BP's oil spill grows ever more ominous

[marmar]

BP's oil spill grows ever more ominous
Commentary: Even the alarmists got it wrong

By MarketWatch


SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- BP's annus horribilus just got a little more horrible. So did the Gulf's.

Three weeks ago, a handful of scientists watching grainy video shot at 5,000 feet beneath the sea suggested that BP's ruptured wellhead was disgorging up to 25,000 barrels of crude a day into the Gulf of Mexico, and maybe more. They were largely dismissed by the oil industry as cranks.

BP Managing Director Robert Dudley, speaking on the PBS NewsHour, called those early independent estimates "alarming because I think they raise the specter of devastation all across the Gulf, all the way over to Florida."

Today, a federally-coordinated group of scientists also concluded those early alarmists were wrong. The actual volume is at least 35,000 barrels a day, and could even be as much as 60,000 barrels a day, way more than those cranks warned about.

This revision roughly doubles the preliminary flow rate estimate from the same group of scientists less than a week ago. And it was conveniently released just a couple of hours before President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak to the nation about the spill, its consequences, and how it could -- or should -- shape national energy policy. Read the latest on the spill. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bps-oil-spill-grows-ever-more-ominous-2010-06-15

[intheflow]

1. 60,000 barrels a day. Scientists said this 30 days ago.

Hell, even BP said this was worse case scenario - which was probably BP-Speak for "This is how much is coming out."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14oil.html

The real news is that the political and financial worlds have finally caught on.

[jgraz]

2. Hard to believe BP hasn't known this from the beginning.

It's likely the federal govt has known as well.

[Poboy]

4. Well, there's this....

Hours after BP’s rig sank on April 22nd, a white board in NOAA's "war room" in Seattle displays the administration's initial, worst-case estimate of the spill — 64,000 to 110,000 barrels a day.
"Estm: 64k - 110k bbls/Day." The equivalent of up to three Exxon Valdez spills gushing into the Gulf of Mexico every week.

Damningly, the whiteboard also documents the disconnect between what the government suspected to be the magnitude of the disaster and the far lower estimates it was feeding to the public. Written below the federal estimate are the words, "300,000 gal/day reported on CNN." Appearing on the network that same day on a video feed from the Gulf, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry insisted that the government had no figure. "We do not have an estimate of the amount of crude emanating from the wellhead," she said.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/111965?RS_show_page=0

[walldude]

3. I bet it's even worse than that.... and now they are hiring Mercenaries

to keep out reporters?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4427436

This is seriously fucked up.

[Name removed]

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