Where did all the oil go?

Pictured: Two scientists. Pretty boring stuff, right? I received this image via email earlier this week. My inbox is full of some really exciting stuff.

But what these two men and the rest of their team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) discovered is actually pretty serious. Using a portable mass spectrometer attached to a small autonomous underwater vehicle - think flux capacitor attached to the Delorean piloted remotely by Doc and Marty - WHOI scientists discovered a 1.2 mile-wide, 650-foot tall, 22-mile long plume of "trapped hydrocarbons" (aka oil) sitting about 3,000 miles below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. It is believed that all of the oil is residual from the failed Deep Water Horizon well.

Now I don't know how much oil in barrel or gallon terms exists in a 1.2 mile by 650 foot by 22 mile plume, but it seems like a lot. I also don't know where oil floating 3,000+ feet below the surface winds up, but I am sure it's not good for beaches, shrimp, tuna, or wetlands and I am sure it's not recoverable for use in Phil's Subaru. Whatever the case, bad news all around.

This graphic gives a good idea of what this mess looks like now.



Once again, TCD brings its readership breaking news and ground breaking commentary. Yawn. Now where's the Pulitzer already?!?

More insanity from BP

Fast Company reports that BP has now taken to photoshopping photos of its response command centers to make them look busier. In other words, they're adding in more people, more monitors, etc. Well, as with all of the shady shit that BP has tried to pull since the spill, they got busted.

From Fast Company:

On BP's "Response in pictures" site, one photo, purported to be taken on July 16, 2010, sat for days, unquestioned. The photo shows BP's Houston Command Center, a desk with some massive monitors, lots of complicated things happening on them, and employees monitoring the situation in the Gulf. But all is not as it seems.

Yesterday, AmericaBlog took a good, hard look at the photo--but in retrospect, a mediocre, slightly firm look would have sufficed. The photo was altered in Adobe Photoshop CS4 (last year's model, it should be noted). That's bad enough--the last thing BP needs is to cover up anything they're doing right now--but what really stings is how insanely incompetent the editing was. It's insulting to anyone who's played around with Photoshop: any 15-year-old DeviantArt user could have done this job without detectable artifacts, and BP's "professional photographers" did a ridiculously amateur job.

What's Next?

From the "it was only a matter of time file"...

The International Energy Agency (EIA, no those initials are not backwards just French...so maybe the same thing?) reported yesterday that China had surpassed the United States as the world's largest energy user. China put away 2,252 million tons of oil equivalent last year compared to 2,170 for the US. The oil-equivalent metric represents all forms of energy consumed, including crude oil, nuclear, coal, natural gas and renewable sources such as hydropower.

Given China's population size I suppose it was only a matter of time, but the urgency with which it happened is shocking. Ten years ago, China's energy consumption was half that of the US. Whoa.

If you're looking for an energy category we still lead, fret not there are still a few. According to the same report by the EIA the average American uses five times as much energy annually compared to the average Chinese citizen. We also annihilate an impressive 19 million gallons of crude a day compared to 9.2 million in China. At TCD we definitely do not look forward to the day when China surpasses us in that final statistic because it's the same day we will have to cash out of the blogging biz, call up Branson, and have him take us on his space ship to the next inhabitable planet.

Interactive Grid

Wind? Solar? Hydro? Natural gas? Advanced metering? There is no silver bullet for our country's energy problem, but Oil Gate 2010 is only further proof that the US needs to move forward with an array of solutions to break our addiction to oil, innovate out of this economic malaise, and acknowledge the explicit and implicit damage our energy choices bring to bear on the environment. This month's National Geographic takes a look at what a 21st century energy package looks like through the eyes of the electricity grid. While the article is available online, the more exciting digital feature is available here.

The link is to a very cool online tool that shows what areas of the country are best for wind, solar and hydro, as well as what areas are already dealing with a congested grid system. The latter areas are also collectively known as the Mid Atlantic region. More impressively, the map has GIS-like layers that you can turn on and off to see where proposed energy projects- including increased transmission capacity - are located.

Former Coworker Drops Knowledge Bombs on CNN

Continuing TCD's award winning coverage of the Gulf oil spill, we present to you further mitigation advice courtesy of G. Paul Kemp of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. C9 worked closely with G. on coastal wetland restoration in southeast Louisiana and spent a memorable few days touring the Atchafalaya River basin with him and a dude named Captain Cajun Jack. But that's a different story.

Read Dr. Kemp's CNN opinion piece here about how better management of Mississippi River floodwater control can help keep the oil slick from creeping further up into Louisiana's wetlands.

What is more amusing?

And by amusing I might mean terrifying...

BP company meeting coffee spill?



Screen shot of BP's recent stock performance?

Oil Update

From NakedCapitalism - Discussing what people have been talking about the past few weeks - oil getting caught in the Gulf Stream and ending up on the East Coast:

The National Center for Atmospheric Research models showed Thursday that oil could enter the Gulf’s loop current, go around the tip of Florida and as far north as Cape Hatteras, N.C. According to researchers, oil could threaten East Coast beaches by early July, but they cautioned the models were not a forecast.
The oil could then head by Bermuda on its way to Europe.

Martin Visbeck, a research team member with the University of Kiel in Germany, says it is unlikely any oil reaching Europe would be thick enough to be harmful.

Thank you Yves Smith and NakedCapitalism

Gulf oil spill revives Cape’s 1969 nightmare - The Boston Globe

The link below is to a video and article about a 1969 oil spill in Buzzards Bay, the effects of which are still felt today. This does not bode well for the future of coastal Louisiana, especially considering the '69 spill closer to home was "only" 200,000 gallons large. The study referred to is the culmination of 40 years worth of research done by four generations of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute scientists.

Gulf oil spill revives Cape’s 1969 nightmare - The Boston Globe

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What About the Children?

The Gulf oil spill has gotten a lot of deserved coverage on TCD, mostly from a "30,000 foot point of view" - what does the spill look like? Where is it moving? How did it happen? All great questions with pretty disturbing answers.

But what of the economic effects and the ramifications for people who rely on the resources produced by the Gulf and in the estuaries that buffer the coast of Louisiana from the sea? Jim Tripp, Client 9's former boss, has spent the last 36 years working to restore the wetlands of coastal Louisiana. To put wetland loss in that part of the world in context, one football field worth is lost every 38 minutes. Whoa. Last week, Tripp appeared on Charlie Rose to discuss the effects of the Gulf oil spill on coastal Louisiana's ecosystems and the communities that rely on resources - shrimp, crabs, fish - produced by those wetlands.

Here's a quick three minute clip from Tripp's appearance on Charlie Rose...



The full episode is below. As usual, Chucky's show was representative of a diverse set of views. If you have the time, I suggest checking this out.



And finally, for more videos, images of coastal Louisiana and insight into the type of restoration work going on in Louisiana before, during and after this latest calamity, click here.

Hurricane Oil

What are you looking at? Top left is the bird's foot delta of the Mississippi River. The hurricane-esque "cloud" in the center is the oil slick that has developed as a result of the tens of thousands of gallons of Gulf Crude that is erupting daily from the continental shelf into the Gulf's rich waters off the Louisiana coast after last week's catastrophic oil-rig fire and subsequent collapse. It's eerie how much this image of the slick resembles similar satellite images of the last disaster to dominate southeastern Louisiana.