BP Oil Spill Leaves 22-Mile Underwater Plume Migrating in Gulf of Mexico

[jpak]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-19/bp-oil-spill-leaves-22-mile-underwater-plume-migrating-in-gulf-of-mexico.html

BP Plc’s oil spill created an underwater plume of degrading crude more than 22 miles (35- kilometers) long that’s migrating across the Gulf of Mexico, according to scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The plume, containing chemicals such as benzene, toluene and ethylbenzene, will remain in deep-sea waters for months as microbes degrade it “relatively slowly,” the research team from the Falmouth, Massachusetts-based institution said in a report released today.

“The hydrocarbons could persist for some time,” Benjamin Van Mooy, a principal investigator on the team, said in a press release. “So it is possible that oil could be transported considerable distances from the well before being degraded.”

While the scientists couldn’t specify how toxic the plume might be, they determined it contained no “dead zones,” or regions with so little oxygen that almost no marine animals could survive.

<more>

[BrklynLiberal]

1. So..I guess that means all that oil is not really "GONE"..huh?

It wasn't really a miracle after all.....;(

[jpak]

2. No - this is the 25% of the oil in the dispersed fraction

n/t

[BeFree]

4. so

If there is just 25% 'there', where did the other 75% go?

[NNadir]

5. Um, Snowmass?

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20090428/NEWS/904289973

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Amory+B.+Lovins">Famous Anti-nuke Amory Lovins describes his revenue sources:

Mr. Lovins’s other clients have included Accenture, Allstate, AMD, Anglo American, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Baxter, Borg-Warner, BP, HP Bulmer, Carrier, Chevron, Ciba-Geigy, CLSA, ConocoPhillips, Corning, Dow, Equitable, GM, HP, Invensys, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Motorola, Norsk Hydro, Petrobras, Prudential, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shearson Lehman Amex, STMicroelectronics, Sun Oil, Suncor, Texas Instruments, UBS, Unilever, Westinghouse, Xerox, major developers, and over 100 energy utilities. His public-sector clients have included the OECD, the UN, and RFF; the Australian, Canadian, Dutch, German, and Italian governments; 13 states; Congress, and the U.S. Energy and Defense Departments.

It would seem that the anti-nuke industry has grease stains all over their overalls.

[BeFree]

6. Eh?

You haven't a clue where the rest of the oil is?

Single minded, aren't you?

Well, we'll just wait for jpak to straighten this out.

[jpak]

7. It never went anywhere - it's been there all the time

People should read these reports before they post.

The is the Federal Science Report Oil Budget

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/PDFs/OilBudget_description_%2083final.pdf



26% is weathered oil near or on the surface, on beaches or in marshes - it is still there

24% is dispersed into micron-sized droplets in the water column - and is still there. This is what is in the subsurface plumes.

25% was recovered at the wellhaed, skimmed ot burned - this fraction is "gone"

25% dissolved or evaporated - the evaporated oil is "gone". The dissolved oil is still there and is being degraded by prokaryotes.

More than 50% of the oil is still there.

This the UGA analysis of the FSR Oil Budget.

http://oilspill.uga.edu/wp-content/uploads/GA-Sea-Grant-Oil-Spill-Update-Presentation-20100817.pdf

Both reports clearly stated that most the oil is still THERE.

The UGA report clearly stated the media misrepresented the FSR - and the FSR is correct

THEN

The media misrepresented the UGA report - claiming that the UGA researchers "contradicted" the FSR.

They did not.

ugh

[phantom power]

3. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

x(