SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Dennis Roth who wrote (135075)6/15/2010 5:38:02 PM
From: Broken_Clock  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 206131
 
Scientists Warn Gulf Of Mexico Sea Floor Fractured Beyond Repair

Contributed by Sorcha Faal
June 10, 2010 2:38
beforeitsnews.com
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

A dire report circulating in the Kremlin today that was prepared for Prime Minister Putin by Anatoly Sagalevich of Russia's Shirshov Institute of Oceanology warns that the Gulf of Mexico sea floor has been fractured “beyond all repair” and our World should begin preparing for an ecological disaster “beyond comprehension” unless “extraordinary measures” are undertaken to stop the massive flow of oil into our Planet’s eleventh largest body of water.

Most important to note about Sagalevich’s warning is that he and his fellow scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences are the only human beings to have actually been to the Gulf of Mexico oil leak site after their being called to the disaster scene by British oil giant BP shortly after the April 22nd sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform.

BP’s calling on Sagalevich after this catastrophe began is due to his being the holder of the World’s record for the deepest freshwater dive and his expertise with Russia’s two Deep Submergence Vehicles MIR 1 and MIR 2 [photo below] which are able to take their crews to the depth of 6,000 meters (19,685 ft).

According to Sagalevich’s report, the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico is not just coming from the 22 inch well bore site being shown on American television, but from at least 18 other sites on the “fractured seafloor” with the largest being nearly 11 kilometers (7 miles) from where the Deepwater Horizon sank and is spewing into these precious waters an estimated 2 million gallons of oil a day.

Interesting to note in this report is Sagalevich stating that he and the other Russian scientists were required by the United States to sign documents forbidding them to report their findings to either the American public or media, and which they had to do in order to legally operate in US territorial waters.

However, Sagalevich says that he and the other scientists gave nearly hourly updates to both US government and BP officials about what they were seeing on the sea floor, including the US Senator from their State of Florida Bill Nelson who after one such briefing stated to the MSNBC news service “Andrea we’re looking into something new right now, that there’s reports of oil that’s seeping up from the seabed… which would indicate, if that’s true, that the well casing itself is actually pierced… underneath the seabed. So, you know, the problems could be just enormous with what we’re facing.”

Though not directly stated in Sagalevich’s report, Russian scientists findings on the true state of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster are beyond doubt being leaked to his longtime friend, and former US President George W. Bush’s top energy advisor Matthew Simmons, who US media reports state has openly said: “Matthew Simmons is sticking by his story that there's another giant leak in the Gulf of Mexico blowing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. On CNBC's Fast Money, he says he'd be surprised if BP lasted this summer, saying this is disaster is entirely BP's fault.”

As a prominent oil-industry insider, and one of the World's leading experts on peak oil, Simmons further warns that the US has only two options, “let the well run dry (taking 30 years, and probably ruining the Atlantic ocean) or nuking the well.”

Obama’s government, on the other hand, has stated that a nuclear option for ending this catastrophe is not being discussed, but which brings him into conflict with both Russian and American experts advocating such an extreme measure before all is lost, and as we can read as reported by Britain’s Telegraph News Service:

“The former Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) used nuclear weapons on five separate occasions between 1966 and 1981 to successfully cap blown-out gas and oil surface wells (there was also one attempt that failed), which have been documented in a U.S. Department of Energy report on the U.S.S.R.'s peaceful uses of nuclear explosions.

Russia is now urging the United States to consider doing the same. Komsomoloskaya Pravda, the best-selling Russian daily newspaper, asserts that although based on Soviet experience there's a one-in-five chance a nuke might not seal the well, it's "a gamble the Americans could certainly risk."

Reportedly, the U.S.S.R. developed special nuclear devices explicitly for closing blown-out gas wells, theorizing that the blast from a nuclear detonation would plug any hole within 25 to 50 meters, depending on the device's power. Much as I had idly imagined, massive explosions can be employed to collapse a runaway well on itself, thus plugging, or at least substantially stanching, the flow of oil.

“Seafloor nuclear detonation is starting to sound surprisingly feasible and appropriate," University of Texas at Austin mechanical engineer Michael E. Webber is quoted observing, while Columbia University visiting scholar on nuclear policy and former naval officer Christopher Brownfield wrote in the Daily Beast: "We should have demolished this well with explosives over a month ago. And yet we watch in excruciating suspense while BP fumbles through plan after plan to recover its oil and cover its asset.”

As to the reason for Obama’s government refusing to consider nuking this oil well, Sagalevich states in this report that the American’s “main concern” is not the environmental catastrophe this disaster is causing, but rather what the impact of using a nuclear weapon to stop this leak would have on the continued production of oil from the Gulf of Mexico, and which in an energy starved World’s remains the Planet’s only oil producing region able to increase its production.

On top of the environmental catastrophe currently unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico the situation may about to get even worse as new reports from the US are confirming the grim predictions of Russian scientists regarding the oil dispersement poisons being used by BP which are being swept up into the clouds and falling as toxic rain destroying every living plant it touches, and as we had detailed in our May 23rd report titled “Toxic Oil Spill Rains Warned Could Destroy North America”

To what the final outcome of this catastrophe will be it is not in our knowing other than to state the obvious that the choice facing the American’s today is to either stop this disaster now, by any means, or pay dearly for it later. After all, is cheap petrol really worth the cost of destroying our own Earth? BP surely thinks so, let’s keep hoping Obama doesn’t.

© June 10, 2010 EU and US all rights reserved



To: Dennis Roth who wrote (135075)6/15/2010 6:11:37 PM
From: Jacob Snyder  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 206131
 
Sharks circle, smelling blood:

"Mr. Stearns asked you to resign. In the Asian culture we do things differently. During the Samurai days we just give you a knife and ask you to commit hara-kiri," - Anh "Joseph" Cao, R-Louisiana, speaking to Lamar McKay, chairman and president of BP America
theoildrum.com

Pelosi urges BP to halt dividend
reuters.com

BP commercial paper market access could be cut
reuters.com

Fitch downgrades BP by six notches, bonds plummet
reuters.com

BP's credit default swaps widened to levels associated with a "junk" rated company
reuters.com

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum sent a letter to BP demanding that it put at least $2.5 billion into a dedicated escrow account
reuters.com

Bank of America has ordered its traders not to enter into oil trades with BP that extend beyond June 2011
reuters.com

Simmons' office said...there were "three pages of names" of reporters who called for an interview.
reuters.com

Did Goldman sabotage BP’s blowout preventer?
blogs.reuters.com

I'm starting to feel sorry for Tony what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this, the unkind way Barack kick-your-ass is treating him:
youtube.com



To: Dennis Roth who wrote (135075)6/15/2010 6:12:25 PM
From: Eric  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 206131
 
Panel Sharply Raises Estimate of Oil Spilling Into the Gulf

A government panel raised its estimate of the flow rate from BP’s out-of-control well yet again on Tuesday, declaring that as much as 60,000 barrels a day could be flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. That is roughly 2.5 million gallons a day, and it means an amount equal to the Exxon Valdez spill could be gushing from the well about every four days.

The new estimate, that the flow rate ranges from 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day, is a sharp increase from one issued only last week, of 25,000 to 30,000 barrels a day. It continues a pattern in which every new estimate of the flow rate has been sharply higher than the one before. The current range is far above the figure of 5,000 barrels a day that the government clung to for weeks after the spill started after the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

The latest estimate is based on new information, including high-resolution video made after BP cut an underwater pipe called a riser on June 3 to install a new device to contain the oil. It is also based on pressure readings taken by a device that was inserted this week into the equipment at the sea floor. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, was personally involved in using those pressure readings to help make the latest estimate.

The new numbers provide a better perspective of the power of the voluminous clouds of oil spewing from the broken well that Americans have been seeing on video images over the last several weeks.

The fresh information came on a day when BP’s ill-fated relief efforts to stop the damaged well hit yet another snag, underscoring once again the fragility of the containment effort: lightning struck the vessel that had been collecting the oil from the well, suspending operations for nearly five hours from 9:30 a.m. Central time until 2:15 p.m.

Considering BP had only able to collect 15,800 barrels a day at its peak with the containment cap, these numbers released on Tuesday show just how much of a small impact the method had been making to stop the oil from flowing into the Gulf.

“This estimate, which we will continue to refine as the scientific teams get new data and conduct new analyses, is the most comprehensive estimate so far of how much oil is flowing one mile below the ocean’s surface,” Ken Salazar, the Interior Secretary, said in a statement released by the Coast Guard.

The staggering estimates and the small fire set the stage for President Obama’s primetime speech from the Oval Office, when he was expected to press BP on its cleanup and claims payment plans. Mr. Obama wrapped up a two-day trip to the Gulf coast with an appearance at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla., on Tuesday morning.

“Yes, this is an unprecedented environmental disaster, it’s the worst in our nation’s history,” Mr. Obama told an audience of sailors, marines and civilians at the base. “But we’re going to continue to meet it with an unprecedented federal response and recovery effort. this is an assault on our shores and we’re going to fight back with everything we’ve got.”

Mr. Obama added: “My administration is going to do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes to deal with the disaster.”

The disaster shows no signs of abatement.

BP said in a statement that the fire, which started after lightning struck the derrick — the familiar looking tower used to lift the piping — was quickly extinguished, and there were no injuries. But as a precaution, the containment operation was shut down for about five hours.

The containment cap is still the only method BP has been able to use successfully to collect some of the oil that has been leaking from the undersea well, and it has only been partly effective. A series of attempts by BP to cap or plug the well before June 3 failed.

Phone calls to BP requesting comment on the lightning strike and containment shutdown were not immediately returned on Tuesday afternoon.

nytimes.com