BP's disaster and current gas prices

[Steve P.]

 
Before the spill there wasn't exactly a lot of public support for the environmental regulations on drilling.   


Unfortunately it takes a nice big disaster like this every once in a while to remind people what private corporations start doing if they're not policed. 



   

That is not true for Florida. This State has been fighting the drillers and the lack of real regulation for years. CNN did a story on it a few years back when the last admin. wanted to drill here. They went back to that story some weeks ago just after the spillage began. All the States around the Gulf get big payments from the oil companies for drilling with the exception of FLORIDA. We don't because they don't like our policy.

SIDE NOTE:  I watched a show on cable called "GASLAND" last night that was very enlightening. I highly recommend you all see it.  It calls out much on regulation and the need for more and better transparency.

[472 R/T SE]

Kinda off the gas price topic.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...h4w3AD9GFJBOG1




WASHINGTON — Overwhelmed and saddened by the gargantuan size of the Gulf oil spill?

A little mathematical context to the spill size can put the environmental catastrophe in perspective. Viewing it through some lenses, it isn't that huge. The Mississippi River pours as much water into the Gulf of Mexico in 38 seconds as the BP oil leak has done in two months.

On a more human scale, the spill seems more daunting. Take the average-sized living room. The amount of oil spilled would fill 9,200 of them.

Since the BP oil rig exploded on April 20, about 125 million gallons of oil has gushed into the Gulf. That calculation is based on the higher end of the government's range of barrels leaked per day and the oil company BP's calculations for the amount of oil siphoned off. Using the more optimistic end of calculations, the total spill figure is just over 66 million gallons.

For this by-the-numbers exercise, The Associated Press is using the higher figure.

For every gallon of oil that BP's well has gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, there is more than 5 billion gallons of water already in it. And the mighty Mississippi adds another billion gallons every five minutes or so, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

So BP chief executive officer Tony Hayward was factually correct last month when he said the spill was "relatively tiny" compared to what he mischaracterized as a "very big ocean."

But another big number that Hayward provided on Thursday also offers some troubling news. He said the reservoir of oil under the sea that is the source for the leak is believed to hold about 2.1 billion gallons of oil. That leaves about 2 billion gallons left to spew. So there are about 17 gallons of oil underneath the sea floor yet to gush for every gallon that has already fouled the Gulf. If the problem were never fixed, that would mean another two years of oil spilling based on the current flow rate.

More not-so-dreadful context: The amount of oil spilled so far could only fill the cavernous New Orleans Superdome about one-seventh of the way up. On the other hand, it could fill 15 Washington Monuments. If the oil were poured on a football field — complete with endzones — it would measure nearly 100 yards high.

If you put the oil in gallon milk jugs and lined them up, they would stretch about 10,800 miles. That's a roundtrip from the Gulf to London, BP's headquarters, and a side trip from New Orleans to Washington for Hayward to testify.

BP has spent more than $54.8 million lobbying federal officials in Washington since 2000; that's about 44 cents for every gallon of oil it has spilled. Since 2000, the oil and gas industry — along with their employees — has contributed $154.2 million to candidates for federal office. That's $1.23 for each gallon of oil spilled. Of that money, 78 percent went to Republicans and the rest to Democrats.

Take the 125 million gallons of oil spilled in the Gulf and convert it to gasoline, which is what Americans mostly use it for. That produces 58 million gallons of gas — the amount American drivers burn every three hours and 41 minutes. It's enough to fill up the gas tanks in 3.6 million cars — more than those in Louisiana and Mississippi combined.

At $2.75 a gallon for gas — the national average — that's nearly $160 million worth spilled into the Gulf.

Want your own piece of this spill? If all the oil spilled were divided up and equal amounts given to every American, we would all get about four soda cans full of crude oil that no one really wants.

[472 R/T SE]

Interesting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c1QEKXNSFw&feature=player_embedded

[moparstuart]

 It's amazing in this day and age with all our technology someone cant stop this leak       

[Mike DC]

Interesting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c1QEKXNSFw&feature=player_embedded

Simmons has been worth listening to on some other stuff but I dunno here. 

The "huge underwater lake of oil" is the question IMHO.  We're not hearing about this from most of the people involved.  Some people have said that whole idea is just a misunderstanding of what the Thomas Jefferson's underwater surveying actually found on the bottom recently.   

If the "huge lake" is real then Simmons's story is probably right.  If the "lake" is really just a misunderstanding of data about shifting blobs of oil/gas low in the water, then Simmons is probably wrong and the relief wells should kill this thing.