methane, BP and the potential for a catastrophe never witnessed in human history... wowza

[ORDagnabbit]

http://www.helium.com/items/1864136-how-the-ultimate-bp-gulf-disaster-could-kill-millions

How the ultimate BP Gulf disaster could kill millions


Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico—something far worse than the BP oil gusher.

Warnings were raised as long as a year before the Deepwater Horizon disaster that the area of seabed chosen by the BP geologists might be unstable, or worse, inherently dangerous.

What makes the location that Transocean chose potentially far riskier than other potential oil deposits located at other regions of the Gulf? It can be summed up with two words: methane gas.

The same methane that makes coal mining operations hazardous and leads to horrendous mining accidents deep under the earth also can present a high level of danger to certain oil exploration ventures.

Location of Deepwater Horizon oil rig was criticized

More than 12 months ago some geologists rang the warning bell that the Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig might have been erected directly over a huge underground reservoir of methane.

Documents from several years ago indicate that the subterranean geologic formation may contain the presence of a huge methane deposit.

None other than the engineer who helped lead the team to snuff the Gulf oil fires set by Saddam Hussein to slow the advance of American troops has stated that a huge underground lake of methane gas—compressed by a pressure of 100,000 pounds per square inch (psi)—could be released by BP's drilling effort to obtain the oil deposit.

Current engineering technology cannot contain gas that is pressurized to 100,000 psi.

By some geologists' estimates the methane could be a massive 15 to 20 mile toxic and explosive bubble trapped for eons under the Gulf sea floor. In their opinion, the explosive destruction of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead was an accident just waiting to happen.

Yet the disaster that followed the loss of the rig pales by comparison to the apocalyptic disaster that may come.

A cascading catastrophe

According to worried geologists, the first signs that the methane may burst its way through the bottom of the ocean would be fissures or cracks appearing on the ocean floor near the damaged well head.

Evidence of fissures opening up on the seabed have been captured by the robotic submersibles working to repair and contain the ruptured well. Smaller, independent plumes have also appeared outside the nearby radius of the bore hole itself.

According to some geological experts, BP's operations set into motion a series of events that may be irreversible.

more at the link...

[lunatica]

1. If it's true it doesn't surprise me. I've wondered about that

One catastrophic thing after another like a row of explosive dominoes. Jesus!

[Ruby the Liberal]

2. Tony Hayward is a Geologist (PhD no less).

Just sayin'

[FBI_Un_Sub]

9. And he survived the 1988 layoffs.

He must be a better geologist then the "Fast Fourier Transform" // Geologist guru at Case Western Reserve; the one who was RIFed.

[undeterred]

21. No wonder his face was ashen at the hearings.

He knows the worst, but all he can say is 'I don't know'.

[pscot]

3. No number of hybrids or energy saver bulbs

can offset the damage we're doing

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Great. Instantly sunken ships. My cousins washed away by a tsunami. And an extremely potent

greenhouse gas released into the atmosphere. :cry:

[Yeahyeah]

5. Who are all these mysterious,unnamed geologists and insiders?

MEGAFART IS COMING TO GET YOU!

[Catherina]

8. People a lot smarter than those who childishly snicker about Megafarts n/t

[Yeahyeah]

10. Yeah,I'm the stupid one.

[tango-tee]

15. No one says you're stupid.

But it might help to elaborate a bit more than merely hammering on your keyboard "MEGAFART IS COMING TO GET YOU".

[Yeahyeah]

19. The articles phony.He doesn't quote one real person.

This guy probably wrote this garbage after he heard professional teller of tall tales Richard Hoagland gushing it out on coasttocoastam the other night.He doesn't put a date on it and his youtube links are fake.

[ORDagnabbit]

26. Heres a good read for you

http://www.thestate.com/2010/06/18/1339142/vast-amounts-of-methane-in-gulf.html

"This is the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history," said John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer.

Scientists, including those working with the flow team, estimate that methane makes up between 40 percent and 70 percent of what is spilling into the Gulf.

[truedelphi]

29. Thanks for this mention/news citation

Yesterday, CNN had several different discussions of methane levels in the sea .

Supposedly the methane levels are still under 10 part per million (Maybe even under one part per million, cannot recall.)

So it is something of consern to the scientific community.

And many people, like the woman in my sig line video, are of the opinion that the "spill" that we keep on watching as it is displayed by BP is not the only place where the leaking is occurring.

In fact, for the first few weeks, if that Videoed Oil Release was all we had going on, the amounts would have been no where near the reported 60K to 70K a day of barrels of oil (47 gallons to a barrel.)

[truedelphi]

28. the thing is, Hoagland and Art Bell's replacement, George Noory, are listened to

By around 12 million people.

To give you the scope of that audience - a single Rolling Stone issue had around 325,000 readers some five years ago. (Haven't subscribed in a while)

Rush Limbaugh gets around 1.2 to 2.2 millon listeners in any given day.

George and his guests get Twelve Million People. Most nights of the week.

So even if it is not true (As was the non occurrence of the "End-of-the-world, we-are-all-gonna-die" scenario described by Art Bell before the Y2K was upon us) the belief that an ocean floor of limitless methane is now bubbling and spilling through the ocean crust and set to kill everyone on earth, this notion still will affect a lot, including politics.

Perception is a great deal of reality.

[SidDithers]

24. Which people?...nt

Sid

[Rex]

16. I hear ya, it is easier to make fun then believe it to be true.

I mean if true then we are all fubard. Haha, I just thought of something funny.

[emmadoggy]

6. Peachy.

:scared:

[Ozymanithrax]

7. IN a not free article from nature, such a release 55 million years ago...

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v423/n6941/full/423681a.html

Global warming isn't a new phenomenon — sea-bed emissions of methane caused temperatures to soar in our geological past. But no one is sure what triggered the release. Quirin Schiermeier investigates.

About 55 million years ago, our planet emitted a spectacular burp. Trillions of tonnes of methane, until then safely locked up in soils and beneath the ocean floor, were released into the oceans and atmosphere.

[Webster Green]

11. Holy shit!

That's scary reading. :nuke:

[RC]

12. Bull Shit. This is someone's imagination working overtime.

While the well itself may come undone because of BP short cuts, The OP's scenario is very unlikely.
His description of the methane bubble that took out the drilling rig is evidence of that. Then saying Florida, 400-500 miles away would get the worst of it, over Louisiana, 40 miles away. Yeah, sure, ya betcha.

PT Barnum, is that you?

Edited to add the average height of Florida is 100 feet, not 6 inches.

[tango-tee]

17. I wouldn't call BS on this. I'm not a scientist.

But I think if the worst case scenario were to happen, it wouldn't matter which state would be hit first, and what the elevation is. It would be sheer, pure, unadulterated devastation.

What is so difficult - for me - to even wrap my head around is that NO ONE KNOWS what could possibly happen. The well might be capped, and the worst might be averted. Then again, it might not... and then what? Will it be time to put our head between our legs and kiss our collective asses good-bye? I don't know, I simply don't know what to make of all this.

It is our helplessness that gets under my skin.

Not one of us knows what awaits us. And that's what frightens me.

[Hydra]

13. Hmm...

And on top of this nasty bubble of gas, all of the oil in the well would probably enter the ocean all at once, or close to, wouldn't you think?

:popcorn:

[KillCapitalism]

14. Maybe this is what the Mayans saw coming. n/t

[Odin2005]

18. OH. My. God. WTF have we done?

[WinkyDink]

20. Glad I have no descendants.

[SpiralHawk]

22. "Sorry about that. Smirk." - Joe the Barton (R - Brown Noser)

[SidDithers]

23. The author is a former economist who likes to travel...

not someone with education in the geologic sciences.


he also wrote:
What is North Korea's 'secret plan' to defeat America?
http://www.helium.com/items/1844358-what-is-north-koreas-secret-plan-to-defeat-america

Unless the OP provides additional sources, I'd call the article sensationalist nonsense.

Sid

Edit: fixed link

Edit2: Holy fuck. DU'ers have given this OP 44 recs? I weep at the level of critical thinking at this website.

[ORDagnabbit]

25. heres something to make you weep even harder...

http://www.thestate.com/2010/06/18/1339142/vast-amounts-of-methane-in-gulf.html

"This is the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history," said John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer.

Scientists, including those working with the flow team, estimate that methane makes up between 40 percent and 70 percent of what is spilling into the Gulf.

[SidDithers]

31. Well, I'll bookmark this thread...

and we'll revisit it in a couple months, after the relief wells are finished, and the gusher has been sealed.

Let's see how your doomsday scenario plays out with time.

Edit: but that article in no way supports the premise in the OP, of a 100,000 psi lake of methane under the seabed.

Sid

[ORDagnabbit]

27. Methane Hydrates and modern Tsunami's

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/ios-2060-tsunami-horror-hits-britain-423027.html
This is from 2006 and talks of a possible methane induced tsunami in the UK in the future that could be started by "cracks in the seafloor" Methane is super duper expansive and if the sea floor cracks and the methane escapes it would be like mother nature using that super expanding foam in the ocean.

Note the experts and their opinions...


Hypothetical scenerio...



A small earthquake triggered the wave, but geologists say global warming is ultimately to blame, unlike in 2004. Over recent decades, warming had melted more than a billion tons of formerly frozen methane, beneath the ocean floor on the edge of the continent shelf off Norway. As the methane turned to gas, its volume increased more than a hundredfold, geochemists said. The gas burst through the seabed, causing the collapse of a submarine cliff 400km long. The debris fell more than a kilometre from the edge of the continental shelf into the ocean depths. This created a 20-metre high tsunami that surged across the North Sea in minutes.

As far back as 2006, experts were warning that global warming could lead to just such a catastrophe. Norwegian marine geologist Jürgen Mienart said then: "Current conditions are disturbingly similar to those in which the great methane releases of the past happened. Warming will cause more blowouts and more craters and more releases."

Some scientists believed that it would not happen for 200 years; others pointed out that cracks in the seabed would allow the methane to warm more quickly. "A tsunami happened once before, 8,000 years ago, when the waters off Norway warmed after the end of the last ice age," said a spokeswoman at the University of Tromso. "We have been warning for some time that there was still a lot of frozen methane under the seabed. And with warm ocean currents pushing further north each year, it was only a matter of time."

Methane is a greenhouse gas 100 times more potent that carbon dioxide. Climate scientists say the huge amounts bursting into the air are likely to warm the atmosphere by one degree Celsius or more. "This event is a huge tragedy for Britain, but it is also a major event for the world", said the World Climate Agency in Beijing. "The extra warming could set off other methane releases and more tsunamis."

[Empathic_1]

30. That is a terrifying article. It seems that things continue to get worse.

:(