relationships and practices are subject to review under the 'whole person' concept.
Statements like these require citations. Could you post them, please?
At this time - no.
Mostly because I am not willing to dig through my old security references.
Whether or not you believe this is up to you.
Whether or not you believe this is up to you.
Activated, since people blinded by the kind of bias you're showing here make very poor analysts, I dearly hope that mighty damn few in "homeland security" (a term Stalin would love) think this way. If many do, we're screwed.
What you call 'bias' - I call an unconcern about political correctness.
Activated, you're going to have a very hard time with the 21st century, I'm afraid.
Maybe. But if one military officer had been less concerned about political correctness then Major Hasan would not have killed all those soldiers.
Go to the powerpoint presententation I linked to from the Counterterrorism Blog - everybody knew that the guy should not have been around but everybody was afraid to buck the PC crowd and say so. (And having served for 26 years I can assure you that the military can be very PC.)
Groupthink is very dangerous. The time to be wary of disaster is when everybody agrees on something. (I always follow the rule: 'The average IQ is inversely porportional to the number of people in the room.)
Homophobe. Likely closet homosexual. Rebuke any further security clearance.
I don't believe it, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were true, for the reason cited by MoonOfA ("Decades back outed homosexuals would be shunned by the society. This made closet homosexuals prone to blackmail").
An uncle of mine was a con man back in the 1930's-1940's. He occasionally blackmailed gay men for quick cash. All you needed was some gaydar, a come hither look, and a fake badge. Gay men were so terrified of being outed in the newspaper and losing everything, including their families, that they gratefully gave up every penny they had.
You are incorrect. Homosexually was considered to be an issue because of the number of homosexuals who illegally divulged classified information.
And there were that many of them because they were vulnerable to blackmail by those wanting such information. What's "incorrect" about what he said?
W.T.F!
I guess Alan Turing was a security risk back in the day, eh?
This is the 21st century get over your homophobia already what you are saying is pure unsubstantiated yak dung! You can't back any of your statements up with anything other than bigoted fear mongering.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe778p_the-daily-show-gay-reichs_news
I have seen some indications that while screening for admission into the army, the screeners may be missing some important issues.
I work with a lot of soldiers, and, apart from the stress that they are under just being on deployment so often, plus combat, plus some of the thing that they're asked to do, etc. They're pretty loaded up.
I had a client who had entered the army and found a speciality which suited him well in most respects, but was very stressful, with no provision for being emotionally debriefed after his missions.
When I interviewed him, I discovered that he had undiagnosed PTSD even before he enlisted, and, in my opinion, as I told the army, he shouldn't have been admitted without being treated for that.
It was a tribute to his character and the resiliency of the human spirit that he performed admirably in combat and was commended for it. Unfortunately, shortly after he returned from his last deployment (knowing full well that he had another deployment coming up), while winding down, readjusting to life at home, and generally trying to relax, he made a relatively minor misjudgment which he knew was wrong immediately and stopped before it progressed further.
The army chaptered him out. He lost all his benefits after 13 years of exemplary service, not permitted to get VA treatment of the cancer he contracted while enlisted, etc.
The army is so focused on doing its mission, and addressing its organizational needs that they are not paying adequate attention to the needs of the vital tools (human beings) upon whom they rely to execute that mission
". . . he made a relatively minor misjudgment . . ."
One thing my psychologist hammered into me is that PTSD does not excuse my actions. Despite having PTSD - I still make choices and understand the difference between right and wrong and legal and illegal.
If I do something that is morally or legally wrong - it is because I chose to perform that action - not because I have PSTD.
FYI - I am listed by the VA as 30% disabled due to combat PTSD.
And you may be getting a line of BS here. The VA treats for any service-connected illness or injury. If he was diagnosed with cancer while on active duty or can provide evidence that the cancer existed but was undetected while he was on active duty - he is entitled to treatment from the VA. And FYI - this also goes for his PTSD. There was a recent change in legislation that made service in a combat zone as presumptive for a 'service connection' for any diagnosis of PTSD by a VA doctor or psychologist.
I agree that it doesn't relieve him from responsibility for his actions, and he has taken full responsibility for them.
One point was that if the army had screened him properly he wouldn't have been in that position in the first place, (although in certain circumstances he still could have acted inappropriately). The second was that returning from combat and not even being evaluated for PTSD, let alone treated for it by the army, was criminal.
In fact, the easiest way to treat his PTSD resulting from his combat experience would have been to proactively do a therapeutic debrief after each mission, to help him put the experience in the appropriate perspective.
Instead of that they gave him a dishonorable discharge which deprived him of all his accumulated benefits, including access to VA services, even for his previously diagnosed and treated cancer, let alone his undiagnosed (by the army) PTSD. He had to pay out of pocket to get my services, which were court mandated.
I offered to help him with both his PTSD and depression, with both of which I have considerable experience, but not surprisingly, after he was discharged from the program, having completed treatment for his offense, he left the area, even though I offered treatment for whatever fee he could afford, which was precious little, since he was unemployed and not entitled to unemployment benefits.
In my considered opinion he was hurt by the army far and above whatever damage he caused to anybody. They just wanted to get rid of him so they wouldn't have to be embarrassed by him, let alone deal with him.
I lost track of him a couple of years ago. He was fighting to get his benefits restored, but I don't know how he made out with that. I am very hopeful that they will do the right thing.
"In fact, the easiest way to treat his PTSD resulting from his combat experience would have been to proactively do a therapeutic debrief after each mission, to help him put the experience in the appropriate perspective."
You need to learn something about combat PTSD. Combat PTSD is caused by physical changes in brain structure as the brain to adapts to an environment of near constant threat. Debriefings are not going to prevent this.
Additionally, a DD (Dishonorable Discharge) is a punishment that can only be imposed after a General Courts Martial. In effect - in order to get a DD he had to have been convicted of a felony. In addition with a DD he would have served a period of time in a military prison.
I served in OIF II and they were already performing pre and post deployment screenings. What were his dates in theater?
This guy's story sounds less credible with every detail you provide. I hate to say this - but I suspect that you have been played.
Yes there are physical changes, but it's not entirely clear yet whether they are causal factors, or evidence of the way we can essentially reprogram our brain because of some significant benefit it will provide.
For example, several years ago an experiment was conducted where subjects were supplied with headgear which effectively took what they were looking at and turned the image upside down.
After wearing that for a time (I think it was a few days, but I'm not sure), their brains flipped the images back upright. After wearing them for a period of time in that mode, the headgear was removed. Then they were again seeing everything upside down until the brain adjusted again to provide normal vision.
A slightly different case. When head injury or stroke victims try to do certain actions they often can't, because the physical damage their brain has experienced has interfered with their ability to do that action. After considerable rehab they are often able to recover much, if not all, of that ability. Why? Because they have induced changes in the wiring in their brain.
In any case, regardless of the neurological changes, barring physical trauma sometimes, but even including that much of the time, significant improvement in functionality and social abilities can be achieved by "talk" therapy.
And in cases such as combat PTSD I would argue that since their sense of danger is a product of perception, it is relatively straightforward to help them find accurate ways of distinguishing between real and simply perceived threats, thus helping them enormously to recover better functionality.
As for the DD (It's possible it was a less than honorable, but I think it was a DD, it doesn't really matter, they're both pretty consequential for the soldier), it was a product of a felony conviction in criminal court (CID and the local DA work out which will have jurisdiction). Yes, if he were courtmartialed for the offense, as some of my clients have been, he would have done federal prison time, as some of my clients have, but he wasn't, and therefore didn't. He, in fact, did little or no jail time, I don't remember which. The army doesn't seem to have any sense of humor about certain offenses, their sentences are often a lot harsher than criminal court.
I don't remember his dates in theater, my recollection was that he did two tours in Iraq, and one in Afghanistan. In any case he got the normal pre and post at that time, but, unless they saw serious problems, or had a record of problems that was pretty much an "are you depressed?"
As for being played. That's always a possibility, I'm not immune to that, I suspect, although thus far the only ones I've experienced have been relatively minor. But I've been doing this for a while, consensus appears to be that I'm pretty good at it, and, in this case I had correspondence with the army.
Have I been vetted thoroughly enough now? Or do you have more questions?
And besides, assume I failed all of your tests of me? Would that mean that I was wrong in my analysis?
And haven't we shifted away from the original issue?
If you don't mind I'm going to stand at ease for a bit.
Dave `(:<))-<=<
I agree that we should be discussing this topic over a beer.
I do not think that you have failed any tests as such. I was giving you my understanding and what I was taught by the people who helped me learn how to manage my PTSD. (Which seems to be working as I haven't crawled under my desk in over a year.)
Increased freedom can be a wonderful thing. Would that we didn't have to through the pain to get there, but maybe that's what makes the journey almost as worthwhile as the goal.
I suspect that we are talking about different things. You appear to be discussing the effects of domestic abuse while I am discussing the process of radicalization and how terrorist selection of targets differs from that of "ordinary" mass killings.
One huge mistake people make is that they assume that extremists/terrorists have some sort of mental illness or defect. Instead they are rational people who have a consistent set of beliefs and choose targets based on fairly predictable criteria.
Major Hasan was not 'crazy' instead he was following the rules and social norms of his ideology.
BTW - do you have any references that would indicate that Major Hasan was a victim of domestic abuse?
No, I know almost nothing about his background, and suspect that I'm in the same boat as almost anyone who has speculated about him and his motivation. There's incomplete information to attribute motivation.
The examples I cited were simply examples of possible roots of his behaviors. I was trying to point out that the motivation proffered by the media and others was only one example, and, in my opinion an insufficient explanation, of the roots of his behavior.
We run into all sorts of apparently very healthy and happy people doing bewildering things. But whenever I've dug into the roots of the behavior, I've discovered almost a gold mine of understandable etiology of the behavior in question.
All we know in these cases is that something went horribly wrong. We'd better accurately figure out what it was, so we can effectively address it again.
Writing off behavior as evil, or politically inspired, or terrorism, etc. tags them with labels which are not only inadequate, but also misleading, and great cover for those of us who believe we could never do such a thing - "after all we're not like them."
We are exactly like them, except that our history brought us to a different experience of the world.
But we could have been even more like them if we had experienced the same history.
There but for the grace ...
"No, I know almost nothing about his background, and suspect that I'm in the same boat as almost anyone who has speculated about him and his motivation. There's incomplete information to attribute motivation."
The information is there - you just have to know where to look. This is why I supplied a link to the Counterterrorism blog.
And I disagree on the idea that we are 'like them.' We live under a one set of cultural values and norms while the live under a completely different set of cultural values and norms. Some of our most cherished values and ideals (such as representative government) they see as an evil which must be eventually destroyed. For example - has anybody ever wondered why al Qaeda slaughtered so many Iraqi civilians? This is because from the viewpoint of al Qaeda - the decision by the Iraqi people to form a representative government made them apostates who deserved death for this 'crime against Islam.'
Am I anything like them? No. (And I am pretty proud of this.)
FYI - as part of my Master's program I took a class that in effect - taught me how to think like a extremist/terrorist and look at the world from the viewpoint the same.
I think you've missed my point, perhaps because I didn't articulate it clearly. I understand the ideology's impact on the individual recruit, and what power it seems to induce. The point is that the ideology that provides the logical framework and rationale for the terrorism programing is overlaid on the already existing emotional damage which has already distorted their thinking, thus making them particularly vulnerable to the false message of hope which they receive from al Qaeda, or any other organization which takes them under its wing.
According to your view, why would there not be a huge influx of recruits, far above what has been seen? Because it isn't the message of the terrorists or their ideology that is the primary danger. It is the vulnerability which is characteristic in all their recruits, who have been recruited precisely because of that vulnerability, which then becomes the rich soil in which the ideology can be planted, and then fed by all the mistakes of the "enemy."
Even people who have suffered from brutally harsh physical conditions are not necessarily the fertile soil that the ideology needs to thrive, They need to have experienced severe emotional pain, which seems to single them out, and against which they feel helpless, that creates the rich soil terrorists need. That is why you see people like bin Laden in these movements, not because of physical suffering, but because he has never been able to assuage his emotional pain, in spite of his privileged upbringing. I don't know what induced the damage to his psyche, but it was very painful, and he felt helpless against it. Sounds an awful lot like PTSD doesn't it?
We see the same phenomenon in our domestic terrorists, who are not, for the most part, driven by the ideology of radical islam, but rather by some other equally attractive belief system which, because it promises to solve all of their problems and give them peace, has taken root in their fertile soil of despair.
When I marry, or have a child, or get a new car, or a new job, or a promotion, or hit the lottery, I can't help thinking, if only for a moment, that this time the change that is a product of that action will make my life significantly better. That's what advertisers count on to sell their products, the hope they offer to relieve the pain that we have. I'm always a little bit surprised when I find that I'm not then a quasi superman, girded agains all those niggling little irritants that I used to experience, but am pained to now discover are still there.
However much hope the new ideology provides, it can't take root in anyone who has no pain, and therefore has no need to find a different place to be.
The ideologies will always be readily available, it is the pain that we need to address, and it will, indeed, be a long struggle, even if al Qaeda and all the other radical islamists were to be magically eliminated. It might look different, but it would be the same.
It's very like trying to extinguish a burning blaze. You don't aim at the flames, they are only the most spectacular part of the conflagration. Instead, if you want to be successful, you aim at the fuel at the base of the fire. If you remove the fuel, or effectively neutralize it with an appropriate application suited for that species of fuel, you will quickly extinguish the fire.
In the case at hand we would be better served to yes, still fight the flames of terrorism, like you would wet down a building which is adjacent to keep the fire contained, but the real solution is to remove or neutralize the pain that is the fuel for the conflagration.
By the way, it would also be far cheaper than what we're trying to do now, which is to create a few more millionaires for precious little positive result, but plenty of sacrificed blood.
I started reading your comments on homosexuality and your refusal to provide supportive data. I do not think you have a source for you comments, from your first word to your last. It's just bias, plain and simple, supported with discriminatory thoughts and ideas, reinforced with fear, insecurity and ignorance. I wasn't surprised when reading this last post.
I recently took a class in Issues of Diverse Populations and I was surprised to hear the comments of the young students. All this time I was thinking we had come quite a distance from the thinking and actions I saw growing up on the redneck rivera. I was wrong but things have improved, just not as much as I thought and hoped for.
Activated05b, I'm not sure the area of study for your masters but it seems based on your comments you met the pre-requisites for your extremist/terorist class. I'm quite sure you passed also. The true skill and gift of the professor would be to undo what the students had learned in order for them to be a terrorist.
To replace the BOP and run drill pipe into the well, they will have to remove the old drill pipe - which has now been cemented in place. Or am I missing something?
According to Kent Wells, the cement is in the bottom 5,000' of the well, not the top, with fluid and mud in the casing above the cement. That means the drill pipe is not cemented in. The assumption is that the pipe is still hanging from somewhere in the old BOP.
If the old drill pipe had already dropped into the well it is out of the way and has been cemented in place.
If it is still caught in the BOP AND cement is higher than they think, it may already be cemented in place, and they would need to (and can) just cut the top off and pull it out.
If it is still in the BOP and the bottom is above the top of cement (the most likely scenario?), I don't know how it would/should be handled. Pull the whole BOP/DP mess out & to the surface in one piece? Pull the whole mess out and drag the pipe along the sea floor and cut it free? Try to drop the pipe out of the BOP and back onto the cement plug (kind of scary)? Remove the new package and spool and try and latch onto the stub in the old BOP and then open the rams some way and pull out the pipe before removing the BOP (best, if it can be done)
Italian chic meets Louisiana crude.
...in which fdo finally gets his oil covered chicks :)
Am I ready for this? Caffeine first, then we'll see . . .
There's no way to prepare. The concept is just too odd.
Although now that I think about it, there's nothing odd about polyester. I guess that's the point.
OIL!!! Relax, you're dressed in it ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzmTtusvjR4 ).
Actually, there are some of us who think polyester is about as odd as it gets.
And that Vogue piece is about as cheap and tasteless as that white polyester pants suit I dumped as soon as I got out of my mother's house.
IMHO
I'm sorry but if you owned a white polyester disco suit you can't be trusted with an opinion.
It wasn't a disco suit - trust me. It actually was a very nice pants suit with a double-breasted jacket which was meant to be worn to church. :-)
When disco came along, we all looked at those crazy kids and wondered why they'd want to be wearing those old-fashioned clothes...
OIL!!! Relax, you're dressed in it
No I ain't.
OIL!!! Relax, you're typing on it (sitting on it, staring into it wondering what to type on it).
Well, okay. But not* mah clo'es.
* Except for mah GoreTex foulies.
Thad Allen was on CNN with Candy Crowley. The Times Picayune story "Thad Allen gives mixed grade to BP for blowout response" is here http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/08/thad_allen_giv...
Now it is time for the National Incident commander's report card.
The Appointment of the NIC is theoetically due to the size of the oil spill and, by his appointment, he and the federal government assume all responsibility for the response. So any grade for the response to the spill should not be assigned to BP, rather it should be assigned to the NIC. So his comments more accurately reflect on his team
This struggle can be better understood if one notices that the federal government did not follow its own prepared plan for meeting the demands for a major disaster which would have entailed a Presidential declaration and subsequent engagement of FEMA (500 unused school buses anyone?) as noted by Yuri Gestetner http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/06/comparison_of_response_to_ka... and John White http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/bungling_the_gulf_spill_respon.html
The proof of this omissioncan be found on FEMA's website http://www.fema.gov/news/disasters.fema where they list 31 "Major Disaster Declarations" since the starting date of this incident 4/20/10, but the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is conspicuously missing.
Thad Allen's grade? FAIL
Let's think about what might have happened if this spill had been caused by the wreck of an Ultra-Mega-Super-Duper-Bulk-Carrier oil tanker. Would the Coast Guard have deployed its salvage assets? What salvage assets you ask? What government salvage capability does exist resides with the U S Navy http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4400&tid=800&ct=4
What the Navy typically does is contract with a company specializing in marine salvage (many of the best are Dutch and would present Jones Act questions). Here is the best book on naval salvge Mud, Muscle and Miracles http://www.amazon.com/Mud-muscle-miracles-marine-salvage/dp/B002WWV72O/r... with its many, many references to Merritt-Chapman, a famed American private sector salvage company of that era.
[Edit] This is what the CV of a National Incident Commander for a maritime oil spill ought to look like
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pnav/is_199308/ai_1314508139/
The proof of this omissioncan be found on FEMA's website http://www.fema.gov/news/disasters.fema where they list 31 "Major Disaster Declarations" since the starting date of this incident 4/20/10, but the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is conspicuously missing.
__________________________________________________________
FEMA has nothing to do with oil spills.
The federal Oil Pollution Act is the applicable law.
http://www.capalphadc.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/2010-04-30-desc-RL3...
The designated lead agency in coastal oil releases is the United States Coast Guard (USCG).
The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan takes authority from the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA), other legislation, and Executive Order 12777.
The contingency plan was invoked on 4/29/2010 when Janet Napolitano, Secretary of US Homeland Security declared the Deep Water Horizon blowout to be a "Spill of National Significance" (SONS).
Title 40 Protection of the Environment
Chapter 1 Environmental Protection Agency
Part 300 National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
Subpart B--Responsibility and Organization for Response
Sec. 300.105 General organization concepts.
Excerpt
Subpart D--Operational Response Phases for Oil Removal
Sec. 300.323 Spills of national significance.
Excerpts
The contingency plan provides an extensive framework for using, as needed, the resources of many federal agencies. DOD has a responsiblity when a release involves facilites or vessels under the sole jurisdiction, custody or control of DOD. The FEMA "provides guidance, policy and program advice, and technical assistance in hazardous materials, chemical, and radiological emergency preparedness activities".
Subpart B--Responsibility and Organization for Response
Sec. 300.130 Determinations to initiate response and special conditions.
Excerpt
BP is being held responsible for direct emergency assistance and disaster relief due to the Deep Water Horizon blowout.
Hi All,
This thread is getting out of control. Does anyone know how I can contact the moderators ?. 'Flagging as inappropriate' is too feeble. The Drupal defaults do not offer the links. Thank you in anticipation.
Juan
Hi All - again,
In the time it took me to make my previous comment, the moderators have already done their thing !. Tks. I value this site and the interplay of the individuals. I am an engineer and can follow their arguments. cheers juan
Thanks for your help with that, Juan!
Times-Pic: Convincing public that Gulf of Mexico seafood is safe will take time, experts say
Even though . . .
Better hope that's a typo.
Knew you'd zoom right to that, tiny. ;~}
Good morning. Yeah, wish some copy editor would spot it too.
lotus - in your link is also written :
--------------------------------
"FDA has also been criticized for not establishing a chemical test for dispersants in seafood, only a smell test. Robert Dickey, director of FDA's Gulf Coast Seafood Lab in Dauphin Island, Ala., echoed what many high-level FDA scientists have said about dispersants: that they are water-soluble and do not accumulate in the tissues of fish or other seafood that humans would eat.
"We put so much work into making that determination, and we're continuing to study it," Dickey said. NOAA and the EPA are also doing studies on dispersants and their toxicity and ability to concentrate, or bioaccumulate, in different species."
----------------------------------
How can they be convinced about the safety of sea food without having it tested for corexit ?
Dispersants are not taken since this oil spill (remember Itox 1).
There was a lot of time to find out, what an oil-methane-dispersant-mix could cause as well to the environment as to animals as to people.
Lady Li,
Crude oil and Corexit are mixtures of various stuff rather than simple substances, so the environmental fate of their components is what needs to be considered in order to evaluate seafood safety. Since the components of Corexit are biodegradable, not fat soluble, and not very toxic, and since the rate of pollution was about 1 part Corexit to 50 parts oil, Corexit would seem not to pose much hazard to consumers of seafood, compared to the hazard of oil. Testing of water and seafood focuses on the components of oil that are relatively toxic and less biodegradable. These include a class of chemicals called PAHs, which are also fat-soluble, and the metals nickel and vanadium, which oil contains in small amounts. (Fat-soluble chemicals can accumulate in animals and move up the food chain.)
I'm not a toxicologist, but if I were about to go swimming in the Gulf or eat Gulf seafood, I wouldn't give a second thought to Corexit. Very likely much of it has long since biodegraded, and certainly it is massively diluted.
The thing that most merits concern is the PAH fractions of oil. That is why the chemical analysis of seafood samples concentrates on PAHs.
This is a different issue, but it's certainly appropriate to test a mixture of fresh oil and dispersant on various marine life forms to see how toxic it is. However, 25 days after the last release, there is no more fresh oil/dispersant mix in the Gulf. It has all been modified, and most of it is gone.
In other words it's no different then Dawn liquid?
Corexit 9500 has a kerosene base, so it's considerably different, but detergents are also dispersants.
Gobbet - you said :
"...Corexit would seem not to pose much hazard to consumers of seafood..."
My question :
Why are NOAA and the EPA doing studies on dispersants and their toxicity and ability to concentrate, or bioaccumulate, in different species ?
Assumed that you are right, it shouldn´t be necessary.
And what about the Corexit EC9527A with the 2-Butoxyethanol in it ?
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/Corexit_EC9527A_MSDS...
I suspect that's partly to be sure, and partly to be seen to be making sure.
There are a lot of people, especially tourists who may be a little skittish for a while, so anything they can do to reassure the public should help.
We've seen that simple declarations of safety haven't always been received as completely credible, even for those who aren't conspiracists.
Thanks Heading Out. I was wondering about the final disposition of the well.
So, with the BOP retrieved and the top sections of the casings removed there will be no signs on the sea floor of the disaster in the Gulf?
Ben Raines found a bad spot on the interior of Horn Island:
If it's a pond in the island's interior, then this oil may have been dumped by somebody on purpose. This could be a criminal act.
More from the story, fd:
Lotus, if the oil came in below the booms, then it is heavier than water, right? So how come it floats afterwards? Oil has a tendency to lose light ends and degrade over time, and this process makes it heavier, not lighter. The only possibility I see, is that the water in this pond is very dense, which means it has to be very salty. But if the pond flushes with the tide, then the salinity ought to be very close to sea water. The story continues to smell funny. Tell us, from the evidence, how much oil is in the pond? The volume could tell us a lot. And if I were the authorities, I would type it to see how old it is. The amount of biodegradation and volatile component evaporation will tell them a lot about it. I would also see who has been boating in the area who could have access to a couple of barrels of the stuff.
You see, I've worked in areas overseas where the locals cause oil spills on purpose, so they can be paid to clean it up. I've seen them dig down into the ground to cut pipelines (sometimes they even cut away the line in sections and steal the pipe at the same time). So this could be a simple case of a local boat owner who wanted to keep the oil cleanup business going. And if I were the local authorities, I would start watching out for more of the same.
Yeah, I asked a question yesterday about the notion of sunken oil refloating itself, which seems not to make sense. Your suggestion of very high salinity seems like a "just maybe." But the suggestion of deliberate spilling by a contractor would have to deal with the fact that decent sized boats couldn't reach this pond inside the marsh. It is puzzling.
Whoa, here's a story from the Biloxi paper last week that says Garden Pond was oiled in early July. Did the sainted Ben Raines make a mistake? Also it says Horn Island (which is well offshore from the MS coast) is still being hit heavily by tar patties, needs cleaning every day.
http://www.sunherald.com/2010/08/05/2386989/horn-island-stopping-waves-o...
Thanks, Gobbet. I just emailed that link to Ben and will sing out if/when he replies.
It is...
I guess you could say the ecosystems of The Gulf of Mexico really took it up the annulus. And BP now stands for butt plug...
As someone who has not owned a TV for over five years I was shocked at a series of BP TV ads I saw at a sports bar over the weekend showing all these happy people on pristine white beaches and proclaiming what a great job BP has done with the clean up. Made me want to puke after only two beers.
BP was running ads like that? My goodness (or words to that effect) they really are cretins. Some half rate publicity bozo has talked them into this, and they simply don't understand. Whoever decided to run them should be sacked forthwith.
OTOH, you probably should also drink better beer. :-)
My goodness (or words to that effect) they really are cretins
I'll co-sign that, if you don't mind, Francis.
I guess the question is, are the beaches clean or not? If they're clean, what do you gain runing the lives of people who make a living from the tourist trade? It's clear BP is working to make sure the negative coverage is overcome, which will bring tourists to the area, and get things back to normal. What's wrong with that?
How far do you want me to photo? I will take pictures today and I will dig four feet down. Watch out for a new photos. Is there a particular spot you want me to concentrate. You will get the 'reporting to order' I can pull off with my limited knowledge and equipment.
So is the beach clean or not? How far do you have to dig down to find oil?
Small tarballs still present. If you dig down you hit more. We are still getting a brown foam. I want to know what you and the others think about this test?
http://oil-in-soil.com/OilInSoil.htm
I think we need to seriously reconsider in-situ burning. I would like to believe that there are better ways to take care of the problem.
http://www.csiro.au/solutions/ps9b.html
In addition to sound, there is no reason why microbial inoculations could not be done en-masse. I have read studies of microbial remediation done even by way of underground inoculation to the water table to deal with benzene. Some of the studies that the D.O.E. has done on leaking salt dome storage facilities, and bio-remediations have shown good promise. I never did understand why they used so much dispersant, when there is a small window of time in which to use them for the particular type of oil that was coming from this well. After a certain time, the dispersant cannot do it's job.
time will tell.
Not enough to burn. Not around here anyhow. Gulf Shores AL.
It's clear BP is working to make sure the negative coverage is overcome, which will bring tourists to the area, and get things back to normal. What's wrong with that?
What's wrong with it is BP shouldn't be taking credit for clean beaches (even if it's deserved, for some value of "deserved"). If BP wants negative coverage to be overcome, it should pay for commercials to be made and run by the state tourist board or some similar organization.
Not only is it unseemly for BP to be tooting its own clean-beach horn, it may do more harm than good considering how little anybody trusts what it says.
Fdolenza asked :
"So is the beach clean or not? How far do you have to dig down to find oil?"
The report from Coastal Research Laboratory, Department of Geology, University of South Florida, Tampa,Florida, gives an answer :
http://usfweb3.usf.edu/absoluteNM/articlefiles/2566-PW%202nd%20Beach%20r...
"After our fifth trip to the Alabama and Florida panhandle beaches since the onset of the spill, we have come to the conclusion that the ongoing beach cleanup is literally a superficial job, as we discuss in the following within a scientific context.
In addition to the surficial oil deposition discussed above, all forms of oil contamination as discussed above were also observed beneath the surface of the beach, buried at various depths within several tidal cycles, i.e., a few days.
Apparently, at the time of oil sheet deposition, the viscous oil overwhelmed the uprush and backwash of the low waves so that the wave swash was unable to break the oil apart and redistribute as tar balls or tar patties.
In order for the continuous oil sheet to be preserved in the active foreshore, the oil sheet must have been buried during or shortly after deposition.
Therefore, subsurface oil should be the dominant form of contamination in the foreshore sub-environment.
Based on our field observations, just as much, if not more, oil contamination is buried as compared to the oil on the surface.
Buried oil is much more difficult to clean because it is not directly visible and buried to various depths.
In addition, buried oil will have a much longer lasting effect because it will not be weathered by the sunlight as easily as the surface oil."
I sincerely hope someone has reported this to the BP spill line so that it can get cleaned up. (They can't clean it if they don't know where it is).
Just got off the press call with Admiral Allen. He said they will release pressure data on the BOP later today.
He also said that there are "small leaks" around the flanges that were fully expected and seen as inconsequential.
Should this still be leaking?
Capt,
In a fully functional BOP I would be very alarmed to find external leaks, and it would be pulled to the surface and repaired immediately, this one I would say has done its job with all of the add ons this BOP has had along with the abuse for the last 100 days and before. As the well is now cemented and tested (have we been here before) I believe we are in a much safer place than we were 2 to 3 weeks ago.
The cement should have sealed the formation, the hydrostatic of the mud will keep the formation in balance if the fluids do get through the 500ft of cement. There will be hydrocarbon residue collecting in the top of the BOP as pushing a light fluid down a 8 1/2" hole with a heavy fluid at a slow rate will never be a 100% clean exercise. There will be a bit of oil in ram cavities and any other nook and cranny you can thick of. If a few drops escape from a flange that was never meant to see the pressures they did so be it. We can all sleep much easier now.
Thanks, Toolpush; between your response and my sighting of the Virgin Mary, I will indeed sleep easier. :)
TP, I think you acidently dropped a zero, it is 5,000 ft of cement. I don't type worth a d either ;-)
BB,
Thanks for the correction, you know what it like , typing and chewing gum at the same time takes a lot of concentration.
5000ft it is.
I've been an insomniac for the past 100+ days, worried about this thing. Thank God the Virgin Mary just appeared in the Oly #2 feed to set my mind at ease; I'll be sleeping better from here on out. :)
+++++
Captain, I think that's Hayward's body headed down with its shoes in a cement bag.
Finally, fdoleza! LOL
Thank God the Virgin Mary just appeared in the Oly #2 feed to set my mind at ease
Our Lady of the Wellhead...
Oy gevalt, the Blessed Virgin is on BP's payroll. We're DOOOOOOMED.
Oy gevalt, the Blessed Virgin is on BP's payroll. We're DOOOOOOMED
I knew it. I knew it all along...
No, that is most definitely a gusher.
This headline caught my eye and I felt it needed to be posted.
Moscow deaths double amid smog to 700 people a day.
Another headline:
http://www.businessinsider.com/matt-simmons-dies-2010-8
"Prominent oil investor Matt Simmons has died of a heart attack, according to CNBC.
The famed energy banker was a prominent proponent of peak oil theory, and most recently got attention for his dire calls about the fate of the Gulf of Mexico." ...
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/matt-simmons-dies-2010-8#ixzz0w7WGrhPz
http://www.wlbz2.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=123586&catid=3
Ok, I am going to speculate that a CSI level of investigation is needed on this one. For the record, I was in Alabama last night and I have witnesses.
I predict at least 1M new blog posts by tomorrow, all screaming about his murder by BP.
In my personal operational experience, such things are not typically done in such a fashion. Too much press. Unless of course, you are Vladamir Putin. The pros such as those a billion dollar company would hire would not waste their time with a hot-tub, heart attack, setup. On the other hand, if it was a black bag operation, it was probably done by some TOP pros. I do know that when you cost individuals or institutions potentially billions of dollars, there certainly very likely may folks that would want to 'whack' you. I would hate to be on the investigation team on that one if the corner rules homicide. I am guessing at least 100 subpoenas would go down to folks here. We could not make this stuff up if we tried.
There are untold numbers of people whose interest has been drooping and who will see this as Simmons having the credibility that they'd begun doubting. It'll be interesting to watch how far the fringes of MSM go with conspiratorial hints.
If you are going CT with this, the question is who has the most to gain? With the story starting to fade the CT bloggers ad impressions must be cratering. So this is obviously an assassination paid for by the world-wide secret cabal of CT bloggers.
Now THAT makes sense!
The only people who have anything to gain from Simmons' death *at this point* are conspiracy theorists. If some sinister behind-the-scenes cabal, the secret oil industry hit squad, wanted to off him, why on earth wouldn't they have waited six months until the whole Macondo fuss was forgotten by the world beyond the oil patch and Gulf communities? Dying NOW guarantees a wave of sensationalist headlines, and no doubt the woo-woo brigade will be obsessing about this for years to come.
My instant reactions are, WWWOOS? William of Occam might say that the death of a 67 year old man who's been known to have been under considerable stress recently is not really "surprising" or "unexpected", unless he was known to be in great health. I'm not a doctor, but I've friends who are, and based purely on the file photo on the article where I first saw the news ( http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-09/matthew-simmons-investment-bank... )... he doesn't look like someone in great health to me. FWIW.
An old KGB 6th Section (wet work) saying - "Anyone can commit a murder, it takes an artist to commit a suicide"
Who say anything bad about Putin? LOL. As the leader of a current ally, I have all the faith that the US government has with the leader of Russia. God bless America.
Oooouuuu. That's cold.
It takes real skill to shoot oneself twice in the back of the head.
http://www.arkancide.com/
Here's the problem. If there's something in that huge mix that actually is legitimate, the disinfo that's there clobbers its chances of being taken seriously.
Already happening by the local nut and his cult, stating it's too convenient......
Already starting at GLP.
Maybe he had a heart attack and drowned? BP stock has been going up...
Anyway, for all the comments made about him lately of his mental and emotional irrationality or instability, I feel sad for his loved ones in their time of sorrow. Hopefully, he's in a better place now.
From the CNBC announcement:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/38624677
(Nothing about how he died, just says he died "suddenly.")
It does, preliminarily, appear to be a hot tub heart attack. There will probably be an autopsy, since it was an "unattended death."
To all here who know Matt only from his recent ravings about the Macondo blowout: Please note that this has been a radical departure for a guy who has been tack-sharp, extremely knowledgeable and relentlessly data-driven, for a very long time.
This is a sad end to the life of a man who has been a major contributor to broad understanding of peak oil.
It does, preliminarily, appear to be a hot tub heart attack.
From an article on eHow.com, "What Temperature Should a Hot Tub Be?"
http://www.ehow.com/about_5031765_temperature-should-hot-tub.html#ixzz0w...
I've seen a couple of headshots of Matt Simmons in the last month and notice the redness of his complexion.
It came to mind again when I saw his tribute at http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm/4915/Death-of-A-Gentleman-Matt...
This makes me wonder if he had some sort of circulation problem and the red, blotchy complexion was a symptom.
Edit fot typo.
I first thought this might be a hoax in poor taste, but the story is building:
http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/Energy-expert-Simmons-dies-in-North-H...
Lucky bastard...
But I hope his family does well and he is remembered fondly. Though that is only IF he's dead.
As of 10:33am CDT no announcement has been posted on:
The Ocean Energy Institute website http://www.oceanenergy.org/
Simmons & Co. International website http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/
Not too much can be read into this yet; they could be slow adding an announcement.
However, with the "Avada Kadavra" killing-curse meme so popular for making up the deaths of famous people (virtual death??), I thought I would check for some additional confirmations.
Posted at Simmons & Co. http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/research.aspx?Type=news
Confirmed.
R.I.P.
The Ocean Energy Institute finally posted their notice too.
http://www.oceanenergy.org/news.asp
RIP .... a moment of silence
Very sorry news and a very sad day.
Sad news.
Rest in peace.
---
Suggested headline for Dougr at Godlikeproductions: "BP killed Matt Simmons to hide the second oil well that will explode the GOM"
How did that "DougR" or "SHR" identity/screen-name thing play out? Last I heard "SHR" at godlikeproductions was claiming in a posting at GLP that DougR ripped off his famous posting.
I lost interest in it and never bothered to follow up. Anybody know how DougR/SHR resolved?
The CT's are entering into the "eat their young" mode. Terrific.
Please pass the popcorn.
The real Matt Simmons as he should be remembered prior to very recent out of character appearances.
http://www.wmtw.com/news/24564160/detail.html
Simmons' death is too strange to comprehend right now. Speculation seems disrespectful. A sad end.
I'm taken aback by the news of the death of Matt Simmons. I had followed hin closely on Financial Sense newshour and other sites. He had a broad view of energy and his contributions were always measured and sensible. If he sometimes seemed alarmist in his views, it was from his perspective as an insider in the energy politics and economies of which he was deeply invested. His concern stemmed from the extensive research he had conducted and documented.
I remain undecided about his outside views regarding the BP disaster, being reluctant to describe his perspective as bizarre. His notorious BP interviews on Bloomberg and elsewhere were laced with a deep sadness he expressed about the destruction of the Gulf ecosystems. I will greatly miss his contributions and am genuinely saddened by his death.
"This headline caught my eye and I felt it needed to be posted."
TOD has been my main source of technically correct and rational info throughout this nightmare and for a "civilian" has been invaluable, with the main problem being the amount of noise and the time it takes to filter it out. Therefor, I must ask (and I just can't be the only one wondering this)is there anything that would "catch your eye" and you would not post?
Over & out.
It is death from smog. Hundreds, currently happening. That is not worthy?
As it has nothing to do with the discussion about the Macondo well it is not worthy to be posted in this thread or at The Oil Drum at all.
"it is not worthy to be posted in this thread or at The Oil Drum at all."
Sure it is. Yesterday's Drumbeat.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6826#comment-697255
As a 6 weeks and one hour member, you are not worthy of deciding what should be posted.
I appreciate the support. Some the sages here have warned me about using short signon time as an evaluation point and it does seem like a 'too-easy' move. It does seem just as wrong to use a long signon time as a plus as well. We sure have some smart and thoughtful folks that post here. Thanks again and yes, this is an energy related, if not caused event.
"As it has nothing to do with the discussion about the Macondo well it is not worthy to be posted in this thread or at The Oil Drum at all."
I thought the post was quite worthy and appropriate.
http://www.eworldwire.com/pressreleases/211800
"Oceanographic satellite data now shows that the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico has stalled as a consequence of the BP oil spill disaster, observed by Dr. Gianluigi Zangari, an Italian theoretical physicist....
Zangari asks: "Why is this important to all life on the planet? The Gulf Stream is a strong interlinked component of the Earth's global network of ocean conveyor currents, which drive the planet's weather systems."
I think the "as a consequence" part of that is open to question.
"an Italian theoretical physicist...."
And since when is a theoretical physicist an expert on oceanography?
Heisenburg's day job. Of course, I am not certain.
Here is a videoanimation how the Loop Current has stalled :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VV8UNAtQCw&feature=player_embedded
Umm.. if a current is stalled, how can it still be a current?
LL, nice animation showing a normal Loop Eddy formation (with some abnormal oil). But the only stalling is when the animation freezes on June 21.
If you look through the US Navy Loop Current archive you will find many similar eddy formations in years past, like this one from a year ago:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/glfmexspdcur/nowcast/sp...
which is not unlike this one from this week:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/glfmexspdcur/nowcast/sp...
the whole archive is here:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/arc_list_glfmexspdcur.html
Good comment Oil Field Brat.
Here is Gianluigi Zangari's report titled "Risk of Global Climate Change by BP Oil Spill" (pdf) Its posted at the Associazione Ceotisica Italiana. Its silly.
Predicting ocean currents appears to be very difficult. There is a lot of research available. Loop current eddies occur every 4 to 18 months, regularly enough that here is a naming scheme. The current eddy is called Franklin. The previous eddy was called Ekman which formed 9/2009.
There are several entities that provide forecasts and hind casts of ocean currents. There is a lot of divergence in how these models represent ocean currents.
NOAA: National Weather Service
Environmental Modeling Center - Marine Modeling & Analysis Branch
RTOFS (Atlantic) Graphic Nowcasts/Forecasts
Naval Research Laboratory
Navy Coastal Ocean Model (NCOM)
1/8° Global NCOM Nowcast - Gulf of Mexico
NOAA NCOM Currents in the Gulf of Mexico
NOAA NCOM Forecast Model
Wave-Current-Surge Information System for Coastal Lousiana (WAVCIS)
Coastal Studies Institute, Lousiana State University
120 Hour Surface Current Forecast
HYCOM GOM Surface Velocity
The Ocean Circulation Group
University of South Florida
College of Marine Sciences
- Several models based on HYCOM, RTOFS and ROMS and other information including drifter data. Some models have oil spill trajectory overlays.
Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research (CCAR)
Real-Time Altimetry Project
Gulf of Mexico Near Real-Time Velocity Viewer
ROFFS
Roffers Ocean Fishing Forecast Service, Inc.
Deepwater Horizon Rig Oil Spill Monitoring
- ROFFS has loop current forecasting with detailed analysis since early on the in Macondo blowout disaster.
Thanks, PC. I went into a little more detail farther down the thread.
Silly is a polite description of Dr Zangari's paper, but I found his proprietary version of calculus interesting. I played around with it awhile and every time it calculated that Zangari was a freakin' genius!
Edit to add: Wow, thanks for all the links.
The fires were approaching Chernobyl, last I looked. There's concern that if the thin cover the Soviets laid down is disturbed, eastern Europe may have a radioactivity problem on its hands.
That reminds me of an incident that happened in the eighties. Anyway, is the fire heading to where the bulk of their oil reserves are? Isn't there some way to shut them down before the fire reaches them?
Heiro, I don't know and don't have the time to dig up that info, but I'd be interested in whatever you could find out about that.
Russia declares state of emergency at Urals nuclear town
AFP, Aug 9, 2010, 06.27pm IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Russia-declares-state-of...
That sort of link is welcome at TOD, however, it should be posted in the Drumbeat, not in the threads devoted to the BP oil spill, nor in the other "key posts."
"Death by smog" is a nice turn of phrase. We know a lot about this.
The 1948 killer smog at Donora, Pennsylvania, was never investigated scientifically. People were afraid of losing their jobs and didn't want an investigation, so they blamed it on freak atmospheric conditions. But young Devra Davis lived through the Donora smog, kept puzzling about it, and became a toxicologist as a result. She wrote an excellent popular-style book on the subject: Davis, D. 2002. When Smoke Ran Like Water. Basic Books, New York, 316 pp.
Smogs in coal-fueled London had gone on for centuries. A struggle to control London's air pollution began in the 1600s, and in 1662 John Graunt published the first-ever "Bills of Mortality" that laid the foundations of epidemiology. The process was finally teased out of the Great Killer Smog of London, 1952, by public health officials showing that death and illness rates increased and stayed well above normal for 3 months after the event.
Much rigorous epidemiological research has been done on the relationship of air pollution to "excess" illness and deaths in our "smog capital of the world", Los Angeles. Relevant articles include:
Haagen-Smit, A.J. 1970. A lesson from the smog capital of the world. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 67:887-897.
Bell, M.L., et al. 2006. The avoidable health effects of air pollution in three Latin American cities: Santiago, Sao Paulo, and Mexico City. Environmental Research 100(2006):431-440.
Ritz, B., Wilhelm, M. and Y. Zhao. 2006. Air pollution and infant death in southern California, 1989-2000. Pediatrics 118:493-502.
Zanobetti, A. and J. Schwartz. 2006. Air pollution and emergency admissions in Boston, MA. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 60:890-895.
Pope, C.A., III. 2009. Fine-particulate air pollution and life expectancy in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine 360: 376-386.
The Donora disaster has some similarities to recent events, in that, even after people started getting sick and dying, the managers delayed shutting down the zinc-smelting operation because doing so would cost the company money.
berkely - Been around TOD for a while and from what I can tell as long as the poster isn't abusive TOD tollerates a wide variety of opinions. Yep...takes time to filter but the filter used is of your own making and not some invisible man behind the curtain. A good approach IMHO.
Doesn't compute... if you say, "OVER" that implies you are expecting a reply.
If you say "OUT" that means you have ended your transmission and you have nothing more to say and do not expect or want a reply.
FMagyar, OUT!
Nice shot of the Kremlin, TinFoilGuy.
Though I was just reading up on that and it seems the media is now looking for as much disasters as they can to sensationalize. Though, with all these stories of people dying by the hundreds maybe this is the old world's way of reducing their numbers. But, on a more serious note I sincerely pray for their health as I do for the gulf's.
Yes, the 700 body count did not shock me either, until I realized that was a daily number.
That's a shame...and what makes matters even worse is that when you factor those whose died in the wildfires and escaping their doomed homes. Since, we as a community like horrifying news I brough pictures of wreckages of the floods in china. http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/China-searches-survivors-flooding-spreads-... Here they be.
Not to diminish the tragedy, but I recall similarly shocking news from Europe (especially France) in 2003, and Chicago in 1995 (to name just a couple).
Frank
Thank you. Full circle thought coming in. It is hotter here all the time.
1. We are used to it.
2. We have and use air conditioning.
3. We pay $.095/KWH
4. We hydrate constantly, free water always, everywhere.
5. We go out at night and in the morning.
6. We try to do the bulk of our hard outside work during fall, winter, and the spring.
7. We have heat alert programs. A week above 100 and we have not even thought of activating it yet. It is just hot as hell here. http://www.weather.com/weather/today/Gulf+Shores+AL+36542
Move to coal country. $.0600100 per KWH.
Where, West Virginia? How much is unleaded? The power propagandists (Southern Company) claims WE have some the lowest overall power costs in the nation.
Did you ever hear about the Southern Company Plane crash? It rates a 9 out of 10 on the weird crap-o-meter.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/18/us/florida-mystery-is-fueled-by-intrig...
There was also a boardroom shooting around the time I still cannot find info on. I will keep looking.
KY. $2.69 Gal. I'm about 45 mi. SW of Louisville ( air wise-crow )on Rough River Lake and belong to a Electric co-op.
Trade GS AL for 3.5c and coal? Not likely.
Until some bad reports come along, which I do not expect, I want to be buried near here. Been that way with us since Antebellum. I might talk to the church about entombing (encrypting) my ashes. I doubt they would go for it, but it does solve space issues. Maybe I need to buy the priest lunch and find out if such things are done. I honestly do not know. K of C lurks here. Ever seen a tomb of any kind at a CATHOLIC CHURCH CEMETERY? An 'urn crypt'(is that what they are called)? The sort of cemetery that is within 150 feet of the front door. Except for the birthing and most conceptions, it is a one stop shop.
The irony is that here in S. California we seem to be having an unusually mild summer.
That is total deaths and 2x normal. That makes 350 a day excess, which is still bad.
NAOM
Tin - in addition to your post :
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/world/europe/07russia.html?_r=1
"Russia’s emergencies minister said Thursday that nuclear contaminants from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster more than 20 years ago could be released into the atmosphere by the fires."
Sad to say that is a "good" example for long-term effects !
Been posted and thanks. This hasn't
Russian fires prompt Kremlin to abruptly embrace climate change
Amid what is called the worst Russian fires in history, President Dmitry Medvedev – who recently dismissed concerns over emissions – embraces the need to address climate change.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0809/Russian-fires-prompt-Kre...
Edit: Or this. This is from a non main stream source, take it for what it is worth. Based upon volcano sunset effects, I give it possibility if not credibility.
http://www.examiner.com/x-11680-Wildfire-Examiner~y2010m8d9-Russian-smok...
That reminds me on the volcano eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull in Island in april 2010.
Even the munich airport was closed for some time.
Dust and smoke are able to have a long journay.
By the way :
Anyone here some days ago had made a joke about radioactive boars in Germany.
THATS TRUE !!! We (especially in south germany) are still involved in the Chernobyl GAU.
That is another example for long-term effects.
Sorry - the links are in german. But look at the actual cäsium levels in boars (Wildschweine) :
http://www.lgl.bayern.de/lebensmittel/rueckstaende/radioaktivitaet_wildb...
The same with some mushrooms and berries !
http://www.ernaehrungsportal-bw.de/servlet/PB/menu/1268626_l1/index.html
And the connection to cancer (especial thyroid cancer) is obvious :
http://umweltinstitut.org/radioaktivitat/tschernobyl-folgen/atomlobby_ve...
I love to eat mushrooms and berries - and before the GAU I´d collect them in the woods.
Since 1986 I have never done it...may be I dare it next year...
Questions posed By Robert Cavnar
Does anyone know these answers? And unless there is a official statement is there anyway to know?
* Is the well dead?
* What is the pressure on the well? Now?
* If the well is open to the surface, what is that pressure?
* What was the pressure during the "static kill"? Did it change at any time? What was total volume pumped?
* What was the pressure during the bullhead cement job? Did you do the "hesitation squeeze" that Kent Wells mentioned in passing? What was displacement volume?
* How do you know all the cement went down the casing?
* What was the pressure on the well after the job?
* Why is the flex joint flange leaking?
* Why are the ROV feeds no longer provided in a decipherable resolution?
* Why are some ROV feeds not being provided?
* Has the well kicked since the bullhead cement job?
* What pressure did the bullhead cement job test to?
* Have you had to pump mud into the well since the bullhead cement job? How much?
* Why are clouds of debris continuing to obscure the view several days after the well was supposedly "static"?
* Were the rams of the old BOP opened for the static kill or bullhead cement job?
* If so, could you tell if the drill pipe fish stuck in the BOP dropped into the well?
* Can you close the blind shear rams now?
* What is the damage to the rams in the old BOP?
Until these questions are answered by BP, we have no real information to tell us that the well is dead, or even safe. As long as they continue to stonewall critical data, I'll only continue to believe that the well is not "static" or safe.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-cavnar/questions-bp-needs-to-ans_...
The huffingtonpost has long since become a waste of bandwidth. Whilst, on the surface, these look like learned questions, they are questions that clearly suggest that the writer has little clue, and has not been paying attention. Many are just assembling technical sounding phrases, and the run on questions are a waste of time since the opening question for all of them is "no". The only useful questions have already been answered.
Here is a question that you should have asked:
'Are the people who asked those questions qualified enough to even understand the answers?'
I don't know you tell me... sound like he might know something...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-cavnar
Missy -- He asks some valid questions but didn't really see many conclusons or even speculations offered by Mr. Cavnar
I agree they were good questions but there was no speculation or conclusions which I would have liked to have seen some of.
Cavnar's trying to stay relevant to the story. And nobody's going to be at peace till bottom kill is done, tested and has been successful for a while.
Missy - You're just full of questons this morning
Is the well dead? No pressure at the well head/BOP from the blow out reservoir
* What is the pressure on the well? Now? The only pressure should be from the 5,000' column of fluid above it.
* If the well is open to the surface, what is that pressure? well is still capped
* What was the pressure during the "static kill"? Did it change at any time? What was total volume pumped? Don't think that info has been released
* What was the pressure during the bullhead cement job? Did you do the "hesitation squeeze" that Kent Wells mentioned in passing? What was displacement volume? Reported to have pumped a total of 500 bbls of cmt.
* How do you know all the cement went down the casing? can't prove infatically but seems to be a valid assumption.
* What was the pressure on the well after the job? zero pressure from the reservoir. Maybe 1,200 psi from the mud coulmn above.
* Why is the flex joint flange leaking? Maybe 1,200 psi from the mud coulmn above
* Why are the ROV feeds no longer provided in a decipherable resolution? Don't know
* Why are some ROV feeds not being provided? Maybe they don't want to be charged for operational time if there's nothing to see
* Has the well kicked since the bullhead cement job? No reported kicks or even any pressure from the reservoir
* What pressure did the bullhead cement job test to? Not reported. they would probably wait 48 hours before pressuring up on the cmt.
* Have you had to pump mud into the well since the bullhead cement job? How much? I think the been adding a small amount of mud along the way. perhaps from the leaking cap that's about 1,200 psi above the water pressure
* Why are clouds of debris continuing to obscure the view several days after the well was supposedly "static"? Most think it ROV caused clouds
* Were the rams of the old BOP opened for the static kill or bullhead cement job? Don't think they've ever been able to open the rams from the start
* If so, could you tell if the drill pipe fish stuck in the BOP dropped into the well? the official word: DP stil stuck in BOP
* Can you close the blind shear rams now? NO...still non-functional.
* What is the damage to the rams in the old BOP? No idea. Will have to pull BOP to the surface for that analysis.
Thanks for your insight!
* What was the pressure during the "static kill"? Did it change at any time? What was total volume pumped? Don't think that info has been released
Per Wells' 8/4 briefing, they pumped around 2,300 barrels of mud, initially pumping at 5 bpm, then, after the well was in static condition, at 10 bpm and 15 bpm - "we did that to give ourselves confidence that, if we chose to go ahead with the cementing procedure, that we could actually pump at higher rates, because that will give us a more effective cement job. "
and
"We were able to watch as the base oil [already in the well from the injectivity test] and then the mud actually hit the reservoir. We were able to see it pressure up, and then we were able to see that pressure come back down."
Guess Cavnar makes up questions without listening to the briefings.
Thanks, rockman, you are a saint.
With the patience of Job.
More good work, thanks.
I like Cavnar's questions. He missed one: show us the wellhead.
True! I like them too!
Duh.. again?
Pump faster! heavier! (watch for 30 seconds, depth 4032)
http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:30948.asx
Do me a favor, please, keep an eye on these Corexit cannons. I gotta got to the grocery store and pack the car for a camping trip. Good vibes and good premises to all.
http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:35461.asx
"As long as they continue to stonewall critical data, I'll only continue to believe that the well is not "static" or safe."
That's OK. I continue to believe Cavnar isn't the expert MSNBC makes him out to be. Just another industry putz flogging an upcoming book.
I'm afraid I have to pretty much agree with that, given his recent appearances with KO.
You talking about his belief that the video feeds are being 'looped' due to his not understanding how certain media players deal with live feeds when the connection is lost?
But still, there is good reason to publicly ask questions when the environment and so many livelihoods are at stake--and so little information has been forthcoming--and discrepancies in that information have been exposed. Many in the public, myself included, would like to hear more expert opinion on and discussion of the DeepWater Horizon, the implications for the natural environment and public policy.
Robert Cavnar bleats...
"Until these questions are answered by BP, we have no real information to tell us that the well is dead, or even safe. As long as they continue to stonewall critical data, I'll only continue to believe that the well is not "static" or safe."
The ongoing process of killing (and confirming the death) of the Macondo well is incomplete at this time and will remain incomplete until the annulus is penetrated by the relief well and appropriate action taken if needed. The release of the data at this point could not possibly prove that the well is dead, it could only prove that the hydrocarbons are, at this point, contained. What purpose would it serve, beyond satisfying the public's curiousity, to release an incomplete and/or inconclusive data set at this time? And why on earth, if BP has the data, Dr. Steven and his band of Chubakas has the data, and the U.S. Coast Guard has the data, is it assumed that BP, and only BP, is stonewalling the public? It seems to me that Cavnar is simply grandstanding for the Huffpo crowd.
I agree the stonewalling is not limited to only BP!
The Justice Department??
BP and U.S. Agree on Oil Spill Compensation Fund
August 09, 2010, 10:12 AM EDT
More From Businessweek
* add to Business Exchange
By Justin Blum
(Adds comments from Justice Department official in second, third paragraphs.)
Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. completed negotiations with BP Plc over the company’s agreement to establish a $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Justice Department.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-09/bp-and-u-s-agree-on-oil-spil...
.........................
They completed these negotiations after the well was killed?
What the hell was there to negotiate?
20 Billion dollars in a fund like the president said.
What the hell was there to negotiate?
Probably that it was only going to be 20G$. There was a lot of pushing for it to be raised to more than that in the time just before the cap was in place. As well, you don't just write a cheque for 20G$. That sort of money sloshing about takes a lot of work, and it won't arrive in one lump. BP will have negotiated a set of dates, and being the US, there will have been armies of lawyers charging insane fees to oversee whole thing. They are probably quite annoyed it has been settled.
The interesting trick is that the money isn't going into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.
Francis, I remember reading articles about the back and forth that went on in the meeting with BP and the government for hours and then articles coming out where it said exactly what years the money would be deposited in the fund.
The 20 billion was announced as a done deal.
Non-negotiable
The deal also adhered to what Obama had said was his non-negotiable demand: that the fund and the claims process be administered independently from BP. It won't be a government fund, either, but will be led by the administration's "pay czar," Kenneth Feinberg, better known as the man who oversaw the $7 billion government fund for families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
................................
Now we hear they have been negotiating with the justice department.
Could this be about criminal charges?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37725103/
Possibly there were negotiations about BP's tax liability relating to the fund. Or not, since it's DOJ. Unless things have changed, the net loss to the Treasury and US taxpayers is about $7.5B.
It's not that simple. BP's tax deduction covers other expenses too.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/27/AR201007...
But the $20 billion does go to taxpayers, so they are net +10 billion in any case.
Of course the treasury will be recipients of other funds (fines etc.) so they may well come out ahead over all.
Fines from criminal activity are not usually tax deductible, so BP may not be able to deduct some or all of these fines from their income.
Okay. The $20B that passes into the Treasury is not tax revenue. The Treasury acts as an agent. The funds get dispersed. Net gain to Treasury, $0. The question is how much of a reduction in revenue the Treasury will see because BP will have $0 income, roll losses forward, and be able to take $20B of tax credits + tax credits for the direct cleanup costs. My paper napkin calculator shows me about $7.5B over a few years. Guess who gets to cover that gap?
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2010/07/30/112042.htm
This is the important update.
“We are pleased that BP made an initial contribution and has taken an important step toward honoring its commitment to the president and the residents and business owners in the gulf region,” said Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli in a statement today.
Now it seems like there is some real money in the fund.
Today's BP press release about their first payment to the escrow fund.
I might be late to post this, but Matt Simmons just died of a heart attack!!!!!!!!!
You're late indeed, my freind. The funeral is over.
Though I wished the post deleted went to another thread, I really wanted to talk about the story.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill
Some updates.
BP's costs for responding to the spill have risen to $6.1 billion, the company said in a Monday news release.
Louisiana has set Aug. 16 as the opening for a fall shrimp season along the coast, but some waters will likely remain closed as federal authorities test the safety of the seafood.
---
So apparently Allen is confident that the day the spill is over is just around the corner, hopefully that's true.
My heartfelt condolences to his family.
Simmons was a public figure who sought the limelight and the financial enrichment that it brought him. Back in the 70s, he identified a financial opportunity in the volatile environment of global oil speculation and has been running his roadshow ever since, figuring more and newer ways to make money -- remember he was an INVESTMENT BANKER -- as the years and decades progressed. Why would he have done such a thing? Out of care and concern for his fellow man? To help his fellow humans survive the impending peak oil event? I'm not naive enough to believe that for a second and neither should anyone else. His bizarre and fictional statements of the past several months, transparent attempts to influence events to his financial enrichment, call into question his entire life's canon of storytelling and fact-bending. (Reminiscent of the recent efforts on this forum of a certain vonaltendorf, whose abilities are laughably amateurish and clumsy when compared to those of The Master of the Art, Matt Simmons.) Simmons should be recognizeded for his brazen and fearless manipulation of the psychologies, thought streams and financial behaviors of millions of people over the years.
On a lighter note, what do you call a deceased investment banker?
A: A good start!
Your name fits!
Though I wouldn't dismiss the PO nor would I try to make any assessment on his character. He simply is who he was.
A+ post Unconformity
I wonder if Matt Simmons was still short BP? Some trustee or family member might want to cover that one.
Given that he was short 8000 shares as opposed to what MS was reputedly worth, that stock could go to $500 before they covered and it wouldn't mean squat.
It's just another puzzle in a puzzle box full of puzzles. I can't see how a rational very rich man could have staked his reputation on insane claims because he was short 8000 shares. But maybe the Rational man model just doesn't apply here.
And now he has taken the missing pieces of the puzzles with him.
Without putting any stock in his outlandish recent claims, that they gained any traction at all was only because he was so respected previously. Nobody would have given the same platform to a known crack-pot. Of course, it served a purpose for the MSM, the more controversial the better.
Reminds me a bit of an uncle who was a brilliant story teller for so many years. He could recite Civil War battles stories with historical accuracy for hours on end. He was more interesting than most history profs. Sadly, towards the end of his life, the stories and battles started mixing. He always went on as though he had never missed a beat. What can you say?
BP Oil Spill Stalls Gulf Loop Current
http://yowusa.com/earth/2010/earth-0810-01a/1.shtml
An Italian theoretical physicist, Dr. Gianluigi Zangari, of the prestigious Research Division of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics at Frascati National Laboratories (LNF) of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Italy, has come up with some startling scientific findings. Dr. Zangari has specialized in global climate research and analysis. He has found that the massive amount of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, from the BP Oil Disaster, has caused a disruption of the Loop Current in the Gulf. And further, that this has resulted in a dramatic weakening in the vorticity of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current, and a reduction in North Atlantic water temperatures of 10C.
This has gone way over my head, but I'll have to reserve judgement for latter, hopefully someone here can validate the authencity of the article and hopefully it's not bad.
By the way, at the bottom of the above link, an article of planet x, as posted what the heck is that?
It's from a "Planet X" Conspiracy site. It takes a few facts and then spouts complete nonsense. Just check out their top level http://yowusa.com/
I see, and as for the so called slowing gulf current, do you believe it? The science behind that article sort of escaped me...then again a lot of technical information does.
The gulf loop current isn't really looping at the moment but that's part of a normal cycle and is expected to hold that pattern for at least the next few weeks. That was a good thing because it stopped almost all Macondo oil getting into the loop current. This was all announced a few weeks ago (by the EPA I think) although I can't instantly find a link. There was also a live webcast on response to the crisis in which the charts were shown and discussed.
I know the article is foolishness.
They said corexit was the reason why the loop is stopping and I can only roll my eyes. But what was the point of posting the link...
So we can all sleep soundly tonight, right?
I can say from my experience as a chef that his analogy of salad dressing is pretty funny.....the general gist of the article is that COREXIT products were applied in a large enough amount to make a Gulf of Mexico emulsion, and that this introduced enough friction to stall the loop current. He might be a rocket scientist, but he don't kno' nutin' bout' no chemistry, and he prolly don't kno' nutin' bout' no salad dressin' either. I did run into somebody, who in the course of their postulating about why the well would "blow up", used analogy of a bowl of raisin bran to describe a compressible fluid. I laughed so hard I cried when I read that. I chose to use the more dignified analogy of a banana and a doughnut.
Here is also another great one I found. " Alien Scalpel " o,0
http://www.alienscalpel.com/crop-circles/bp-oil-spill-crop-circles
That link actually made some sense, and it brightened my day. Thanks for the laugh.
So the gulf loop will go back in a couple weeks, right?
I like the description accompanying the prominently positioned Donate button
Support Dr. Leir's work and A & S Research by Donating.
All cash donations are fully tax deductible. All proceeds will be used for scientific physical abduction research.
All cash donations are fully tax deductible. All proceeds will be used for scientific physical abduction research.
Oh. Well, awrighty then. Reckon the IRS agrees?
Malarkey Alert:
Worse yet, these real-time satellite data feeds offers clear evidence to Zangari that a new artificial system has been generated in the Gulf in a remarkably short period of time. It is this new and unnatural system which has changed the viscosity, temperature and salinity of the Gulf's seawater, thereby causing the Loop Current to stall.
Which would cause a hypothetical drop in sea temperatures, I presume?
Can nothing go right?
Anyway are the ROV's down for anybody? I can't see them.
All the feeds had to be shut down to hide the massive fire that's been started on the seafloor by a spark from one of the ROVs. I believe the alien spacecraft that crashed causing the initial rig fire is leaking Ion fuel, which has combined with the toxic Corexit, massive amounts of methane, and the unstoppable gusher of abiotic oil to make a previously unknown chemical compound that initiated a fusion reaction in the seafloor mud. The nuclear fire will spread until it reaches the shore, at which time BP will switch the feeds back on, albeit only showing previously recorded footage showing how wonderful everything is down there, what with all the abundant life scurrying around everywhere and enjoying a peaceful and productive life.
The first sentence of the linked article is:
"Oceanographic satellite data now shows that the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico has stalled as a consequence of the BP oil spill disaster. "
I think that it is not possible for satellite date to assign blame, to BP or to any other agency, for an observation. Where is the causal link? Certainly not in the data.
I guess that they had to come up with something else, now that it looks like the Giant Methane Bubble is not about to destroy the world.
Or maybe it's not Corexit that's slowing down the Gulf current; maybe the Giant Methane Bubble is creating an underwater foam. When you are blending smoothies and incorporate too much air into the mix you lose the circular flow...
Boy they did that autopsy on Matt fast.
Hurricane could bring bureaucratic delays to Gulf
Gov't Plan For Cleaning Up A Gulf Coast Hurricane Calls For Sampling Oil Before Removing It
By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer – Mon Aug 9, 4:06 am ET
http://tinyurl.com/2bnttl7
Here is a wiki article on Matt Simmons RIP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Simmons#Deepwater_Horizon_Oil_Spill_Co...
He also said numerous things about bp: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Conjectures
Simmons has made several controversial comments and predictions regarding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and BP's solvency, including:
* During a June 9th, 2010, interview with Fortune[4], Simmons claimed that BP would "have about a month before they claim Chapter 11". The comment initially contributed to a precipitous drop in BP's market capitalization. However, subsequent events, including BP's establishment of a $20 billion claim fund, have shown Simmons' claim to be highly unlikely, and BP's stock price has begun to recover.
* During a July 7th, 2010, interview on CNBC[5] (which was around the date Simmons originally predicted BP would be filing for bankruptcy), Simmons claimed that scientists were reporting the flow rate from the oil spill was "spewing 120,000 barrels a day into the Gulf" and that there have been estimates that we have "lost oxygen for 40% of the Gulf of Mexico". He further claimed that the relief wells will not stop the oil spill.
* A week later, during a July 15th, 2010 interview with KPFK - Pacifica Los Angeles [6], Simmons asserted that the relief wells and the capping process on the Macondo wellhead are publicity stunts and that the real vent is up to ten miles away. He said that an enormous pool of crude is accumulating below the sea floor, releasing poisonous gases and waiting to be whipped up by a hurricane.
* Also, previously, on May 26, 2010, Matthew Simmons was a guest on 'The Dylan Ratigan Show' on MSNBC, where he explained his reasons for believing that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill involved not only the leak being monitored by BP's video-camera-equipped ROVs [remotely operated vehicles], but another, much bigger leak, several miles away:
Good luck with finding enough oil to whip up and damage houses.
This ruling illustrates a significant issue in the government's behavior regarding the spill. That is, apparently government lawyers girding for battle against BP's legal team play a role in many decisions. If the latest spill estimate was inflated, as some here suspect, it could be because government lawyers are establishing a negotiating position for the upcoming struggle over fines. If NOAA isn't sharing all their research data with the public, it has to do with the Natural Resources Damage Assessment process.
According to police reports, Simmons suffered a heart attack while in a hot tub at his home on North Haven. An autopsy is planned for today in Augusta, according to the Knox County Sheriff's Office.
http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/Energy-expert-Simmons-dies-in-North-H...
Russia just can't seem to catch a break?
Thanks for the article QuantumUS, it was nice knowing how Simmons got his autopsy.
As for the current, when will it return to normal activity? Since it is undergoing part of a natural cycle I was wondering when it will move from low activity to high.
Article on the oil bubbles found inside the shells of larval crabs in the Gulf, with a disturbing photo.
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/08/crabs_give_evidence_of_oil_spi.html
Compared to Prince William Sound, the Gulf's shoreline habitat appears to have escaped with only moderate (perhaps even slight) physical damage. But the damage to marine life, and particularly this year's crop of eggs and larvae, may turn out to be quite large.
Redfish are spawning, starting this month and into October. Good timing, as their larvae will not have to deal with surface oil. They swim to the surface during rising tides and sink to the bottom during falling tides, to get themselves carried inland to the marshes, where the fry will spend the winter.
Very good, at least for the Redfish.
But what's with our fixation on crabs with oil bubbles in their shells? It's sad yes, but that looses it's effect after the tenth picutre.
Does this mean you would would like to forget about it, or the effects no longer have affect?
Oil bubbles in the crab shells are good representations of what's on the floor of the GoM.
It no longer has affect.
And I know they're good representations for what's going on in the gulf. They just look nasty, so forget I ever said that comment it was just that.
Anyway, is the Kalamazoo spill over? As far as the clean up effort?
And yes, the media needs a new story since a methane bubble isn't likely anymore.
Here's two for Matt Simmons, a rarity-the man true to his beliefs in the face of mockery and public humiliation. Let's pray he's not up there laughing at us.
http://www.starfl.com/news/fish-21360-ramp-officials.html
"...Officials closed the boat ramp at Frank Pate Park for public use Thursday morning after dead fish and crabs began washing up along the shoreline by the hundreds. In addition, anonymous reports started coming in of a brown sludgy material sighted six miles offshore...."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIXWYBTpLtSayJtg41LKXp...
"..."They can't convince brokers around the nation that it's a safe product," he said, adding that he came across a 2-square-mile patch of dead, floating fish on Friday about 12 miles off Gulfport, Miss..."
Pack 'em up and ship 'em to DAVID JONES of the Daily Mail along with a magnum of Corexit.
Don't you mean Davy Jones?
And does anyone have more information on the Gulf loop current stalling? I can only find the same article, http://pesn.com/2010/08/01/9501682_Gull_Loop_Current_Stalls_from_BP_Spill/ with this much information.
HOS, I found a stalled video animation, but the Loop Current is behaving normally. That means it is changing shape and forming eddies and reconnecting to eddies over and over as it has been doing for a long, long time. To put it politely, Zangari is way out of his depth. In your linked article he attributes cooler sea surface temperatures to the oil spill, apparently unaware that TS Bonnie had just churned up the northern Gulf, cooling the surface by mixing with deeper water, a very normal result of a storm. Also, the July 28 current graphic in your link shows much of the Loop flowing at 1 to 2 knots, but Dr Z says it stalled that day. Here is a Loop Current projection from the US Navy of that date, it looks pretty healthy:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/glfmexspdcur/nowcast/sp...
Two other views, a year ago, and this week:
July 2009:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/glfmexspdcur/nowcast/sp...
August 2010:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/glfmexspdcur/nowcast/sp...
The full archive for hours of browsing fun:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/arc_list_glfmexspdcur.html
HOS, check out pcwick's comment full of Loop Current graphic links upthread.
Following one of them I found this cool US Navy animation of the past year showing last summer's eddy Ekman forming, lots of interesting chaos, and this spring's eddy Franklin. Warning, it's a little processor intensive so you might need to let it run a few times before it smoothes out.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/global_ncom/anims/gom/cspd12m.gif
Could be a little red flag telling us that all is not as well as it might seem.
I guess there was a good reason why the educational system in this country has been so anti science and anti critical thinking for some time now. An educated informed public is a lot harder to fool.
In anycase, I'd be much more worried about the effects of the artificially dispersed oil in plumes throughout the water column. (yeah I know they are not supposed to exist) and how that is affecting the various larval stages of all kinds of crustaceans like shrimp, lobsters and myriad other species of crustaceans.
Many species of crustaceans go through multiple larval stages in their development. While in these stages they are part of the zooplankton and thus are an integral part of the food web on which many other species including commercial fish stocks feed.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/crustacea/metamorphosis.html
So as long as the surface sand on the beaches looks nice and white and the tourists can be lured back, they can all be happy and drink margaritas, eat live Maine lobster and Chilean sea bass (while they last). No need to really worry all that much about the local sea food.
Every thing is just fine and dandy, plus we still have pro sports and the Oscars and NASCAR and the daily evening news infotainment to keep everyone contently sitting in plush couches. Yeah, bring me another cold one and pass the shrimp cocktail!
Is that an insult, my freind? I just asked, so what does the education system have to do with any of this?
But, enough. BP has already pledged to give money to the clean up effort and I'll reserve judgement for later, at least until I know the after-effects of the spill in more detail. Though, I'll thank you for sharing with us another article on Marine Biology, I recalled earlier asking about the plankton population and speculated that the plankton community in uncontaminated areas might prosper a bit in the winter. Mostly due to the cooler temperatures which will bring an abundance of nutrients for them to feast on making them healthier. And since they are a keystone species, a healthy plankton population means a healthy gulf population.
I won't undermine the effects of this horrifying disaster, but I think your sarcasm and demeaning attitude to those who are working hard to fix this disaster is a bit unsettling. Many people are concerned for this disaster, so don't mock them by calling them apathetic to the situation in the gulf.
Also I found this, http://ccar.colorado.edu/~leben/pdf/sturges_and_leben.pdf, so no need to link to me any news regarding to loop current.
It was not an insult and the comment was not directed at you personally. It is just my assessment of what I perceive to be a general lack of knowledge of the public at large. Ignorance is neither a crime nor should it be permanent condition.
However as I see it there has been a long term concerted effort in this country to undermine the teaching of basic science and critical thinking skills. The average person doesn't have the background that is necessary to understand complex phenomenon nor are they able to judge when they are being hoodwinked and fed carefully predigested information and propaganda.
What happened and continues to happen with regards this spill and how it is presented to the public is pure propaganda and spin.
But don't worry about it...
Very sly...
That last bit of sarcasm wasn't needed.
Though I don't see how our country is trying to undermine science at all you may want to explain that. Though your problem with the media, is your problem. Despite it being where we get our information from many educated posters on TOD are managing just fine.
Anyway good day to you.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&add...
The US ranks 33rd out 34 countries only Turkey ranks lower. These results don't speak very highly of The US population's general scientific literacy level. So I would give the US educational system a failing grade.
I could provide volumes of statistics to back up my claim that we have a mathematically and scientifically illiterate population.
To be clear I have no quarrel with the people on the ground who are working hard to solve the technical problems in the aftermath of this disaster. I haven't said a bad word about them. I reserve my scorn for the leadership both corporate and governmental who got us into this mess in the first place.
As for the Media being my problem, sure whatever.
And sarcasm, cynicism and scorn, happen to be my first, last and middle names.
So far I haven't directed any of that at you personally.
Cheers!
Perhaps some members of the press think that everything is, or is going to be, "fine and dandy," but Dr Lubchenco is clearly concerned.
and
Both quotes from the 8/4 White House briefing.
Allen has spoken several times of the trade-offs between protecting the nursery marshes by the use of dispersants and the creatures in the off-shore water columns. It was quite the Sophie's choice... may time tell they made the correct one.
It was quite the Sophie's choice... may time tell they made the correct one.
Amen. I believe they did, but their choice was never between anything but "awful" and "worse."
My God, what BP has to live down . . .
the impact will not be even worse than it might have been.
Semantics cleanup squad, Aisle 7, please...
In the al.com article cited upthread by Gobbet, the statement
assumes a process that has not been demonstrated, but it's properly couched with the hedge words "might" and "could." To the very limited extent I know the scientific literature on marine invertebrates, we do not know what will happen to the bubbles of oil observed in larval crabs. It's conceivable, for example, that the oil sequestered under the exoskeleton will be shed along with the shells at the next molt.
The literature on how ingested oil is handled by fish physiology is clear, however. Ingested oil is rapidly metabolized by fish and excreted. So with respect to fish the claim that bioaccumulation will harm creatures at the top of the food chain is contradicted by what we know. Please note that Jane Lubchenko addressed this directly by saying:
As she further noted, it is still quite possible that the larval crabs or other poorly studied animals that first ingest oil will in fact be harmed. The point is, we need to do the research and monitoring to find out the consequences, rather than making assumptions and jumping to conclusions. Patience.
Doc, did you see my 'oil and soil' 400 ppm hydrocarbon test kit. Is it worthwhile if some kind of amateur level of testing is done with this with results posted from samples taken over time and various locations? Is 400 ppm with a visual test about as effective as me smelling the sand or just looking at it and posting photos? Maybe I could just think of it as practice gathering samples for myself. Do you have a protocol link that is easier than most of the stuff I have seen? I will post my methods and disclaim the heck out the data, most of the stuff I have seen is impractical for most amateurs. I will come up with some kind of control and I will try to enlist some help from some bachelor level science buddies if that helps. Is that bad science or is there anything else I could do for myself that is 'worthwhile' in the way you see professional scientists working?
http://oil-in-soil.com/OilInSoil.htm
Your senses are perfectly valid scientific instruments if they are calibrated using known controls. This applies equally to your kit. You can probably figure out how to mix up 200, 400, 800, 1600 ppm hydrocarbon, preferably in whatever you will be testing. You can then see how well your kit performs, and compare that to your senses. The controls are what makes it science, not the instruments.
Duly noted. However if perchance you are directing this comment at what I said then if you reread my comment you might note that not once did I make any mention of bioaccumulation of hydrocarbon contaminents in fish at the top of the food chain.
I was more concerned with the partial or total elimination of the food chain at critical junctures in the life cycles of certain juvenile fish.
Re patience, while under normal circumstances I might concur that it is indeed a virtue, with regards what has transpired over the last couple months in the Gulf, mine has run exceedingly thin.
I find it interesting that there are many discussions about bio-accumulations of oil and COREXIT products, but nary a mention of how marine life breathes. Correct me if I am wrong, but the volume of water filtered through an organism's gills,ie:crabs-n-fish-n-etc, would far out-weigh the amount of fluids taken in during feeding. I would be less concerned about bio-accumulations having an effect, and more concerned with the inability of marine life to deal with clogged gills. Reading about the surfactants and sulfonic acids...
" Sulfonic acids are typically much stronger acids than their carboxylic equivalents, and have the unique tendency to bind to proteins and carbohydrates tightly; most "washable" dyes are sulfonic acids (or have the functional sulfonyl group in them) for this reason. They are also used as catalysts and intermediates for a number of different products. Sulfonic acid salts (sulfanates) are important as detergents, and the antibacterial sulfa drugs are also sulfonic acid derivatives. "
....so , again, I might be a little confused here, but the same class of acids used to make surfactants is also used to make effective carriers of medicines because they bind to various proteins and carbs....so....exactly how long does it take for these "micelles" (molecular encapsulations) to break down..?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micelle
Here's Jim Clark from Exxon talking about COREXIT products.According to this paper, COREXIT products sink the oil.
But even more important...COREXIT 9500/A is made for surface application in droplet form.....so what the hell was being applied at the well-head..?
http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/nat_Fak_IV/Physikalische_Chemie...
This next one is a technological assessment of the effectiveness of dispersants, from the MMS
http://www.slross.com/publications/mms/349AA.pdf
According to the above paper, there is a small window of time in which to apply dispersants( different for different oils), otherwise they are ineffective.....so what is the point of repeated spraying at the surface..?
I have too many questions.
I was so relieved to get balanced,non-hype, comments about the oil well status from this site;however,this A.M.,this was brought to my attention. Please,tell me this is not accurate.It is suggesting that we are being shown the incorrect well on the Rov. vids. Thanks for taking a look at this;all I want is the truth,and so far I believe I've gotten those answers here.
A Tale of Two Wells:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oaf998FwQVI
Yup. And the "other" well is pumping what? Invisible oil?
Hoax, shred it.
It is not accurate. Search yesterday's and other open threads for "two wells," and you will find persuasive debunking.
Brace yourself for bringing this up again--said based on my past experience. I sense a sarcasm swell building and getting ready to roll...
Ruby, a lot of the sarcasm comes from the frustration of having to debunk the same stuff over and over. It is natural that people pop into TOD and ask questions about the latest doomsday-proof/hoax/two-well-theory/gulf-bottom-rift/methane-bubble/rov-thruster-storm meme (often pushed by websites and people with somewhat dubious motivations, IMHO).
It is easier (and understandable) for the person alarmed/interested in these stories to simply pop into TOD and ask their pressing question rather than look, even a few threads back, to see how the topic was discussed in the past.
I've noticed that the first waves of these stories are usually debunked with care and patience. However, as time goes on and the same questions begin to pile up, people can become more and more sarcastic.
To me, the sarcasm is very understandable too.
And I'd like to add on to that and say that this is a place to learn. So don't be afraid to ask questions, especially technical ones. The community here is very nice and knoweldgable.
Double posting deleted. The CMS hiccup? BBF
mako - There was only one well drilled. Williams talked about losing drill pipe in the hole. That's true. But they sidetracked around the lost DP and continued drilling from the same surface location. As far as the rest of the tale you're free to believe what you wish. But understand it's not just BP out there. In fact, the vast majority of the folks working out there are sub-contractors and Coast Guard/MMS pesonnel. So if there is a cover up then dozens of companies who owe no allegence to BP are lying as well as the your govt. It's a free country: pick who you wish to believe.
Heading Out:
I'm having trouble understanding the description of the cementing that has killed the well this past week. It is said that the cement did not stay close to the top of the well, but flowed to the bottom. And that most of it solidified in the bottom of the well, but some of it flowed into the producing formation. It's nice to believe, but how do they know? Have they wireline instrumentation in the well that reports the level of the top surface of the cement? Or do they know by inference from instrument measurements at the well head? What instruments? What inferential reasoning?
I hope the reasoning is more than inference from the amount of mud pumped and the inner diameter of the inner pipe. But where is the reasoning that partitions the cement into a fraction that is in the pipe and a remnant that is in the formation? What data supports this?
geek7, Here's some ****speculation**** about what information BP may have that led them to conclude that the oil/mud/cement was forced down the production casing.
One can glean some information from the following images (previously posted at TOD): exhibit A; exhibit B (which I downloaded from the BP website). They were evidently taken during the "static diagnostic test", not while pumping cement, but it gives an idea of what information they have. If you look carefully at exhibit A, on the white board above the woman's head, there appears to be a pressure gauge in the choke line near the BOP, a pressure gauge in the kill line near the BOP and one inside the BOP near the wellhead, which is crossed out?). Exhibit B shows a graph with what appear to be model predictions (points connected by lines) and what appear to be actual pressure readings (closely spaced points) that may have been taken by two of the pressure sensors mentioned above (exhibit A is too fuzzy to read the labels). In any event, it seems reasonable to assume that they know the pressure at the wellhead inside the BOP, or at least close to the BOP. No doubt, they also know the rate at which fluid is being pumped.
The crucial thing to keep in mind is that the pressure exerted by column of fluid depends only on its density and its height. It is not necessary to know the volume of the column. Therefore, the change in pressure measured at the BOP while slowly injecting a fluid of known density (or better yet, measuring after briefly stopping the flow to eliminate the effect of viscosity), can be used to estimate the height of the fluid column, assuming a single flow path down the well bore. The height of the fluid column can then be used in conjunction with the known volume being pumped to infer the cross sectional area of the fluid path as a function of distance down the well bore. The inferred cross sectional area of the fluid path can be compared with the expected cross sectional ares of various hypothetical fluid paths to infer which path the injected fluid was taking. The theoretical lines on the graph shown in exhibit B appear to show the results of simulations based on various assumed cross sectional areas of the flow path.
geek -- No wire line data. It's done by math. They know the volume of the csg from the surface to the bottom of the hole (that function changes as the csg size changes). They also have a rough idea of the volume of the annulus (from the bottom of the hole to some distance above the reservoir) although it might be larger given some may have been eroded out by the wild flow. So they back calculate: annular volume from the base of the well to A' above the reservoir = Y bbls. The volume of the csg B' above the base of the csg = X bbls. The volume of the csg from B' back to the BOP is Z bbls. The volume of the riser is R bbls. So if they pump Y+X bbls of cmt followed by Z+R bbls of mud/spacer then they end up with the cmt where they want it. In theory, of course. Obviously the biggest uncertain assumption is the correct annular volume. So what they are saying is that they were able to pump the planned Z+R volume behind the Y+X bbls of cmt. And stopped when the had pumped Z+R. of course. The most likely failure of this effort would be insufficient annular cmt to isolate the reservoir from the annulus above it. presumably this is what the RW1 will find out when it cuts he shallow annulus: no pressure = the reservoir has good cmt across it. High pressure than the cmt didn't make it high enough to isolate it. They could pump cmt down the annulus above the reservoir to isolate it.
So have a completely confused you? LOL. Draw a diagram with the X,Y, Z, etc and it might make more sense.
I don't think they have any definite knowledge about the annular volume. Originally the cement job done back a couple days before the explosion was supposed to fill that annular volume with cement up to 800 feet above the reservoir (about 1000 feet of cement outside the production casing). Obviously some of that cement is now gone and there is a path from the reservoir to the production casing, but it is possible that the cement above the production zone remained intact. They will know more about that when the relief well intersects the open bore above where the cement is supposed to be.
It is premature to declare that the cementing has "killed the well".
They have good evidence that the cement went down the production casing and that the production casing is now plugged. They do not yet know much about what is going on in the space between the production casing and the outer liner of the well. They will be drilling into this space with the relief well. That space in the well which runs close to the entire length of the production casing is still an unknown quantity. That space is supposed to be sealed off from the reservoir, but they won't know that until they get there.
jinn -- I agree 100%. BTW: in the oil patch "killed" just means the well has no pressure at the well head. It does not mean the well is harmless or not capable of dumping a lot more oil into the GOM. What we're going for is P&A: plugged and abandoned. At that point we are out of the woods pollution potentialwise. And not till then.
It's that "jargon thing" again we discussed a week or two ago. In the oilpatch, “killed” doesn’t mean dead and gone (as in the Monty Python Parrot sketch, “This is an ex-parrot!”)
Even after a "bottom kill," I'm not sure the public understands the P&A process tha will follow. It has only been the discussion here about P&A that has caused me to read about how the industry safety prepares a well to be abandoned.
It’s all too much to fit into a headline/lead in a print story or a sound bite. It is easier for MSM to go with jargon shorthand (sounds cool too), even if it leads to some misunderstanding. Unfortunately, the resulting misunderstanding leads to even more mistrust. You don't have to be prescient to imagine that when the P&A process starts that some will say, "I though you said this well was killed!! If you have to do additional work, this is proof that the well was never 'killed' in the first place and somebody lied to us!"
After BP preforms the bottom kill. They'll finally be able to focus their attentions on the real well six miles away...:P
NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!
BP has a contract to sell the hydrocarbons from the second well to a colony of aliens (who live six miles away) who breathe the stuff underwater. That is why they drilled the second well to get a special type of HC with a specific gravity heavier than water so it won't float. The heavy stuff is much perferred to our normal "light stuff" (as the aliens view it.) BTW, the aliens don't drink lite beer for the same reason. That's why the HCs from the second well are staying on the bottom and not rising to produce a surface slick.
Edit: BP first tried to market the HC from the first well to the aliens using to old "Less filling ... taste great" of Miller Lite fame but the aliens wouldn't buy it; this made the second well necessary. So you see, the whole blow-out was really just a HC taste test for aliens. Fortunately, the aliens like the HC from the second well so we will never see any HC; they're taking all that can be produced from the second well.
Ruby, this is parody not sarcasm ;-)
But the aliens have a low tolerance for corexit !
The stuff causes flatulences in their 12 large bowels and that will culminate in a tremendous blast of methane !
Woe is us!
At Rockman, et al,
does anyone know what Skandia Nepture ROV II was looking at?
It looks as of 4:20 central like something is really stirring up silt down there.
thanks, not able to get a print screen or screen cap.
woerm
Rockman, I do have a question about P&A.
Is there some reason other than the cost of cement that cement plugs are spotted in the well instead of cementing the whole well solid from top to bottom? BTW, any PR value in this approach or are plugs better?
I'm just guessing but I assume that plugs are spotted based on (1) formation near the area to be plugged and (2) possible weak points in the tubing assembly that could leak.
Also, between the plugs, what type of fluid is used?
Logistics can be an issue too. I've only got a 50 bbl blender. And if you don't stop and clean the lines between each 50 bbls, it will set up. This isn't necessarily a problem where you can use a full rig with its attendant pumps and equipment, but most P&As are done with cranes or little pulling units. Not to mention on the little platform I'm on, I don't know where I'd put that many sacks of cement. What we do is sufficient. Completely filling the well is simply unneccesary.
Plugs are placed to put 2 barriers between the formation and the surface. You have a plug across the formation - what BP has done, and you need a surface plug (several hundred feet below the mudline so the casing can be cut off above it but still under the mudline). You also need to cement plugs in the annulus, which can be done via cutting and pulling the tubing/casing, section milling it, or just perforating it.
Kill weight mud or brine is placed between the cement plugs, and in our case, a bridge plug is also located below each cement plug.
bb -- spartan got you covered pretty good below. Also the longer the cmt job the more prone it can be to channels/failures.
Thanks, guys!
"But what was the point of posting the link..."
Perhaps because I thought that the scientific findings of a member of the Research Division of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics might be of interest to someone here.
http://cordis.europa.eu/erawatch/index.cfm?fuseaction=org.document&uuid=...
"INFN - the National Institute of Nuclear Physics - is an organisation dedicated to the study of the fundamental constituents of matter, and conducts theoretical and experimental research in the fields of subnuclear, nuclear, and astroparticle physics.
Fundamental research in these areas requires the use of cutting-edge technologies and instrumentation, which the INFN develops both in its own laboratories and in collaboration with the world of industry.
Moreover, the INFN promotes the application of the skills, methods, and experimental techniques developed in the course of its own research to research in other fields, such as medicine, artistic preservation, and environmental protection. These activities are conducted in close collaboration with the academic world.
Each of INFN’s 19 Divisions is located at a university physics department. The Divisions thus provide a direct connection between the Institute and the academic world. The Institute’s four Laboratories—in Catania, Frascati, Legnaro, and at Gran Sasso—are home to major facilities which are available to the national and international scientific community."
RISK OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE BY BP OIL SPILL - Gianluigi Zangari
Frascati National Laboratories (LNF) - National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN)
Frascati 00044, Via E. Fermi, 40, ITALY
Abstract: BP Oil Spill may cause an irreparable damage to the Gulf Stream global climate thermoregulation activity. The Gulf Stream importance in the global climate thermoregulation processes is well assessed. The latest real time satellite (Jason, Topex/Poseidon, Geosat Follow-On, ERS-2, Envisat) data maps of May-June 2010 processed by CCAR1,2 (Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research), checked at Frascati Laboratories by the means of the SHT congruent calculus3 and compared with past years data, show for the first time a direct evidence of the rapid breaking of the Loop Current, a warm ocean current, crucial part of the Gulf Stream.
As displayed both by the sea surface velocity maps and the sea surface height maps, the Loop Current broke down for the first time around May 18th and generated a clock wise eddy, which is still active.
Since comparative analysis with past satellite data until May 2010 didn’t show relevant anomalies, it might be therefore plausible to correlate the breaking of the Loop Current with the biochemical and physical action of the BP Oil Spill on the Gulf Stream.
It is reasonable to foresee the threat that the breaking of a crucial warm stream as the Loop Current may generate a chain reaction of unpredictable critical phenomena and instabilities due to strong non linearities which may have serious consequences on the dynamics of the Gulf Stream thermoregulation activity of the Global Climate.
And a nuclear physicist is an expert on oceanography because...? Think I'll apply for secretary Chu's old job, I'm a bit of an expert in my field (vanity, vanity) and it can't be that hard to learn a whole new science in a week or two.
But this is basicly fear mongering. I mean what do we now, that the BP oil spill caused irreparable damage to the Gulf stream? I will still reserve judgement for later, but we might as well dig for eight other theories on doomsday due to the spill.
Can someone with more wisdom than I, tell me what is really going on? What's the cycle for the stream?
Um, aren't those the eddies that are common enough to give them names? duh.
NAOM
The crab was just back on Ocean Intervention III ROV 1
Edit: Whoaa!! This one is even bigger.
I think it is a re-run. Look at the time.
Maybe not. Anyone know for sure?
Those dogs!! Sure as hell is. I watched that sucka' the other morning.
Edit: They just got caught and switched back to current Central time. The other one was partly visible on my screen at 00:54:.. 08/08/...
The ROV was just dreaming of days gone bye.
Good days like yesterday - crab eats dead eel - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrXw12rc1N8
Note the scene is of 54 minutes length - sped up to 2:30 min. Live is slow at that depth and temperature.
Current count of comments re: Matt Simmons death at Zero Hedge: 225.
Thanks so much for the heads up. I think I'm going to stick to this site for updates. I don't know who Matt Simmons was other than what I just read from the link provided. My condolences go out to His family,and those who knew him from this site; It appears that he had grave concerns.
In my defense, I must have missed this one due to the sheer quantity of competitive theories.
Man Gets Aliens From Venus To Stop BP Oil Spill
http://www.flashnews.com/news/wfn02100702fn20700.html
snake -- you sure that wasn't illegal aliens from Venice?
California or Italy?
Or Florida?
Venice La. All with last names what end with VITCH
Good sleuthing. That must be them, some kind of Russkie aliens posing as shrimpers and oystermen.
That Venusian plan is going to take waaaaaaaay to long and, oops, we've done the kill already. I don't want to wait nearly 4 years for the Venusians to get on with the job.
NAOM
Go ahead and flame for topic or relevance. I actually have been laying low lately, studying for my GRE test. No, I do not necessarily agree, but the man is interesting. He has a big audience.
Spike Lee: It's a 'lie' that 75 percent of the Gulf oil spill oil is gone
Lubchenco said that the oil budget report did not say--or did not intend to say--that 75% of the oil is gone. The report was so badly written that every single reporter misinterpreted it. It must have resulted from a 3-way tug-of-war among lawyers, scientists, and spinners.
However, I think 75% of the oil is gone.
TinFoil, welcome back. Any petroleum odors, unusual dead critters, murky water at Gulf Shores?
That's funny. It's also funny that Lee wants our media to expose the "lies". About the only thing our media has exposed over the last few months is its own incompetence.
Spike Lee, the soft-spoken NOLA fan? Expert on oil recovery and dispersement. OK - I need to go under my van and loosen my oil-pan plug to retrieve some milk for my cereal now. g - out
PS: ";-^)
Ooo wee, between Matt Simmons, Zangari, and all the rest, quite a large bowl of ketchup greets us late-arrivers today.
You have to be curious (likely without hope for satisfaction) whether the Simmons autopsy will reveal any organic explanation of his recent behavior. In any case, may his family, after their shock wears off, take comfort in the mercy of a quick end. R.I.P.
Between the fires in Russia, the mudslides in China, Spike Lee, the zero hedge murder theorists, the crab tape replay on a live feed and the misc. tin-foil-hatters lurking everywhere in between, I'm reminded how much we all look like chimpanzees screaming at the eclipse (TM). It's no wonder no civilization has ever survived itself.
In conclusion and very apropos, I'd just like to drop the following link (while muttering something about too much information, too much greed, too much madness, for my simple brain to process) of Charleton Heston getting to the point at the end of that dirty ape movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsbYx6hevoQ
Yes. That covers it nicely.
Good afternoon, you loons.
That's just being negative. The first two were natural disasters, whereas the rest are just a minority of people. You might just want to kick back a bit, that doesn't mean succumb to apathy though. Anyway have a good one. We loons are waiting for the show later this week. After that we celebrate with gulf sea food.
Unconformity: There you go, insulting the chimps.
I would much rather be flamed than ignored. Sometimes, I'd rather be flamed than praised. I learn so much more from the flames than the agreeable. It sure keeps you 'honest'. Just spell my name right and leave my kin and country alone and you are 'OK' by me. Thanks for the 'praise' this time for sure.
[misplaced]
Some tidbits from this morning's briefing by Adm. Allen.
- DD3 has the final of three runs of ranging/drilling before it will be ready to intercept the well
Development Driller 3 is at a depth of 17,909 feet below sea level. That's measured depth the length of the pipe, true vertical depth, which is straight down from the sea level is 17,152 feet. They're in the process of going in about 30-foot increments of drilling, backing out, putting a wire down to measure the magnetic field around the casing, and moving forward. They've done this twice over the last 72 to 96 hours. They still have one more run to complete.
-Allen said he knows of no plans to try to recover any of the 700,000 plus barrels of oil that were on board Deepwater Horizon (wouldn't they have been consumed during the fire?) or any of the structure itself. (He referred the reporter to BP for a definitive answer to salvaging any part of the rig. He also made it clear that his responsibility lies with the oil spill response, not the investigation.)
- a bit more on the fate of the old BOP and the final closing of the well
At some point, once the relief well is finished, that equipment will have to be removed, and the well will then be plugged under regulations that are issued by the Department of Interior. That will involve several steps. It will be removal of the cap itself and then ultimately the removal of the current blowout preventer and its replacement.
Once that happens, that'll be done under the supervision of the Coast Guard and Department of Interior that are conducting a joint Marine Board of Investigation into the cause of the event, with consultation with the Department of Justice.
And then the final disposition of the well will be taken care of under the current regulations, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Department of Interior. Was that responsive?
Good ol' rainy. Thanks again.
700,000 plus barrels of oil that were on board Deepwater Horizon (wouldn't they have been consumed during the fire?)
Diesel fuel, as I recall. I can't imagine how those tanks/contents could have stayed intact. Surely they went up quickly.
lotus - Not positive but I think that was gallons and not bbls.
Ah, bet you're right there, Rockman. Makes better sense, anyhoo.
Wasn't one of the old YouTube videos of ROV captures from the last month or so that proported a leaking "bottom" of the GOM actually showing a leaking tank on the DWH wreckage? I can't find the citation now.
rainy, listening to this, I'm really appreciating Allen's patience with some questioners (reaching Rockman levels).
Yes...
All in all, I think that Allen has done an admirable job. He's come up to speed on complex technology issues - even his occasional bloopers have often made more sense if you listen to the audio - all the while overseeing large numbers of onshore and offshore assets, figuring out to best put vessels of opportunity to work, communicating with NOAA on storms and oil movement, keeping an ear open to Chu's recommendations and concerns, flying back and forth to DC to brief the TPTB there ... and remaining diplomatic, whether speaking of Hayword or the parish presidents. (Well, I guess his patience with Jindal and his berms did wear thin, so he figured out a way to offload that issue.)
I'm really appreciating Allen's patience with some questioners (reaching Rockman levels).
He did give a bit of a rap on the noggin to the dame who described herself as "surprised" that he wasn't 100 percent sure whether dispersants had been used in Baritaria Bay. But then, Rockman has done the same on rare occasions.
Uh-huh, some amateurs (like her and Tom from Kos) made it onto this call, and he was especially suave with them, I thought.
Just want y'all to know that I'm fixin' to lift a glass in honor of 5:06:07, 08/09/10, in case anybody wants to clink glasses.
Lotus, I did. We are now joined forever by a virtual clink! How cool is that?
Sláinte, erain!
If Matt Simmons was murdered, it was by the trusted person feeding him the nonsense.
We will never know now who did that.
He named his source for the lake of oil nonsense. Staff on board the TJ. Only problem is that the TJ's reports don't mention anything like that. So if you're thinking what you seem to be thinking, then you must think that there's a NOAA/TJ coverup and the massive lake of oil exists and is growing still by 120k bbl/day even though it would have taken 4038 years at that rate to fill it to the size he claimed it was, or that he was purposefully fed disinfo for some nefarious but still unknown purpose. The problem I have with the entire notion is that it presupposes that Simmons was idiotic enough to just blindly accept what he was supposedly told, including the amazing 6 or 8 or 10 mile BOP launch up through 4900' of seawater.
Well you have to admit Snake (acutally, you really don't have to I guess) that no one really knows why he made the sort of comments that he did. Plenty of people have speculated on why, but no one really knows for sure. Talk about coincidence though...wow...it's almost like it was scripted just for the conspiracy theorists...now there's a conspiracy...
I can see that he had potential financial reasons (BP stock, Ocean Energy Institute) but that doesn't explain why he thought his credibility would survive. Making clearly untrue claims seems like unbelievably poor judgement so some disease process seems plausible. And yet he stayed almost perfectly consistent during interviews.
Here is a couple of Matt Simmons tributes that provide some background about his recent behavior.
Matt Simmons, Crazy Uncle Of The Oilpatch, R.I.P - http://blogs.forbes.com/christopherhelman/2010/08/09/matt-simmons-crazy-...
Death of A Gentleman: Matthew Simmons Dead at 67 - http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm/4915/Death-of-A-Gentleman-Matt...
Excellent links. Thanks.
Colonel Mustard with a lead pipe.
Great technical comments by many towards the top of this thread. Wish they had come sooner. Many thanks to those who know offshore drilling operations for their explanations to us who want to know. If only BP would share what they know, there would not be so much guessing on everyone’s part. Many of my stated guesses have been shown to be wrong, so I will sit back and observe.
It has been like a good mystery story. Many good motives, questions and relationships exposed on the press, the government, the corporations, the rig hands, managers and engineers doing the work, plus the public. I just hope the BS will be exposed, the truth is revealed, and the necessary offshore drilling operations can be resumed in a safer more productive manner.
Now that the well is killed Skandi 1 found a new job with the sheriff's department.
http://yelmonline.com/articles/2010/08/09/first_report/doc4c603f7b2c9983...
Interesting.
And more good news, though it may be a bit old. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill
Well is down to a hundred feet, I don't know what that means exactly but hopefully it means we can through that party once the well is announced dead and abandoned.
Matthew Simmons, peak oil guru, dies at 67
Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Matthew R. Simmons, an energy investment banker and a leading proponent of the "peak oil" theory that claims the Earth is running out of crude, died yesterday.
Simmons, 67, died in an accidental drowning at his home in Maine, local officials said.
Simmons started Houston-based Simmons & Co. in May 1974 with a focus on the oil-services industry, according to the company's website. The firm expanded to offer research, institutional sales and investment banking in the energy industry. Simmons promoted the idea that world oil reserves are peaking, and he explored the implications in a 2005 book called "Twilight in the Desert."
"In the history of the petroleum era, Matt Simmons will be remembered for calling attention to 'peak oil,'" T. Boone Pickens, chairman of BP Capital LLC, said in an e-mailed statement. "You had to admire his advocacy and his ability to focus on the need to better prepare for a new energy future."
Emergency medical workers responded to Simmons's home a little before 10 p.m. local time yesterday, said John Dietter, a crew chief in North Haven, Maine. The official cause of death is drowning, and he was found in a hot tub, said Tara Harrington, medical associate at Maine's Office of Chief Medical Examiner.
"It was an accident," Harrington said today in a telephone interview. She said "heart disease" was listed for the category of "other significant conditions" on the death certificate.
"It was an accident,"
Oh boy..........
328 posts at ZH, 7 pages worth at GLP.
Why do we need offshore oil drilling and production in the GOM? That is an easy question to answer.
The USA uses around 10 million barrels of oil per day for moving our cars, trucks, trains, farm equipment and airplanes. Without this oil our economy and way of life comes to a stop. There is no other near term (lets say ten years) energy source to replace oil.
We import 2/3 of our oil. This puts us in a very unstable situation. Is there a solution to this problem?
YES
Tod
If you have a good solution, better tell em' real soon before the launch codes are entered and the keys turned...
Investing in the high-speed rail can deconstruct the american perception of suburbia and greatly reduce our dependency on the automobile (which is essential to it), along with encouraging people to live closer to work. Oil itself will probably never run out, but it won't be economically feasible for long, at least not as a fuel source instead it will just be used for products like plastic and fertilizer. Which would mean we won't need to spend too much energy drilling for oil reserves since the demand for it is a lot less.
So, Living closer to work/less spawel + Efficient modes of transportion like trains + renewable resource is our best bet.
Heiro:
I don't see high-speed rail as much of an answer in the US because our "important places" are just too many and too far apart. The infrastructure needed would be staggering. It works for compact places like Japan, but it would never make it here.
If you want to look at something practical, research geothermal energy. It works, Iceland is living proof. We do have reserves that could power the US pretty much as long as man will survive to care. There are problems, of course, and it isn't 100% clean as some would say. The thermal waters always have dissolved salts that are bad for the environment, such as sodium carbonate. And the salts tend to corrode equipment as well. But those are engineering problems, and we can solve them. The biggest problem is that the really good areas are also "natural treasures" like Yellowstone. IMO, we could put these oil guys' experience in directional drilling to good use there. You could get into the hot area from well outside the pretty area. And there isn't any worry about "cooling off" the thermal features - the heat there is such that any amount we could draw off will never make a difference.
Edit: Of course, if you build geothermal plants near Yellowstone and then the super-volcano decides to go ballistic, you KNOW who will get the blame. Maybe that's one reason no one wants to do it.
I'm slightly relucant to disturb yellowstone...but I forgot about Iceland and its success. But why not? Geothermal is a great source of energy.
Though I don't see why High speed rails won't work, we don't need a national rail just ones in important areas like the proposed CA and northeastern rail. Not to say everything in between in unimportant...
But here me out, I think it is important to return to train culture because we can't depend on cars forever, they need fuel. The purpose of cars mostly lies on getting to work from your far away home. If we reduce our need for the automobile than we basicly destroyed the concept of suburbia and in turn our need for cars. It won't solve all our problems but it can help with quiet a few of them and besides the city is nice. There you can meet people more closely and you don't spend half your income and time in your car.
But thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'll be sure to consider them when I flesh out my plans for the future.
EDIT: I see you retracted your statement about yellowstone. But yes, that's why I'm relucant to build geothermal plants around it.
It is a choice but the tradeoff on fossil fuels or other energy sources to build new turbines, parts, etc. is something that's overlooked. Geothermal is hell on equipment. I'm not completely discounting it but the full picture isn't disclosed as a rule.
Edit:Okay, pink already covered my *%&*&()(&*&
http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:40788.asx
Looking for life a mile deep in the ocean and finding some cool stuff.
I wish they'd post the ROV Channel schedule. 7 Eastern 6 Central, Amphipods Erupt.
All I saw was one little fish swim by at twenty-two seconds, now I'm not sure what I'm seeng the ROV looks like it's fixing its attention on some object several feet away, never mind it's moving again.
Oil guru Matthew Simmons dies in Maine
[not a word about the crazy stuff]
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFN0927391920100809
And Bloomberg (more at link)
Matthew Simmons, Peak-Oil Advocate and Simmons & Co. Founder, Dies at 67
Sad story... hopefully his legacy will be based on his life's work -- not the last few weeks of his life... may R.I.P.
He did bring attention to Peak Oil and his data driven approach convinced many folks. I'm not sure unconventional oil was heavily factored into his thinking -- heck -- I'm hearing TOTAL is in the final stages of confirming a bitumen mining opportunity in Madagascar that will lead to the next stage (pilot project I believe) for a 200,000 BOE/D mining project (Bemolanga).... of course they are looking out at 2019... (ok this is a topic for other threads...)
Anyway - Matt was always excitable, a bit heavy, flushed... so I'm not surprised by the nature of his death -- timing -- you never know (like a thief in the night)...
Leding LAT right now:
I wonder what would happen if we invested in rail technology instead.
Since it seems we are having trouble extracting oil from a largest reserves here in the states.
State of Texas sues BP over 40-days of toxic emissions
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0809/state-texas-sues-bp-40days-toxic-emissi...
I guess Texas really needs more money, eh? I don't see why they of all the states in the gulf would sue BP for their use of corexit. But, I'll remain neutral on this one, BP all ready promised to pay for all legitimate damage caused. So what say you, Snakehead? Should BP be convicted or not?
This has nothing to do with Corexit. Read the article. They released 1/2 million pounds of toxic pollutants into the air and failed to follow an agreement to notify the state.
My bad.
Now that I know I think this is more justified.
This is a bad company. It's been characterized as "not getting it" but I think that's euphemistically incorrect. I think it's a poorly run behemoth of a scofflaw company that's behaved criminally on several documented occasions. There's more than one of those, unfortunately. Some kill people.
Well that's what it is. A bad company.
Hopefully Texas wins its case and makes money from BP while it is still around. But surely they just didn't release toxins for the giggles, did they? What was their line of reasoning?
Maintain profitability, reduce costs. What the article doesn't mention is that after they were found criminally negligent for killing 15 people at Texas City and some of their officers were placed on probation, they were legally bound to notify Texas in case of emissions, accidents, etc. I hope some of their officers go to prison now.
I know it's not in favor to mention this in some circles, but the marketplace does correct this type of persistent bad behavior.
Shareholders get PO'ed about the stewardship and governance of a company and voice their displeasure at management running such a company into the ground. Boards of directors replace management and set new policies or get replaced themselves.
If shareholders and Boards don't act, the marketplace itself corrects the action by reducing the company's share price to put/keep pressure on management and shareholders. Eventually, shareholders vote with their feet. After that, bad companies become take-over targets or are transformed by bankruptcy.
Even very large super-majors are not immune from this market dynamic. Chronic bad actors pay a price and have to transform or die.
Classic example was Enron. It wasn’t brought down by government action; the marketplace corrected when the BS first ran thin and then ran out.
It isn't a bad system and does work.
That all depends on what harm's been done to you personally, doesn't it? Big picture, taken care of. Individual picture, ruined lives. The pendulum needs to swing back.
Didn't mean to imply that a lot of damage isn't done to good people by bad actors before corrective action takes place. Lots of people were damaged at Enron, too.
However, there is a reckoning. The harm perpetrated on individuals matters. Chronic bad actors are punished. Fortunately, in the case of BP, their pockets are deep enough and their asset base broad enough that tort actions have money to go after for those harmed by BP
In the longer term, in my philosophy, BP being punished makes Exxon more careful. Managements of other companies do pay attention to this stuff.
Agreed. But the pendulum needs to swing back. In my opinion.
I think it will, Snake.
But like you said,their pockets are deep.I got my original investment back the other day and am in it now for the long haul. Maybe.
If these 'unauthorized' flights were undertaken by sworn military officers under BP's orders in contrary to orders of the Executive Branch and the POTUS, then I have a big problem with a private corporation giving in essence what is an illegal order. Are the civilian authorities not bound by some legal mandates when ordering military men around? Coming from the military standpoint, how dare someone entrusted with those resources, use those resources against procedures and regulations. It also puts our good men and women in uniform in a bad position, and should not EVER be intentionally allowed. Our service folks deserve a clear chain of command with clear consequences for ANYONE in that chain that violates the orders that come down from the top of that structure. I wonder if it would have been appropriate and legal if the pilots and crews would have said the orders were outside of the operational parameters authorized by command and kicked it upstairs. Certainly, Gates could have gone to bat for his people and might have required some kind of written order from the POTUS or a sign-off from the EPA to proceed.
Huge multinationals think that your sense of chain-of-command is a quaint artifact, TFHG. Since they get away with it, governments must agree with them.
No problem, just make sure there is paperwork. That way WTSHTF, uniformed folks are not left without a chair.
What in the world are you talking about?
The article was about refinery emissions.
I am sorry, when I see Corexit I think that which was spray illegally upon me and my kin. Selfish moment.
related news flash: The oil fund investment banker and guru Matt Simmons who suggested a nuke was the only way to seal the well and then converted his life to healing the oceans has died from an "apparent drowning"
Matt Simmons “apparently” drowned at his home Sunday night
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2010/08/09/matt-simmons-a...
some excerpts from the article (but go read the whole thing)
"
Matthew R. Simmons Recent Titles
Prior to May of 2010 –Chairman of Simmons & Company International, the company he founded in 1974.
May 29 – Simmons, a “prominent energy expert” and investment banker known for predicting the oil price spike of 2008, tells Bloomberg News on Friday, sending a small nuclear bomb down the leaking well is "probably the only thing we can do" to stop the leak.
June 21 – Abruptly Retires as Chairman Emeritus of Simmons & Company
International [2]
July 18 - Founder of the Ocean Energy Institute
NORTH HAVEN, Maine (NEWS CENTER) - The Knox County Sheriff's Department says Matthew Simmons, the founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, drowned at his house on North Haven late Sunday night.
Simmons was a leading investment banker for the energy industry and had recently retired to work full time on the new Ocean Energy Institute.
He was a leading proponent of offshore wind power and had started raising money to develop and build offshore turbines.
The news release fails to mention Simmons was the leading proponent of sending a small nuclear bomb down the BP leaking well:
Right, "apparently" he had a heart attack and drowned. But really, to get our readership up, it might have been the Rothschilds/Bildeburgers/NWO/BP/Obama. Or maybe Bill Clinton had him killed. Or the Jews.
No heart attack. He just drowned in about 2 foot of water or so.
If he did not have alcohol or drugs in his system then it was probably a murder.
Okay, no heart attack. An angry wife? Or pick a shadow. Who sits in a hot tub that has 2' of water in it? The guy's statements were making him a laughingstock. The only people who benefitted were conspiragoons second hand and maybe Matt himself just by being able to cause an uproar. The harm he caused was via terrifying ignorant "small" people. I don't get what the motivation could be unless it was personal, and he seems to have been beloved by the people who knew him.
Probably a symbolic thimble full of oil in the hot tub.
Less than 1 cubic centimetre.
I know, it makes no sense. Just like the drowning. We will probably never know.
As Aelius Sejanus once said, Everybody is loved when they're dead...
See the discussion up-thread at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6827#comment-698082
From the looks of his recent headshots, I'm wondering if he didn't have a history of circulatory problems. There have been reports in the media citing local officials this afternoon mentioning "heart disease" as a contributing problem.
As silly as it sounds, hot-tub heart attack can happen and was even a plot-line in one of the recent TV crime shows.
Don't know what the outcome will be but it is going to be an interesting story.
When all the good people and truth tellers are rounded up in prison or dead, then all the evil lying people will start feeding and beating on each other. Too bad they'll love the action.
Rest in peace Matt and we know you were suicided.
Well then. I guess we know all we need to know. And as vague and as vaguely foreboding as usual. Well done.
[sarcasm off]
Cite on my comment above; see http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-09/matthew-simmons-investment-bank...
Right, she never said it was a contributing factor. If he had a liver disease she would have listed it too as a significant condition. Cause of death "accidental drowning" period.
A person CAN talk too much. Circulatory problems, heart disease, big mouth, ....all killers.
http://birdflu666.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/polish-investigative-journali...
Yes, a person can. But generally they have to be threatening someone with something significant before taking their lives is worth it.
Do me a favor. Calculate how long it would take to fill a lake the size of the State of Washington to 500' deep at 120k bbl/day. I'll wait.
When you think circulation problems think blue, what Matt had was classic rosacea I bet. Redness/blotchy on the cheeks, nose and forehead.
http://media.timesleader.com/images/simmons.jpg
What is bothering me is the reports now that the AP is spreading that heart disease is a contributing factor.
I read the statement the state medical examiner issued and she said the heart disease was just a noted thing. Not a contributing factor.
Where'd you find the 2' of water info?
I saw it in an article somewhere. I will see if I can find it again.
Q - In addition to circulation deficiencies that would produce blueness (poor circulation), some circulation conditions enlarge the blood vessels. In the skin, it mimics rosacea but can be systemic (more than superficial) impacting organs (like brain, heart, liver, etc.) too.
You guys need to stop blaming BP. They are trying their best to finish all the clean up!! I think they are a caring company and are using all available resources to help the people of the south...I don't know why they are receiving such bad publicity.
Broken capillaries on the (which is what it looked liked to me)also are sometimes indicative of heavy drinking. I remember my mentor who was Norwegian was a major alcholic (and a fun one at that) and his skin looked just like Matt's skin IMO
I've changed my view about them. I really hope they can fix this problem. Ill still be buying shrimp and I may go to red lobster in the afternoon haha. All I said before was just speculation and I was just trying to follow the conspiracy theorists. I'm really sorry....They really are trying to do everything they can. They've spent billions and Im so sorry BP. God Bless!!
I didn't mean everything..I was brainwashed by the conspiracy theorists for some time. Sorry BP I really hope everything goes well once again sorry!!!!
There's no point in trolling if you can't get the fish to bite.
I'm sorry but speculating that he died because of something else is hogwash. You'll just create a stir....and people must watch what they say as well. They are called fear mongers. Wanting attention.
Well alrighty then. You had me worried there for a minute and I was about to unload the rest of my shares.
I'll do what ever it takes to clean up my attitude. We must keep the forums to a professional level..and quite frankly its out of control!
Delete
Sorry once again...Ill make sure to help you guys along.
Beachmommy, chronic use of acholol is one of the causes of the circulation problems I decribed.
Could also contribute to heart problems and a hot tub heart attack.
Much too soon to jump to conclusions though. Hopefully autopsy results will come out although I don't know how much State of Maine will make public.
ITA~and liver problems also. Even when the autopsy reports are public, I can guarantee the conspir-a-loons will say BP bought the ME off...so sick of all the CT's, arghhhh
mummsie -- Drinking causes worse problems than poor circulation. Inability to type is one of them. Just woke up in my chair at 0100 hr with TOD staring me in the face. My nightly B&B on the rocks hit me hard this evening. LOL. That and a poor sleep schedule thanks to a troubled well. Back to sleep now...morning report due at 0500. Ta ta.
Thanks for your context for CT, beachmommy. I'd been searching lists of acronyms but couldn't find anything that seemed to fit the discussions here. Nothing like an early morning revelation. And, I agree, re: being sick of them...
what Matt had was classic rosacea I bet
Looks like it to me. Was he a heavy drinker?
Haven't heard it reported but such personal details might not be.
My wife has had rosacea since her teens. It can be controlled and has no other health impacts we're aware of unless the rosacea is the result of a deeper underlying pathology. See http://www.rosacea.org/patients/index.php
Can't tell from the photos if Mr. Simmons had rosacea; could have. His picture is difference from my wife's case. Rosacea has a wide range of manifestations though (see roacea.org). Could be a circulation issue too (not necessarily related to alcohol use).
BTW, if he had rosacea, both emotional stress and even moderate alcohol consumption are two of several classic triggers of rosacea episodes.
No more gasoline for you.
Signed,
-the thought police
If BP would release the cement pressure charts we would probably see several bumps in pressure. One being the top kill cement hitting the formation as it has different flow properties than flow in the casing.
Back in the 1980s in Oklahoma a gas well blew out because the cement was honeycombed. Gas invaded the cement. I believe they used nitrogen on Bps original cement job to lighten the first cement which decreases the probability of fracturing the formation as the cement is lifted.
The centralizers actually serve two purposes. One to center the pipe and second, to help make sure the mud is mixed with the first cement/flush so the cement does not channel through the heavy mud.
It is common when running a bond log on green cement to see poor or little bond. It is called a micro-annulus, a micro gap between the casing and cement. We use to pressure up the casing with water, the pipe expanded, and you would see good bond. If you came back to the well 72 hours later, you would see good bond.
Now take the BP well and assume the cement had not set. There would be a micro-annulus, especially if the cement was honey combed. It is not real common, but sometimes the plug does not latch in the shoe. When they displaced the mud with seawater, it reduced the pressure and the casing was reduced in size very slightly making the micro-annulus a problem or it could be the cement had channeled through the mud.
The plug gave as now there was a path from the reservoir to the bottom of the casing and hydrocarbon entered the casing. It is also possible the casing split on the long seam near the reservoir. I don't remember seeing where the casing was manufacture, but this has often been a problem with casing made overseas.
The 1000 bbls per day was probably correct originally, but it does not take much sand from the formation to cut holes in the casing, casing shoe, and BOP. It is why the rates kept getting larger. The well was cleaning up, the faster it flowed, the more it cut. The bent riser in the beginning was probably a good thing as it held back pressure & the sand did limited cutting. When they sheared the riser, the only back pressure was the 2250 psi from the ocean above, and the limited restrict in the BOP.
The probability is the cement above the formation setup after a day or so, and the DW will find no pressure/hydrocarbon from the main pay.
Now I hope they were smart and ran a tracer in the top kill cement job. As Rockman stated, they will eventually have to get back into the well open ended with drill pipe to set the final plugs. I assume they will tag the top of the top kill cement and run a bond log & gamma out and see no tracer.
The real test will be if they find tracer cement on the DW. Actually they should already see the radioactive tracer if it came up the annulus, they are only 5 feet away. And/Or they should have seen some oil in the DW cuttings/gas detector if the oil came up the back side (annulus).
If someone would grab their Halliburton Red Book and calculate where the top of the cement is for the 300 bbls left in the casing, it would be appreciated.
Is it just me, or is the guy running Mississippi's Department of Marine Resources in over his haid? First he orders all the towns and counties on the Coast to quit any BP-funded work, then he says, "Counties and local governments can still do anything they want, and deal with it through the claims process with BP.”
Um . . . Guv Haley, ya sure got an eye for talent there, kid.
WSJ -- Mumbai Spill Hits More than Mangroves
August 10, 2010, 3:53 PM IST
By Eric Bellman
The Mumbai medias coverage of the collision of two ships off the citys coast seems to be spreading like a British Petroleum oil spill. Enterprising news professionals have hired the help of the citys fisher folk to try to get on the water and capture the best shots of the oil leaking from the listing M.S.C Chitra.
path: Public ~> High Seas
Related Video Link -- MSC Chitra: Ship of Shame
originally posted: 2010-08-10 04:49:53
One of those instant-nausea images, innit, greenfloyd? Oy. The reporter sounds thoroughly disgusted with his fellow locals (intriguing all by itself).
Yes. Thankfully, everyone made it off the ship ok...