By combining detailed chemical measurements in the deep ocean, in the oil slick, and in the air, NOAA scientists and academic colleagues have independently estimated how fast gases and oil were leaking during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The new chemistry-based spill rate estimate, an average of 11,130 tons of gas and oil compounds per day, is close to the official average leak rate estimate of about 11,350 tons of gas and oil per day (equal to about 59,200 barrels of liquid oil per day).
“This study uses the available chemical data to give a better understanding of what went where, and why,” said Thomas Ryerson, Ph.D., a NOAA research chemist and lead author of the study. “The surface and subsurface measurements and analysis provided by our university colleagues were key to this unprecedented approach to understanding an oil spill.”
The NOAA-led team did not rely on any of the data used in the original estimates, such as video flow analysis, pipe diameter and fluid flow calculations. “We analyzed a completely separate set of chemical measurements, which independently led us to a very similar leak estimate,” Ryerson said.
The new study, Chemical data quantify Deepwater Horizon hydrocarbon flow rate and environmental distribution, was published online today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The new analysis follows on another NOAA-led study published last year, in which Ryerson and colleagues estimated a lower limit to the Deepwater Horizon leak rate based on two days of airborne data collected during the spill and the chemical makeup of the reservoir gas and oil determined before the spill. The new analysis adds in many other sources of data, including subsurface and surface samples taken during six weeks of the spill and including a direct measure of the makeup of the gas and oil actually leaking into the Gulf.
Ryerson and his colleagues found that the leaking gas and oil quickly separated into three major pools: the underwater plume of droplets about 3,300-4,300 feet below the surface, the visible surface slick, and an airborne plume of evaporating chemicals. Each pool had a very different chemical composition.
The underwater plume was enhanced in gases known to dissolve readily in water, the team found. This included essentially all of the lightweight methane (natural gas) and benzene (a known carcinogen) present in the spilling reservoir fluid. The surfaceoil slick was dominated by the heaviest and stickiest components, which neither dissolved in seawater nor evaporated into the air. And the airborne plume of chemicals contained a wide mixture of intermediate-weight components of the spilled gas and oil.
The visible surface slick represented about 15 percent of the total leaked gas and oil; the airborne plume accounted for about another 7 percent. About 36 percent remained in a deep underwater plume, and 17 percent was recovered directly to the surface through a marine riser. The location of the balance, about 25 percent of the total, is not directly accounted for by the chemical data.
This information about the transport and fate of different components of the spilled gas and oil mixture could help resource managers and others trying to understand environmental exposure levels.
The chemical measurements made from mid-May through June showed that the composition of the atmospheric plume changed very little, suggesting little change in the makeup of the leaking gas and oil.
The team of researchers also used the detailed chemical measurements to calculate how much gas and oil, in total, was spilling from the breached reservoir deep underwater.
The new chemistry-based estimate of 11,130 tons per day has an estimated range of 8,900 to 13,300 tons per day. By comparison, the official estimated range was 10,000 to 12,700 tons per day.
More information: ”Chemical data quantify Deepwater Horizon hydrocarbon flow rate and environmental distribution,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, (2012).
30 FACTS EVIDENCING THE ROTHSCHILD LEAGUE OF BANKERS PLANNED THE GULF OIL CRISIS
by
Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz and Sherri Kane
This article explains what is really happening in the Gulf of Mexico, who is really responsible for the explosion, and how the devastation serves investment bankers who sway stocks, create markets, and planned this crisis, among a series of catastrophies, to advance geopolitical and financial agendas for their New World Order.
Introduction
WAR has been declared against We The People. Yet, there is no country or military present to defend us.
Covert infiltrations and corruptions in governments by the “Rothschild League” of bankers and “private equity investors” now poison our bodies, minds, and planet. Yet, appropriate military and/or militia defenses are prohibited.
Crisis-capitalists are massacring us and our environment petrochemically. They have deployed propaganda—mass media deception—to camouflage their real intentions and vast destruction.
The air we breathe, food we eat, and water we drink, has been polluted to deliver profitable diseases and depopulation, simulating a “scorched earth policy” of war.
Generalized fear, depression, fatigue, and apathy is incapacitating our defenses, aiding the adversaries, and predisposing us to diseases and early deaths.
Based on the following irrefutable facts, the so-called “accidental explosion” in the Gulf is a Transocean/Halliburton/British Petroleum/Goldman-Sachs attack—the latest in a series of unspeakable war crimes perpetrated by Anglo-American State of “Rothschild League” bankers.
Independent scientists have confirmed that Gulf marine life is heavily contaminated by the dispersed oil and oil sheen in the water. [Photo: Erika Blumenfeld]
Despite BP having capped its well in the Gulf of Mexico in July, the health-related after-effects of the disaster subsist.
Gulf Coast residents and BP cleanup workers have linked the source of certain illnesses to chemicals present in BP’s oil and the toxic dispersants used to sink it – illnesses that appear to be both spreading and worsening.
Dr. Rodney Soto, a medical doctor in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, has been testing and treating patients with high levels of oil-related chemicals in their blood stream. These are commonly referred to as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s). Anthropogenic VOC’s from BP’s oil disaster are toxic and have negative chronic health effects.
Dr. Soto is finding disconcertingly consistent and high levels of toxic chemicals in every one of the patients he is testing.
“I’m regularly finding between five and seven VOCs in my patients,” Dr. Soto told Al Jazeera. “These patients include people not directly involved in the oil clean-up, as well as residents that do not live right on the coast. These are clearly related to the oil disaster.”
Independent scientists have confirmed that Gulf marine life is heavily contaminated by the dispersed oil and oil sheen in the water. [Photo: Erika Blumenfeld]
Despite BP having capped its well in the Gulf of Mexico in July, the health-related after-effects of the disaster subsist.
Gulf Coast residents and BP cleanup workers have linked the source of certain illnesses to chemicals present in BP’s oil and the toxic dispersants used to sink it – illnesses that appear to be both spreading and worsening.
Dr. Rodney Soto, a medical doctor in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, has been testing and treating patients with high levels of oil-related chemicals in their blood stream. These are commonly referred to as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s). Anthropogenic VOC’s from BP’s oil disaster are toxic and have negative chronic health effects.
Dr. Soto is finding disconcertingly consistent and high levels of toxic chemicals in every one of the patients he is testing.
“I’m regularly finding between five and seven VOCs in my patients,” Dr. Soto told Al Jazeera. “These patients include people not directly involved in the oil clean-up, as well as residents that do not live right on the coast. These are clearly related to the oil disaster.”
Chronic health effects
Lloyd Pearcey, from Bonsecour, Alabama, worked on a BP clean-up team as a foreman for four months.
Photos newly released prove that the BP-Government-Media has presented and is presenting to the public, against its best interest, a sophisticated Gulf of Mexico ‘Oil Spill’ illusion. New pictorial evidence tells the real story, truth about a crime against humanity and planet committed, aided by a Psychological Operation with a devastating global impact requiring a united and prompt paradigm shift toward renewable energy.
If you had any doubt that Barack Obama’s agenda is to destroy the United States of America, but still want more proof, I offer you the announcement that this administration will not provide any offshore oil leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, or Atlantic coasts…for at least seven years!
In October, a study by the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University concluded that the reduction of shallow water oil drilling permits that followed the BP oil spill would put as many as 40,000 jobs at risk and cost the region $4.3 billion in lost wages and revenues.
LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Floating storage of crude oil and oil products is likely to be completely exhausted by the second quarter of 2011, said BP PLC’s (BP) Chief Economist Christof Ruehl Wednesday.
Almost 1.4 million barrels of oil and oil products was being stored in ships at the start of 2010 following the demand slump during the 2009 recession, Ruehl said at the Oil Council conference in London. This amount has run down steadily this year as demand has recovered but oil production has remained steady, he said.
Onshore oil inventories in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries remain at record levels, providing a buffer against rising demand even if global oil production remains steady, he added.
-By James Herron, Dow Jones Newswires; 44 20 7842 9317; James.Herron@dowjones.com
The Gulf stream has stopped – Britain Heading for Russian winters
GERALD CELENTE TRENDS RESEARCH JOURNALCLIMATE CHANGE
The gulf stream current is gone. Thats the topic being discussed here by experts from an interview hosted by Freedomlink Radio, on the Intel Hub network, on the 3rd Sept 2010
If this is in fact the case, then Britain is about to experience a winter like none in living history. This could possible destroy the infrastructure of the country as we are not prepared for the onset of such cold!!!
The gulf stream current is gone. Thats the topic being discussed here on excerts from an interview hosted by Freedomlink Radio, on the Intel Hub network, on the 3rd Sept 2010.
Typical of any disaster where there is a lingering human toll, like katrina or haiti, the media coverage is spectacular for a few weeks, and then america gets bored with people suffering, so your attention is diverted to the latest idiocy of some celeb or sports figure; or more recently, the mindless babblings of mindless politicians…and we’re guilty to an extent too, because although our coverage of the gulf oil spill here & on affiliates was daily when it was page one news, for the most part we havent mentioned it since the well was sealed…however, thanx to →Washington’s Blog, we can offer you a few gulf coast headlines of the ongoing stories from the last 3 days of last week:
WASHINGTON—A new theory about the origin of the blowout of a BP PLC oil well emerged on Sunday when an outside investigator said the problem could potentially be traced to cracks that formed in an underwater formation.
BP has said that the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history started with flaws in the cement, blaming Halliburton Co. for developing a faulty cement foam that didn’t stay mixed with nitrogen. Halliburton says tests conducted before the cementing job showed that the foam was stable.
“I’d like to just maintain the possibility that one reason that the cement job may have failed was because of fracking at the time of cementing,” said Mark Zoback, a Stanford University geophysicist who serves on the National Academy of Engineering panel investigating the causes of the April 20 disaster.
The remarks, at a meeting convened at the National Academy of Engineering, undercut BP’s effort to assign blame for the April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion to its contractors instead of its own well design.
BP had said that the foam likely failed to properly mix with the nitrogen.
