Posted on 06/08/2010 11:10:02 AM PDT by mojitojoe
Staring day after day at images of oil billowing from an undersea well in the Gulf of Mexico, many Americans are struggling to make sense of the numbers On Monday, BP said a cap was capturing 11,000 barrels of oil a day from the well. The official government estimate of the flow rate is 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day, which means the new device should be capturing the bulk of the oil. But is it? With no consensus among experts on how much oil is pouring from the wellhead, it is difficult — if not impossible — to assess the containment cap’s effectiveness. BP has stopped trying to calculate a flow rate on its own, referring all questions on that subject to the government. The company’s liability will ultimately be determined in part by how many barrels of oil are spilled. The immense undersea gusher of oil and gas, seen on live video feed, looks as big as it did last week, or bigger, before the company sliced through the pipe known as a riser to install its new collection device. At least one expert, Ira Leifer, who is part of a government team charged with estimating the flow rate, is convinced that the operation has made the leak worse, perhaps far worse than the 20 percent increase that government officials warned might occur when the riser was cut. Dr. Leifer said in an interview on Monday that judging from the video, cutting the pipe might have led to a several-fold increase in the flow rate from the well. “The well pipe clearly is fluxing way more than it did before,” said Dr. Leifer, a researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “By way more, I don’t mean 20 percent, I mean multiple factors.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“It’s apparent that BP is playing games with us, presumably under the advice of their legal team,” Dr. Leifer said. “It’s six weeks that it’s been dumping into the gulf, and still no measurements.”
With each day this waddles further into tin foil territory.
There is no way to measure or calculate the flow rate or volume. None.
These Obama clowns are just trying to paint BP in as much scorn and condemnation as possible to take the blame off themselves.
Missing is the stupid Republican party, failing to learn from the Democrats exploitation of Katrina.
Every night the GOP should run a 30 second TV ad daily with that underwater camera feed in the background and a voiceover saying “This is Day xx of the Obama Administration’s Failure to stop the leak.” Followed by Obama’s quotes - “I am in charge” and “The buck stops here”.
too bad the tin foil wearers are looking more correct every day eh?
As you know, I have always felt the rate of flow was way higher than what we were being told. Of course that set me up for a lot of attacks around here. Over at the OilDrum they were much more realistic about it from day one.
“There is no way to measure or calculate the flow rate or volume. None.”
Well we know the diameter of the pipe and after trying the top kill, I imagine BP knows what pressure they are dealing with. I bet somebody can put a good guess as to the flow rate at this point. I’ll just stick with its leaking a lot, upwards of 20,000 bpd. hehe
That's about a tanker a day( regular tanker, not a Supertanker)
>19,000
Assuming lying and CYA’ing my guess is the flow is prolly 10 times higher. 190,000 barrels a day, about a million barrels every week for the past 5-6 weeks.
Based on what? BP’s constant lying and covering up.
What, BP lie? No way.
Well, everybody’s doing it./sarc
I keep expecting Juan McCain to pop up with a resounding "me too" condemnation of BP, gas guzzling cars, and our "addiction" to oil.
Agreed. What bothers me more, is that some closed systems, once they’ve lost structural integrity, and release pressure, split open. Like a blown up balloon. Sometime the whole gets bigger, sometimes the vessels pops. (Not suggesting that the earth would pop, but the area where the oil cavern is, may lose structural integrity, is what I’m talking about).
I don’t know how plausible either situation is, but maybe someone could tell us what they know. I realize we may not be able to directly measure flow, but I think we should get a clear estimate, and we know that the government always estimates cost low, and benefit high. I doubt this is the exception.
Well there has been speculation over at the oil drum that the casing may have sprung leaks and now oil is coming up from the sea bed floor around the well head. Lets just hope the well head does not blow before this whole thing is over.
I heard that there were some ruptures some distance away caused by the initial explosion, have you heard anything about that?
I heard about that also but nothing recently.
190,000 barrels a day...
Through a 7 inch production casing with half gas flow and picking up a bunch of sand?
Yeah right.
I guess you didn’t take fluid mechanics in college.
No, but I do understand a lying SOB like Tony.
BP lied, the GULF died.
You believe BP? Good for you.
These “experts” don’t know squat. It’s BP’s well, their oil, and their mess to clean up. They’ll end up paying for every dime of this, and Obama and his “experts” need to STFU.
The Gulf is dead?
Not by a long shot.
When BP first guessed at the amount of oil leaking, what tools did they have? They put a camera on it and guessed. No evil plan, just a guess. Now that they are capturing some of the oil, the guess becomes a bit more educated. This is not hard to figure out.
NOT TRUE!!!! Many universities and scientists said from day one BP was wrong. They offered to tell them exactly how much was being emitted, that is was easy. BP said NO!
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