Gulf Oil Leak: How Many Gallons

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I'm sure by now that many here in the US and abroad have heard of/seen the photos and video of the oil leak that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico 53-54 days ago after an oil rig blew up. Since then millions upon millions of gallons have flowed into the Gulf, but we don't know how much yet. Why? Because at first BP was claiming 1-5K barrels a day and then they gradually increased the amount to their new official number of 19K barrels a day. The government on the other hand believes that at its worst, the leak was spewing 40K barrels a day into the ocean. For now the leak has slowed down, but it hasn't been fully plugged and that will not happen until the relief wells are completed in AUGUST. Obviously, the whole mess is an absolute joke.

Th question is then, how many gallons of oil do you think or have you heard have spewed into the ocean?

The latest figure I head today was from CNN: 84 million gallons. Read that again: 84 million gallons of oil. Ridiculous.
 
how many gallons of oil do you think or have you heard have spewed into the ocean?
Considering Ford announced they just invented the world's first water-powered car, but it only runs on water from the Gulf of Mexico. I've heard more oil has been laid to waste than Jed Clampett had in Bugtussle before he moved to Beverly Hills.

 


Come listen to my story 'bout a man named Jed
Poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed
He was out one mornin' just a-shootin' at some food
When up from th' ground came a-bubblin' crude

Oil that is... Black gold... Texas tea...

First thing ya know, ol' Jed's a milliionaire
Kinfolk said, "Jed move away from there!
Californy is th' place ya oughtta be!"
So he packed up th' truck & moved to Beverly!

Hills that is... Movie stars... Millionaires...

 


LMAO! :lol: Exactly my thoughts. Now I'm looking for Ron Howard to show up in the gulf to begin shooting his new movie, Backdraft II, Poof! The South Ain't There Anymore.
 


Well sure - Kevin Costner (at least his centrifuges) and James Cameron seem to be involved already. I'm guessing Lady Gaga won't be far behind :p.

According to MSNBC BP brought up a bit over 16,000 barrels of oil yesterday in a 24-hour period, which is a bit over half the total oil escaping from the blown well. So that means around 32,000 barrels per day gushing out. Wasn't BP's original "estimate" something like 2,500 barrels per day last month?? Off by over an order of magnitude... Unbelievable.
 
Kevin Costner graduated from the same high school my son graduated from last night. I may try running the water in my CX7 Turbo if I lived there. It's under warranty and there is no mention of the gulf water's octane level. Got to be like a 92.
 


True but the salt would be bad news for your engine :p.

I had a Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder with a 2.0 liter turbo - got great mileage when I laid off the gas pedal and enough horses when I didn't, to flatten most competition when leaving a red light. Got smoked however by a AMG Benz and a Mustang 5.0, so I learned to only pick on grandma's driving Chevvies.. :p
 
I read today that the latest high estimate of the oil spew - er, spill is 60K barrels per day. That's pretty impressive out of a 7" diameter pipe. Doing a little figuring, 60K barrels is something like 12.5 million liters per day, and a liter in a 7" pipe is 248 cm in area and 4.0 cm in depth. Since there are 86400 seconds in a 24 hour day, that means 144.6 liters per second are spewing out, times 4 cm = 578 cm per second or nearly 6 meters per second. I dunno what the viscosity of crude is, but that means the oil is under some sizeable pressure deep underground. No wonder they were afraid of fracturing the pipe during the failed top-kill attempt.
 
British Petroleum adopted Saudi Arabia's oil spill clean-up methods Wednesday and began burning the oil in the Gulf. The tourism troubles are over. Alabama and Mississippi can now advertise their beaches as an all-you-can-eat fried shrimp buffet.

 


Wow, your calculations derived meters per second (MPS). I was very impressed when you arrived at 144.6 liters per second (LPS). You failed to allow for the water pressure the ocean creates at the rim of broken pipe. First you need to calculate the accumilate water volume of the Gulf of mexico. Break the total down to PPISI or (precise water pressure per individual square inch). To solve this I would ask my teacher, "what kind of plunger does Home Depot carry capable of flushing the Gulf of Mexico down the southern hemisphere's main drainage system?" :p

Very nice calculations by the way. As you can see, I'm a calc guy most days too. :wahoo:
 
I concur. Besides the sea life that is being harmed, thousands upon thousands of people who depend on the ocean to make a living will probably never recover from this, regardless of how much BP "pays out." Sad situation.
 



Don't forget to allow for the temp, that has to be a factor as well. What is water temp a mile down? Gotta be pretty cold down there.
 
THIS just in:

HOUSTON — For the first time since the Gulf oil spill disaster started on April 20, the entire flow of oil was being contained Thursday as part of BP's pressure testing of a new cap, BP and federal officials said.

If the cap holds, the idea is to keep it on — and the flow checked — until a relief well can plug the blownout well in August.


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If the cap does not hold, BP has added to its siphoning capacity and expects to be able to siphon up most if not all of the oil starting next week.

BP had slowly dialed down the flow as part of the pressure test. Engineers are now monitoring the pressure to see if the busted well holds.

BP Vice President Kent Wells said that oil stopped flowing into the water at 3:25 p.m. ET.

The federal Joint Information Center confirmed that the flow had stopped.

"I am very pleased that there's no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico," Wells said. "In fact, I'm really excited there's no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico."

The stoppage came 85 days, 16 hours and 25 minutes after the first report April 20 of an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 workers and triggered the spill.

Took 'em long enough, but hopefully this is it and the nightmare recovery can now commence..
 
Turns out the question I was trying to answer - the well-head pressure - was expected to be about 7500 PSI. Pretty hefty pressure. Compressed air in scuba tanks is generally 3000 PSI, which in an 80 cubic ft. tank is the explosive equivalent of a couple sticks of dynamite.
 
Update: Just got back from a family Labor Day vacation at Perdido Key (barrier island partly in FL and partly in AL, near Pensacola FL). We have a family condo there that in years past was rented pretty heavily during the peak summer months, but this year was vacant except for the odd 3-days here and a week there. Anyway, it's about a 16-hour drive from Washington DC to Pensacola, so we arrived around 2AM Friday the 3rd. Got up to make coffee around 10AM, and stepping out onto the balcony to look at the beach, I saw a BP expedition of 2 tractors, each pulling a trailer with about fifteen workers in yellow hazmat boots onboard, pull up right in front of the condo and start to set up shop. They even set up 4 port-a-potties about a hundred yards apart, right on the stinkin' beach!

I couldn't see any oil or tarballs from 7 stories up - beach looked to be the usual sugar-sand white that the area is famous for, and the ocean blue/green, no sheen. And didn't see any when we went down a bit later. Anyway, these 30-odd workers spent the whole day raking the sand, depositing whatever they raked up onto plastic sheets where other people would then place the contents into various colored plastic burn bags. Dunno what BP paid those people (they referred all questions to a supervisor who would just spout the company line "We're here to do our duty and clean up the beach"), but I bet it was more than minimum wage. Anyway, they finished by 4PM, got aboard their trailers and 15 minutes later you'd never know they had been there (port-a-potties gone with them).

My wife did get a spot of oil on her leg once when we went swimming, but that was it. She also caught a ton of whitings, a flounder, and some other fish (enough where we had to buy a large styrofoam cooler to ice them down and haul back home). So the oil spill didn't affect that part of the gulf as much as the news stories suggested.

The beach was pretty crowded for the Labor Day holiday as well, although not as much as in previous years where it seemed to be wall-to-wall people. A few businesses were shuttered but most were still open. Hopefully the gulf will recover by next summer. However we're still waiting for BP to make good on our claim for lost rental revenue.
 
In that business, you sell days, not product, and once those days have passed, you either have them booked and make money, or you just end up paying overhead (losses only)
I too hope BP does as it should, and make good for all those folks dowun thayure
 
I hope they do as well. It isn't the property or business owners fault that millions upon millions of gallons of oil stained the beaches in some areas. At this point, I'm not sure if the $20 billion they set aside will do the job completely or not.
 
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