Obamao regime says "spill plumes of no concern"

[calfoxwc]

Why deep-water oil spills do their damage deep down # Phil McKenna

New Scientist

Tue, 18 May 2010 14:04 EDT

 

/image/image/s1/38060/full/ff.jpg© Deepwater Horizon Response

Oil and gas stream from the riser of the Deepwater Horizon wellSurface slicks may account for as little as 2 per cent of the oil now spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, according to a study of a controlled deep-water spill conducted in 2000 by the US Minerals Management Service and a consortium of oil companies, including BP.

 

The study challenges the estimate by federal officials, based on the amount of oil on the sea surface, that around 5000 barrels (800 cubic metres) of oil per day are pouring into the sea from the site where the BP-operated drilling rig Deepwater Horizon was destroyed by fire last month. It also adds weight to reports of massive underwater oil plumes that government officials are now downplaying.

 

In June 2000, Project Deep Spill released hydrocarbons into the sea off the coast of Norway at a depth of about 800 metres. The tests included releases of 60 cubic metres of crude oil and 60 cubic metres of diesel fuel over separate 1-hour periods.

 

Researchers were unable to calculate the amount of crude oil that surfaced because it emulsifies or mixes with water. They did, however, determine that only between 2 and 28 per cent of the diesel fuel that was released rose to the surface. The average was 8.7 per cent.

 

Under a controlled, well-monitored experiment, you couldn't find it all, says environmental engineer Eric Adams of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Now you've gone deeper by a factor of 2, with a more violent release; it's not surprising that you might not see it all."

 

The large percentage of diesel fuel that went missing in the 2000 study was put down to evaporation and natural dispersion. In a 2005 review of the experiment, however, Adams suggests that much of the diesel fuel and crude oil remained submerged in the form of droplets that only slowly made their way to the surface.

 

In the Deepwater Horizon spill, the chances of oil remaining below the surface are even greater, Adams says. If oil mixes with water at depth, the high density of this water can balance out the hydrocarbons' natural buoyancy. "It can reach a point where the aggregate density of water and oil is neutral to its surrounding environment."

 

The result could be large quantities of oil remaining suspended in the water column in droplet form. The recent addition of chemical dispersants injected into the plume at depth is likely to encourage this.Phil McKenna

New Scientist

Tue, 18 May 2010 14:04 EDT /image/image/s1/38060/full/ff.jpg

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The NOAA is part of the Dept. of Commerce. That Dept is run by... an Obamao appointee, as usual, a radical who has

 

no freaking idea of what he's doing.

 

But he went to college, and I'm sure his favorite profs were socialist profs, just like Obamao.

 

so, there ya go. Obamao's people say the gigantic plumes of of no concern.

 

Maybe Heck would like to go down there with them in a big Coke can and take a look see at reality. @@