John Krehbiel
So where is all that oil anyway?
by John Krehbiel on 30 July 2010
Now that the gusher is plugged (we hope) the big question seems to be; “Where is all that oil?”
I have (purely on guesswork) an answer in several parts.
First, much of the volume estimate, as I understand it, was based on video of the leak itself. Apparently they can’t easily tell how much of that is methane and other gasses.
Number two, the oil is relatively light, the Gulf is pretty warm, and much of the liquid may have evaporated by now.
And C, initial estimates of the impact of some disaster are always exaggerated. Unfortunately, that leads many to say that the disaster never was one anyway.
Which brings me to the final part of the answer; It’s difficult to tell the spilled oil from Gulf water anyway.
2010-07-30 » John Krehbiel
30 July 2010 @ 11:38 am
Intersteing article, thanks. How much of the Gulf, if any, is International Waters, do you know?
30 July 2010 @ 12:12 pm
Another complicated question, depending on whose claims of territorial limits you believe, but I’m guessing most of it.
And of course that may explain much of the spending difference vs. the Chesapeake.
30 July 2010 @ 12:59 pm
I don’t think the explanation is that it was mostly gas and not oil coming out of the well, because that would have been obvious in the size of the oil slicks, in measurements of dissolved gases in the water and in the air above the leak.
Evaporation plus all those chemicals they dumped to disperse the oil probably accounts for a lot of it. And oil does break down naturally.
I just hope there isn’t a huge underwater slick of oil that’s just waiting to cause trouble.
30 July 2010 @ 2:09 pm
I find it surprising that there aren’t some kind of markers for the oil, but I guess once it has washed over hundreds of miles of ocean it is pretty hard to say what came from where. The thought of all that stuff in the atmosphere is a little daunting as well.
30 July 2010 @ 8:38 pm
I suppose a very low (like 0 ) carbon 14 content would be an indicator, but it’s likely that mixing with biological carbon would throw that way way off.
While adding all that carbon to the atmosphere is worrisome, of course it would have been added anyway.