No one except BP has any facts or figures, so it is all guess work.
From the start BP lied about how big the oil spill was. For a know oil field you can estimate the production of a well, so therefore they knew how much oil was leaking out.
The type of crude oil could play an important factor. I diverge, but i worked in an oil lab when I was a kid. When you recieve a sample of crude oil, from simple tests like density, 3 point viscosity, and a distillation. From those properties you can tell where the oil came from. People often have the impression that crude oil looks like engine oil or something. I am not sure how many samples of oil I tested
. But I tested oil from the alberta oil fields. I worked with oil from the first oil discoveries in China, i tested the first oil samples from the hibernia oil fields offshore. Some from south america etc. So some crude can be like distillate, which is so light it is almost the same as disel fuel. There are stories of farmers stealing this type of oil and sticking it into thier tractors. To something that is like candle wax, at normal room temperature it is a solid
. To the athabasca tar sands oil which contains a high ammount of asphalt.
Crude oil like any oil can absorb a certain amount of water. In this case BP is making the problem a lot worse to hide it. The are spraying on the oil spill emulsifyer. Basically what emulsifier does is case the oil to disperse with water. The oil is still there, but it is "hidden". Back to my lab experiences. Water trapped in oil is very dangerous in the lab
. When you heat the oil to test it (especially when u are doing a distillation). The oil will all of a sudden release the water. If this happens when the oil is at 100+ C. Well at that point the water instantly turns into a vapour, you have a sudden pressure increase and your lab equipment blows up
.
To stop this from happening. We would add "deemulsifyer" which causes oil and water to seperate. And the spin the oil in high speed centrifuges. Some oil would have very little water. Some oils could contain up to 60% water.
So anyway point is I know a little bit about crude oil.
U.S. and BP slow to accept Dutch expertise http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/7043272.htmlI will use the figures in the above article to make my point. I do not have access obviously to better information.
"Chemicals" per say are not always dangerous. An example of an emulsion is when you eat mayonaise. Basically you are eating an oil water mixture
. The egg yolk in this case allows the oil and water to mix into a stable substance. The egg yolk is the emusifiyer. So nothing magical about it
In this case we need a safe deemulsifier. So around the well site spray the area with de emulsifier to cause the oil and water to seperate.
From the above article each pair of skimmer ships can process 5 million gallons of water a day. 1 barrel of oil is 40 gallon. Assuming the worst case figures that the well is leaking 100K barrels per day. Since you are spray de emulsifier onto the oil spill. The oil well have a tendency to rise up ontop of the water. So you will be able to collect the oil easier. If they had 10 pairs of those ships, they should be able to collect the oil before it reaches the land. Ofcourse by now it is too late. But if the gov't had thier shit together the problem could have been nipped in the bud. The oil that has been collected ofcourse is perfectly good to be used
.
When oil wells are being drilled. Core samples are taken every so often. If it is an exploration well, there is a geophysicist on site. He is constantly monitoring the type of material is being drilled. If he thinks the material is "interesting" he will order a core sample to be taken. The lab i worked for also analyse drilling cores. When the core is taken, drilling stops until the lab analyse it. No drilling = Big money lost
. So the sample is flew by helicopter to nearest airport. And then it is rushed to the lab. If any oil was recovered I would be the one to test it. The core guys would do their job, and as soon as we had the results the geophysicist/geologist would be notified so he could decide what should be done.
So they have a tremendous amount of information about the type of material of the well etc. From this they can see what is the best way to cap the well. Higher ups never worked with crude oil etc. They often would try and get us to rush the results. Or sometimes they would argue if the results where not what they wanted. Literally some bright spark destroyed an oil well. When a well is being drilled, drilling mud has to be pumped down the hole constantly to maintain circulation. If the water used to make the drilling mud contains sodium or sulfate, or the well contains sodium or sulfate. Both ions by themselves can be maintained as a solution. Oil is not under the ground in big pools. But is contained in rock. The rocks is like a big sponge. Anyway long story short. Some bright VP had the idea to save money they would use a closer water source. Water contained sulfate. Well contained sodium. Well when sodium and sulfate mix, they make a insoluable solid
The well was ruined because the porosity of the rock was blocked with sodium sulfate crystals
X million dollars thrown away. I am pretty sure the geologist told the VP it was a stupid idea, tried to explain the why. But of course VP knows best
.
So anyway funny how USA can act very quick when it comes to breaking international law by invading afganistan and iraq. But mean while the Jones act ...
Then again Soviet Union same BS. Chernobyl is a prime example. I am not sure of how safe russian reactors are, but when the guy in charge does exactly what is not supposed to be done, and why surprise surprise it blows up
I know even from doing joint military exercises, ie americans and canadians "working" together. Some sort of retarded macho thinking takes over. I have seen it countless times. Some canadians get into an accident. Americans have the best helicopters etc for medivac. But no we can't ask them for help, don't want to look bad in front of the americans. Meanwhile some guys lives are in danger. When it comes to chemical warfare, or working in artic conditions Canadian equipment is far superior. Canadian offer to lend the Yanks proper parkas etc. But no the yank commander turns it down. 1/2 of thier guys end up with frost bite. Bunch of fuking 4 years olds all of them
