Posted on 11/29/2023 6:50:57 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Jack Hellner recently suggested that oil spills are only moderately harmful to the environment.
I disagree.
Oil in the environment is normally there and has been for centuries. That’s how people first discovered the stuff. In California’s uber-environmentalist Santa Barbara County, an estimated 11 to 160 barrels of oil seep into the ocean daily and have for countless centuries; the locals have made attempts at capping it. They have failed so far
In nature, there are the butanes, gasolines and kerosene in the oil, which, when deposited on the surface, evaporate off as naphtha (probably the basis of the ancient Greek fire). Ultraviolet light from the sun breaks these into carbon dioxide and water.
The heavier oil distillates like fuel oil, the bunker oils, are digested by bacteria, (as noted by Hellner) converting them into simple organic compounds that other organisms feast on, leading to a localized exuberant biodiversity.
I did find an analysis of the fish catches after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill but can’t find it now. I recall that there was no fishing in that area for a year but in the following year the catch was about normal except for some obscure trash species that had an explosive increase in numbers. [These accounts by Humberto Fontova about the broad phenomenon are useful. -editor].
The heavier components of oil remain as lumps called bitumen or asphalt. We use it as cement to build our roads. The Dead Sea was called Lake Asphaltites because of the gooey pebbles that floated onto the surface from underwater seeps. This asphalt was used to coat Egyptian mummies. Oil and asphalt found floating on lakes or in puddles was used by Indians to caulk canoes, and as medicines.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Oil exists beneath the surface of the earth under pressure that causes it to seep to the surface by any available route. When a well is drilled into a pocket of contained oil the pressure forces it to gush out and over the wellhead. The pressure in the pool of drilled oil gradually falls, and the seep ceases. In this way, oil drilling actually has stopped numerous spills of oil onto the surface where it fouled land and water for eons.
Hey, it’s non-GMO and gluten-free too!
Organic? likely.
Liberals want to ban oil - oil is black - need I point out how racist that is?
There is no such a thing as a fossil fuel.
It all occurs naturally.
The older the wiser. Do you know why West Coast beaches are usable? Because offshore drilling released the pressure and ended the natural seepage that would spoil the shoreline. Before drilling you could expect to have a smelly and nasty day at the beaches of California. Inconvenient facts are always memory-holed.
Yep. Hydrocarbons are everywhere on the surface of the earth.
One caveat though; large spills like exxon valdez or the deepwater horizon concentrate the crude to a localized environment and it’s not debatable that it’s detrimental to local ecology for a period of time
More oil seeps into the Gulf of Mexico from the sea bottom that was ever spilled, including the 2010 disaster.....................
great point
True. Many planets and moons in our solar system have methane and other hydrocarbons. Not exclusively an Earth phenomenon at all.
the real concern, seems to me, would be a blow out in an urban well....but that’s because an urban environment is not a natural one..
didn’t deepwater horizon clean itself up in just a few months?
it’s not debatable that it’s detrimental to local ecology for a period of time
This is true. There are spots in my area where oil naturally seeps to the surface. They are not located near any wells or pipelines. I had a spot on my property that seeped for many years. I used to joke about the old “Beverly Hillbillies” series opener where Uncle Jed shoots his rile at something, and the bullet hits the ground and “bubbling crude” starts seeping out of the ground. I have no doubt that could happen.
Oil is organic!
Before Mr Rockefeller figured out how to put it to work, it was leaking all over the world.
Where do you think all the tar pits came from?
Leftover from some ancients oil leaks!
I have some old book, and there is a picture of leaking crude stream in Kuwait. Burning, with some Arab sitting next to it, and watching!
It was totally worthless thing then.
You get oil out of the ground, the dirt we all walk on everyday. Why is it a friggen disaster when you spill some on the ground?
Space dinosaurs!
“There is no such a thing as a fossil fuel.
It all occurs naturally.”
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
This. It is absolute nonsense to think that all that oil, now being found off virtually every continental shelf, is somehow a by-product of dead animals.
Hydrocarbons are created deep underground, and under intense heat and pressure, in time, oil is created.
I grew up in Manhattan Beach in the early 60’s. At the time all SoCal beaches were full of Tar and it was everywhere. You couldn’t walk in the sand without getting it all over you. Beachfront property wasn’t worth much because of it. Then they put all those drilling rigs offshore and the problem of seepage pretty much disappeared and the beaches were cleaned up in just a few short years.
Freedom,
There are good early historical accounts of the Indians in So. California sealing their canoes with tar that was found abundantly on the beaches in early Spanish California.
Seepage is.......
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