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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (81403)	8/21/2010 2:01:13 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

. Cuz Bea ain't an expert, and is an embarrassment to Cal? Can't pass peer review at the Drum. If you keep spreading his tale around, do me a favor and tell people he's from Stanferd. Know nothing about Dr. Bea expertise but some statements make me wonder: "But when BP was drilling this well, the fracture gradient reversed. Indeed, BP lost all pressure as it drilled into the formation." This is a physical impossibility. For the moment I'll assume the doctor was misquoted. And I have no idea what he means by "loosing all pressure" other than I think he might be referring to the lost circulation which agains seems to highlight a profound lack of knowledge about drilling. When asked if the BP well could continue to leak after it is plugged and abandoned: "Bea: Yes, it could. The Santa Barbara channel seeps are still leaking, decades after the oil well was supposedly capped. This well could keep leaking for years." The Santa Barabara well hasn't been leaking. It was plugged and abandoned decades ago. But the CA state geologist reports that around 175,000 bbls of oil leak every year from natural seeps on the bottom of the Santa Barbara Channel. This oil was leaking before the first well was ever drilled out there (which is why they drilled the first well out there) and will continue to leak for many centuries. "Is it possible that this fractured, subsea salt geology will make it difficult to permanently kill the oil leak using relief wells? Bea: Yes, it could". Obviously the good doctor knows nothing about the geology of the BP well. It isn't a subsalt well nor is it anywhere close to the subsalt plays going on in the GOM. Dr. Bea: " the geology beneath the seafloor is so fractured, with soft and unstable salt formations, that we may never be able to fully kill the well even with relief wells. Instead, the loss of containment of the oil reservoir caused by the drilling accident could cause oil to leak out through seeps for years to come. " Again, a profound ignorance of GOM geology. The salt is not unstable. In fact salt is probably the most stable formation in the GOM in terms of a human time scale. I think he's confused over the instability of salt on a geologic time scale. In that case it's true...salt is unstable. Why in just a few million years some renewed salt movement could lead to more natural seeps. And a minor terminology goof: the sea floor in the GOM is not fractured. Another physical impossibility given the unconsolidated nature of the sediment. Try an experiment: go out and find a puddle of mud and hit it with a hammer. See any fractures? I assume he's trying to say there are faults the reach up to the sea floor. Fractures vs. faults: a misspeak I would forgive any of our TOD family for. But Dr. Bea is offered as an "expert". And some of these faults are the source of natural seeps. But no force on earth, manmade or otherwise, can produce fractures that could leak oil from 13,000' below the sea floor into the GOM. The reservoir is trapped as it is because it contained by a natural seal that couldn't be broken by a nuclear blast let alone a 12' hole. Again another physical impossibility that can't be debated. The only way to leak that oil into the GOM is just how BP did it: stick a long piece of pipe in it and let it get away from you. There are a lot of experts out there who'll have no trouble nailing BP's and TO's hide to the barn door. Dr. Bea, IMHO, isn't one of them. Best to leave him basking in the CA sunshine and not let him offer opinions that BP could easily refute and use to destroy accusation against them. Dr. Bea appears to be a better witness for the defense than the prosecution IMHO. ROCKMAN on August 20, 2010 - 9:37am Permalink \| Subthread \| Parent \| Parent subthread \| Comments top theoildrum.com = "Is BP sharing information with the government?" Wrong question...it should be "is gvt sharing info with BP?" It's the government who has been making all the official estimates. == ROCKMAN on August 20, 2010 - 5:44pm Permalink \| Subthread \| Parent \| Parent subthread \| Comments top maj - we've seen the BP data, including the 3d seismic data, describing the geology of the area around the BP well. Was put out on TOD long ago. As for as support for my statements I'll just refer you to the thousands of publicly available reports on the geology of the Gulf of Mexico Basin. See Am Assoc. of Petroleum Geologists, Society of Petroleum Engineers and the Gulf Coast Assoc of Geologic Societies. In a couple of months of concentrated effort you’ll discover that your mouth just wrote a check your butt can’t cover. There is a whole world of stuff I don’t know much about. But after studying Gulf Coast geology for 40 years even an idiot is bound to understand a thing or two.

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (81403)	8/21/2010 3:05:17 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

I don't think Wharfie is more inclined not to listen to BP. I think he has had his fingers on the oil and other environmental issues much before anyone of us did. And my experience is that folks who form their opinions based on info, do not partake in "sentimental" decision making. I have disagreements with him also. But these disagreements are based on our individual judgements reached after examining facts and data. And those disagreements are due to different interpretations but due to people coming from the different segments of the sentimental spectrum. Now Wharfie can definitely defend himself and this is not an attempt on my part to take sides. It is just my expression on why people differ.