Comments on: Natural oil seeps: Not proof oil spill worries are overblown

By: Yamara

Yamara — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ll bring the feathers.

By: lewis stoole

lewis stoole — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

>the mayor of amity<

you just blew my mind with that reference.
perfect.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

For our point in history, oil is a great resource for energy! What else are we going to do with it?

I love how we pull trillions and trillions of barrels from the ground over time and when we spill some, everyone is up in arms!

First, if you are sitting in a room with electricity, or using a computer or driving in your car to a protest or out on your fishing boat complaining, then you are truly a hypocrite!

Oh, and for those of you who feel better because you have a solar panel or purchased an “energy efficient” car, your a sucker for marketing – period. If you want to do the planet a favor, walk, cut your electricity, don’t work for anyone that uses electricity etc etc…

Sure – someday future generations will look back at us with disgust, but we simply do not have the technology to create the amount of energy the world demands. Unless you extremist on BOTH sides finds realistic common ground we will never advance with respect to energy!

Just my two cents!
~33DegreesNorth@gmail.com

By: bobhughes

bobhughes — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Are these people really this stupid? Or do they just think everyone else is? Trying to play a card like “the natural oil seeps don’t hurt…” is a blatant, desperate grab at straws to defend big oil’s & the fed’s anti-safety practices.

While we’re at it, lets go ahead and whine about the money wasted on cleaning up 3 mile island & enforcing the new regulations it brought, since anyone with a smoke detector gets a dose of radiation each day already!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nobody is saying that the oil spill should be ignored, just that it isn’t the end of the world and the entire coast from Texas to the Keys is not covered hip deep in oil. Nobody is denying that it is a crappy deal and it could have been prevented. Mississippi had very little, if any of the oil from the Horizon wash up as tar balls for around 40 days and that was all he was trying to convey.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

While I agree with what you’re saying, it has no bearing on the US Gulf situation, and it’s the fault of the corrupt Nigerian government, that they’re experiencing those issues, and not taking any action.

By: Ultan

Ultan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Those numbers assume 12,000 – 19,000 barrels per bay from the Deepwater Horizon gusher. The correct number is between 20,000- 100,000 barrels per day according to estimates from the Coast Guard and academics. The higher part of that range comes from more reputable sources, such as a professor who has published a book on flow rate estimation. The precise number is difficult to calculate because the flow varies, part of the flow is natural gas, the average flow rate has increased as the pipe has eroded, and BP denied access to the video feed needed to monitor the flow rate for weeks in an effort to reduce its liability (standard fines for spills are about $1,100 to 4,300 per barrel depending on negligence.)

The DH gusher is therefore putting out 12 to 60 times the natural seep rate of the whole Gulf, and doing it at a single point. With the well casing mostly gone, its integrity entirely lost, and oil now spewing up through widening cracks in the seafloor, there is now no way of cutting off the flow. It could go for several years before it tapers off to merely doubling the natural seep rate.

By: bjacques

bjacques — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Riiiiight, so the tar balls are not washing up on beaches elsewhere or and didn’t on Mississippi beaches before late April why exactly?

And, as on Amity Beach, you won’t want to go swimming there on Labor Day Weekend. We’re gonna need a bigger bullshit spreader.

By: jphilby

jphilby — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The same approach is used to poo-poo nuclear radiation exposure. “Ah heck, you pick up a REM every time you fly in a jet plane.”

1. I don’t fly in jet planes.
2. That’s voluntary. And consistent. But when you live downwind from a nuclear plant, your dose is neither.

Some people are cavalier about their own health and hey, that’s their poison. I demand the right to name my own.

(Read the recent news about “safe” dental x-rays? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1284843/Just-safe-X-rays-dentist.html

Rather like those shoe fluoroscopes that all disappeared from the shoe stores at once. Linking Straight Dope; the WP article’s been scrubbed. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/599/were-those-old-shoe-store-fluoroscopes-a-health-hazard)

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

To be fair, the Governor is trying to put a better spin on it to keep tourism and jobs from pulling out of the area. Kind of like the Mayor of Amity.

By: DeWynken

DeWynken — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Reads as if the governor is viewing this through rose..er..republican colored glasses..

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

By the same token, the miners who died in that methane explosion in April simply experienced a higher-than-usual exposure to gases that naturally seep out of the earth’s crust from time to time.

By: Stefan Jones

Stefan Jones — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

And carbon dioxide is plant food!

Really, anybody who propagates this shameless spin should be required to bathe in or breathe the crud in question.

By: ADavies

ADavies — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Those birds were covered in bown stuff all along. Just nobody noticed before.

By: Ugly Canuck

Ugly Canuck — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

…and everybody has to eat a bushel of shit before they die.
It’s the law.

By: igzabier

igzabier — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

parts of the US and now Canada’s arctic are like, totally the new Nigeria?
Nigeria’s agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it
The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“To be fair, the Governor is trying to put a better spin on it to keep tourism and jobs from pulling out of the area.”

While simultaneously fucking over anyone still living and working in the area.

By: tsm_sf

tsm_sf — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Jphilby, hope you don’t drink out of plastic bottles or eat tomatoes from a can.

By: Snig

Snig — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Scale counts. Sunwarmed stones and static electricity are usually fine, but lava flows and lightning strikes are best avoided.

By: gwailo_joe

gwailo_joe — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dose makes the poison. Tru dat. Good line. . .

But the very word ‘seep’ proves the point: ‘to pass, flow, ooze gradually through a porous substance. . .’

Gradually!!! What we have is a F**king gusher! To use a BB phrase:

-Just look at it.-

Except a steampunk banana gun and the like is funny and cool:

This Deepwater disaster just makes me sad.

By: Phlip

Phlip — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

A seep near the ground, or sea-bed, that has seeped for a while has already bled off its natural gas and lighter hydrocarbons – like a natural catalytic cracker. The remaining ooze is the tar, which does not disperse as rapidly.

BP’s oil gusher (who are we up to blaming by now? Carter, Abscam, the EPA, and Woody Allen??) is absolutely fresh oil (from a huge field) that contained above average ratios of natural gas & volatiles, under enormous pressure. It is now injecting a different poison into each habitat and ecosystem in the Gulf.

Recovery is going to take a century.

By: Ugly Canuck

Ugly Canuck — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I didn’t: until ALL the manufacturers switched packaging (without asking me, BTW).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is great news. If you are correct in your scientific analysis, the hurricane season will clean up this mess for us and there’s no issue to worry about at all!

By: Ugly Canuck

Ugly Canuck — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I lie: for I have NEVER eaten my tomatoes from a can (though I have not always known what goes on in the kitchen).

By: Mr. Gunn

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Another facet to the issue, much dicussed at the recent American Society for Microbiology meeting, is how this will change the levels of microorganisms which metabolize oil. Oil is food for some microorganisms, but if the levels of the microbes get too high in a particular area, they literally consume all the oxygen in the area (like a red tide) and this causes massive fish and wildlife kills. The underwater plumes of oil are sufficient to support growth of the microbes to this level, potentially creating a dead zone for hundreds of miles.

By: juepucta

juepucta — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

A great way of putting it is this:

—–
Of special concern are the hundreds of â€œseepâ€ communities in the gulf, enclaves of crustaceans, weird tube worms, tiny fish, mussels, and crabs that live near natural gashes in the sea floor. These seeps release hydrocarbons, which might suggest that the oil-and-methane plumes are good for these creatures. Unfortunately, the profusion of hydrocarbons is likely to be less like sitting down to a Thanksgiving feast than like being encased in marshmallowed sweet potatoes: deadly.
—–

From this S. Begley piece http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/06/what-the-spill-will-kill.html

-G.

By: Phlip

Phlip — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Anyone with a natural gas stove gets a dose of Radon each time they use it…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I agree that it’s not the end of the world, but this leads to complacency. The problem is that it was caused due to BP’s cost cutting for the bottom line (poor workmanship on the drilling, lack of pressure fills, etc). One incident of this magnitude won’t cause the world to implode, but treating it as if it doesn’t matter doesn’t set the message that similar incidents will not be tolerated.

It’s the same way with children; a child sneaking a snack behind your back once or twice isn’t a big deal, but if you find out and just laugh it off, they end up sneaking more and more, because they know they can get away with it. They don’t learn any discipline or restraint, which is the problem with BP et al, they just do what they want, and throw money at any problems they run across.

By: rAMPANTiDIOCY

rAMPANTiDIOCY — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Here is the logic used:

Background levels of contaminant exist naturally.
Therefore, additional anthropogenic sources are okay, even in higher doses.

Seems flawed to me.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Yes the parallels to CO2 apologetics is uncanny.

How these boobs passed grade school is beyond me.