by Gaianne
Wed Jun 16th, 2010 at 11:45:20 PM EST
Dougr in a comment on The Oil Drum says:
OK let's get real about the GOM oil flow. There doesn't really seem to be much info on TOD that furthers more complete understanding of what's really happening in the GOM.
As you have probably seen and maybe feel yourselves, there are several things that do not appear to make sense regarding the actions of attack against the well. Don't feel bad, there is much that doesn't make sense even to professionals unless you take into account some important variables that we are not being told about. There seems to me to be a reluctance to face what cannot be termed anything less than grim circumstances in my opinion. There certainly is a reluctance to inform us regular people and all we have really gotten is a few dots here and there...
That is:
there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us.
dougr continues
First of all...set aside all your thoughts of plugging the well and stopping it from blowing out oil using any method from the top down. Plugs, big valves to just shut it off, pinching the pipe closed, installing a new bop or lmrp, shooting any epoxy in it, top kills with mud etc etc etc....forget that, it won't be happening..it's done and over. In fact actually opening up the well at the subsea source and allowing it to gush more is not only exactly what has happened, it was probably necessary, or so they think anyway.
So you have to ask WHY? Why make it worse?...there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us. It's really an inescapable conclusion at this point, unless you want to believe that every Oil and Gas professional involved suddenly just forgot everything they know or woke up one morning and drank a few big cups of stupid and got assigned to directing the response to this catastrophe. Nothing makes sense unless you take this into account, but after you do...you will see the "sense" behind what has happened and what is happening. That conclusion is this:
The well bore structure is compromised "Down hole".
That is something which is a "Worst nightmare" conclusion to reach. While many have been saying this for some time as with any complex disaster of this proportion many have "said" a lot of things with no real sound reasons or evidence for jumping to such conclusions, well this time it appears that they may have jumped into the right place...
[Read the rest of dougr's comment at TOD -- edited by DoDo]
The US will be affected by this, obviously. For example, we can now expect the Gulf of Mexico to become uninhabitable. Nobody has given any thought to evacuating the tens of millions of people who live along the Gulf Coast, and nobody will. They will have to get themselves out, or die. They haven't thought about this yet, but in a few months they will, of necessity.
The immediate threat will be the volatile portion of the crude oil, which is approximately called gasoline or petrol, and which causes illness followed by death when inhaled for long periods. The looming threat arises when the Gulf shifts from aerobic life to anaerobic life, and begins producing hydrogen sulfide. At that point, if we get that far, we will be immitating in the Gulf region the conditions of the Permian extinction.
But in fact the whole world is going to be affected. For one thing, the oil is going to contaminate parts of the North Atlantic, and there will be no containment of the disaster: It will just wander at random.
Also, the consequences will impinge on both the world economy and world politics.
--Thanks to James Howard Kundstler, scroll down to "The Daily Grunt"
--Gaianne
