Got sent the following text from a friend which I believe was from a sustainable transport newsletter. I know that it is pessimistic, but the response from BP to the media has been somewhat lacking in technical detail. Maybe this is why.
Is the BP Gusher Unstoppable?
Mother Jones, 16 June 2010
"All the actions and few tid bits of information all lead to one inescapable conclusion. The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. Now you have some real data of how BP's actions are evidence of that, as well as some murky statement from "BP officials" confirming the same. "To those of us outside the real inside loop, yet still fairly knowledgeable, [the failure of Top Kill] was a major confirmation of what many feared. That the system below the sea floor has serious failures of varying magnitude in the complicated chain, and it is breaking down and it will continue to.
"What does this mean?
"It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot...the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?...the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?...it doesn't leak so bad, you close the nozzle?...it leaks real bad, same dynamics. It is why they sawed the riser off...or tried to anyway...but they clipped it off, to relieve pressure on the leaks "down hole". I'm sure there was a bit of panic time after they crimp/pinched off the large riser pipe and the Diamond wire saw got stuck and failed...because that crimp diverted pressure and flow to the rupture down below.
"Contrary to what most of us would think as logical to stop the oil mess, actually opening up the gushing well and making it gush more became direction BP took after confirming that there was a leak. In fact if you note their actions, that should become clear. They have shifted from stopping or restricting the gusher to opening it up and catching it. This only makes sense if they want to relieve pressure at the leak hidden down below the seabed.....and that sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kind of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above, all they can do is relieve the pressure on it and the only way to do that right now is to open up the nozzle above and gush more oil into the gulf and hopefully catch it, which they have done, they just neglected to tell us why, gee thanks.
"A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons. There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the "system" including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil "Product" rushing through it. There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it's way out. It will slowly eat the bop away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more. Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?...no one really knows....However now?...there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation.
"This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore.
"The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself... The well's piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over...and it is now showing signs of doing just that....falling over...
"What is likely to happen now?
"Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don't, they are inviting disaster that much sooner.
"Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? ...it won't be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov't must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.
"All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn't any "cap dome" or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?....is the only real chance we have left to stop it all.
"It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo.
"We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates. The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said.
"Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can "get there first"...us or the well."
www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/06/worst-already-true-bp-well-now-unstoppable/
And this is yet to surface in mainstream media, but was sent to me a few weeks ago. Maybe this is why BP accepted liability for the spill so quickly, normally there is months of the "who pays" argument before cash starts to be injected...
This hasn't seemed to have gotten much circulation yet, and I think it really needs to. Seems that a crew from Schlumberger, on contract to BP, hightailed it off the platform at their own expense 6 hours before the blowout becuase BP refused their recommendation to shut down the well. This lends more credence to Thom's suggestion that corners were cut because the bigwigs were coming for a vist.
"BP contracted Schlumberger (SLB) to run the Cement Bond Log (CBL) test that was the final test on the plug that was skipped. The people testifying have been very coy about mentioning this, and you’ll see why.
SLB is an extremely highly regarded (and incredibly expensive) service company. They place a high standard on safety and train their workers to shut down unsafe operations.
SLB gets out to the Deepwater Horizon to run the CBL, and they find the well still
kicking heavily, which it should not be that late in the operation. SLB orders the
“company man” (BP’s man on the scene that runs the operation) to dump kill fluid down the well and shut-in the well. The company man refuses. SLB in the very next sentence asks for a helo to take all SLB personel back to shore. The company man says there are no more helo’s scheduled for the rest of the week (translation: you’re here to do a job, now do it). SLB gets on the horn to shore, calls SLB’s corporate HQ, and gets a helo flown out there at SLB’s expense and takes all SLB personel to shore.
6 hours later, the platform explodes."
In any case it was a gutsy call by the leader of the Schlumberger gang onboard and considering the outcome, the right one to make.
will a small atomic explosion fix the problem?
or dropping a huge concrete block onto the leak stop it?
looks like the situation is well and truely farked
oh well thats what you get for being so reliant on oil.
Longwinded, you are a star. Thanks for that. If it is correct and it is more likely to be closer to the truth than we will ever get from the pollies or BP it spells out potential doom for BP and the most incredible environmental damage imaginable.
There is a strong possibility that this will put a global microscope on the industry and throw open alternative existing clean energy sources. Keep you fingers crossed.
BP is almost certainly doomed anyway. I dont know if it changed but when bbc interviewed those effected BP had only made the first payment and nothing further.
Government is trying to keep BP alive to pay it's debts and wear the blame, wont be long though before bankruptcy becomes the only option.
Choco- no it could potentially make the problem worse by making many leaks and pretty much ensure the death of any wildlife. Since the area is only really reliant on oil or fishing it would be devastating.
The whole thing is laughable ( or cryable) I saw an interview with a CNN journalist when they got access to the bp contingency plans for that oil rig. They included an enviremental response to deal with affected walrus and sea otter populations ( don't see to much of that action in the gulf of Mexico!!!!!), and the go to guy in the area was a professor from Miami, only problem there was he died 4 yrs ago!!! Who signs off on this rubbish before they're given aproval to drill!!?!?!?
I saw an interview with a CNN journalist when they got access to the bp contingency plans for that oil rig. They included an enviremental response to deal with affected walrus and sea otter populations ( don't see to much of that action in the gulf of Mexico!!!!!), and the go to guy in the area was a professor from Miami, only problem there was he died 4 yrs ago!!! Who signs off on this rubbish before they're given aproval to drill!!?!?!?
If they (BP) do fall on their arse does that mean that all of the patents they have bought out to ensure that oil remains the premium energy source will be publically available?
****! Probably changed hands already!
Not sure if I believe it but i've heard it's common practice for any of them to destroy alternate energy ideas, I guess they've got the risk of corporate theft but surely it is their contigency for when oil runs out?
oh well thats what you get for being so reliant on oil.
from http://usahitman.com/?p=7184
40 million to be evacuated in Gulf of Mexico
Earlier this week Reuters reported on a massive amount of methane discovered in the Gulf of Mexico. Texas A&M University oceanography professor John Kessler said methane gas levels in some areas are "astonishingly high." Kessler recently returned from a 10-day research expedition near the BP oil gusher. Kessler's team measured both surface and deep water within a 5-mile (8 kilometer) radius of BP's destroyed wellhead. "There is an incredible amount of methane in there," Kessler told reporters. He said the level may be as much as one million times the normal level.
In late May BP said methane makes up about 40 percent of the leaking crude by mass. In addition to methane, large mounts of toxic hydrogen sulfide, benzene and methylene chloride are leaking into the Gulf according to the EPA and others.
Lindsay Williams, a former Alaskan pipeline chaplain with high-level oil industry connections, told the Alex Jones Show on June 10 that deadly gases are indeed escaping from the breached wellhead.
Investigative journalist Wayne Madson, writing for Oil Price, states that his sources inside the federal government, FEMA, and the US Army Corps of Engineers are dealing with a prospective "dead zone" created by the escaping methane within a 200 mile radius from the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
In addition, Madsen reports, Corexit 9500, the oil dispersant used by BP, is viewed by FEMA sources as mixing with evaporated water from the Gulf. This deadly mixture is then absorbed by rain clouds and produces toxic precipitation that threatens to continue killing marine and land animals, plant life, and humans within a 200-mile radius of the Deepwater Horizon disaster site in the Gulf.
The "dead zone" created by a combination of methane gas and Corexit toxic rain, Madsen continues, will ultimately result in the evacuation and long-term abandonment of cities and towns within the 200-mile radius of the oil gusher.
"Plans are being put in place for the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Mandeville, Hammond, Houma, Belle Chase, Chalmette, Slidell, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pensacola, Hattiesburg, Mobile, Bay Minette, Fort Walton Beach, Panama City, Crestview, and Pascagoula," Madsen writes.
On June 13, SoCal Martial Law Alerts (SCMLA) predicted that Gulf states would be evacuated. "Greg Evensen, a retired Kansas Highway Patrolman, estimates that 30-40 million people would need to be evacuated away from the Gulf's coastline (i.e. at least 200 miles inland)," SCMLA reported.
In order to accomplish this gargantuan feat, the federal government (through FEMA and other agencies) would most likely seek first to control and manage the transportation system and then operate relocation centers to manage evacuees. Toward this end, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has already declared the airspace over the oil spill site to be a no-fly zone until further notice. Various sources have indicated that local police, highway patrol, National Guard, US military and foreign troops may be involved in an operation to evacuate the Gulf Coast. In fact, the Governor of Louisiana has already requested evacuation assistance (i.e. National Guard) for his state from the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Madsen's trusted sources now lend credence to the SCMLA report.
DK Matai reports that by some geologists' estimates, the methane now escaping into the Gulf may have been part of a massive bubble trapped for thousands of years under the sea floor. "More than a year ago, geologists expressed alarm in regard to BP and Transocean putting their exploratory rig directly over this massive underground reservoir of methane. Warnings were raised before the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe that the area of seabed chosen might be unstable and inherently dangerous," writes Matai.
Matai and others fear the methane - under intense pressure (experts estimate the pressure to be between 30,000 and 70,000 pounds per square inch) - may form a bubble that would then rupture the seabed and erupt with an explosion.
"The bubble is likely to explode upwards propelled by more than 50,000 psi of pressure, bursting through the cracks and fissures of the sea floor, fracturing and rupturing miles of ocean bottom with a single extreme explosion," Matai explains. "If the toxic gas bubble explodes, it might simultaneously set off a tsunami traveling at a high speed of hundreds of miles per hour. Florida might be most exposed to the fury of a tsunami wave. The entire Gulf coastline would be vulnerable, if the tsunami is manifest. Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and southern region of Georgia might experience the effects of the tsunami according to some sources."
In is not certain the federal government is concerned about the prospect of a tsunami. However, if Madsen's sources are correct, they are concerned about the release of deadly hydrogen sulfide, benzene, methylene chloride, and the prospect of toxic rain.
A mass evacuation of the Gulf states would be impossible without a declaration of martial law. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the government all but declared martial law in New Orleans and the southern Gulf Coast - it was deemed a "state of emergency," not officially martial law - and this gave rise to the largest military mobilization since the so-called Civil War. Combat-equipped troops and private contractors went house-to-house to enforce the complete removal of the civilian population in New Orleans and also confiscate guns and leave residents defenseless.
Moreover, FEMA imposed iron-grip censorship of the media. On September 7, 2005, MSNBC's Brian Williams reported that the city had "reached a near-saturation level of military and law enforcement." Williams and his crew were ordered to stop taking photographs by gun-toting National Guard troops. Williams said he experienced "the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States."
Indeed, if Florida and the Gulf states are evacuated as predicted - and again, Madsen's sources are usually impeccable - a large part of the country will be separated from the United States and placed under martial law.
Article Link
Well that should tak car of Cuba, after all it has always been a thorn in their side.
Seriously Petermac, you cannot take Alex jones seriously, can you? If he is on the nail we all are!
yes i take Alex Jones seriously.
If he is on the nail we all are! not sure exactly what you mean by this.
i do think this B.P oil spill has inside job written all over it.
this could turn out to be the biggest ''un-natural'' disaster ever.
wasn't the Gulf of Mexico created by a huge impact from a meteor? if so the ocean floor would be fractured from the collision and unstable,drilling in the area has probably caused a shift in the ocean floor causing the platform to collapse......this is going to get very interesting.
I meant if he is right we are all ****ed!
What possible gain would anyone or any group have to destroy the planet?
I am prepared to listen to reason but surely anyone who has ultimate destruction at heart is a lunatic and lunacy has never manifested itself in economic strategy. There is no point in turning the world into a rubbish heap so you can inherit it, is there?
the worst part is...
watching channel 9 news tonight at my brothers house (visiting niece and nephew)
there was no mention of gulf oil spill at all on the 'news' instead one of the leading stories was the premier of the latest twilight movie.... WTF...?
seriously www.rense.com is carrying alot of otherwise unreported news on the gulf spill in their featured stories and is interviewing a lot of first hand witnesses and insider views on his radio program.
this thing is not over by a long shot.
bizarre thing is, I heard an interview years ago about a guy who made a prediction that an oil disaster in the gulf of mexico was the signal for the fall of the united states.. I still have it stored in an old hard drive here somewhere and its been bugging me, I'll dig it up this weekend and post it on youtube or something
Deep South America + Nuclear Weapon = Dr Strangelove
YEEEEEHAAAWWWWW.
...anyone?
...anyone? 
If all the oil spilled from this well since day one could be converted to petrol and put in US motor cars it would be burnt up in 3 hrs 44 minutes.
The Doctor: Don't know whether I should be thanking you for the Rense link. I spent a lot of time reading today. The sh1t has really hit the fan on this one. Very disconcerting. We might be swamped with American refugees!
Interesting to see that Obama's portfolio gained value. Who knows what the fark is going on but one thing is for sure and that is the mainstream media ain't doing it justice.
Gingerpom, re the patents, I realise that they are publicly available but that they cannot be used by a third party. If BP goes into liquidation who then owns the patent? Are they transferable or what?
And will someone tell me how to use the quote button? More to the point where to find it?
and will someone please tell me how to use the quote button,laymen's term only please.
