Check out this video footage of the actual Deep Horizon blowout oil / gas stream.

The black stuff is the oil, and the white stuff is the natural gas, that’s the part that crystallized into methane hydrate in the first attempt at a containment vessel that failed.

As you can easily see, we’re not talking about an oil spill here, this is a gushing blowout, contained only because the pipe is crimped, and the blowout preventer (BOP) at least partially blocked the flow.

If it blows out all the way, and if the latest ‘top hat’ container method fails, this blowout could be very bad long term.

Let’s hope for the best, but let’s also hope at least some of you out there start to realize that there is a cost to our instant personal gratification and convenience lifestyle, and this is the present cost.

If this cost seems too high to you, then start localizing in every aspect of your life you can manage, drive less, or not at all, buy local food, etc. If you don’t do it, who will? Can you explain this?

The The Oil Drum, as expected, is doing a great job providing up to the minute coverage and analysis from their industry professionals.

Another oil field engineer, retired, shelburn, has appeared and is adding his views (his specialty is the remotely operated submersibles that are doing the actual work on the ocean floor, 5000 feet below the surface.)

Here’s the current Oil Spill Insights from a Retired Manager of an Offshore Underwater Service Company Deep Horizon Oil Blowout Information Thread with his analysis.

Unlike most blogs and news sites, the comments are definitely worth reading, and contain large amounts of real information, often from other oil field professionals, ie, not flakes who just google and read these things, like me, for example.

However, the disturbing piece of news that comes near the end of the comments as I posted this is:

The Dome hit a snag!

Oil catcher dome hits snag near leak site: BP exec

Two days to trouble shoot.

…..
shelburn on May 8, 2010 – 3:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

from AP – “Icelike crystals encrusting a 100-ton steel-and-concrete box meant to contain oil gushing from a broken well deep in the Gulf of Mexico forced crews Saturday to back off a long-shot plan to contain the leak. The buildup on the specially constructed containment box made it too buoyant and clogged it up”
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Not just China’s, of course.

Richard Heinberg is fast evolving into a fairly solid researcher, doing work that few others are really willing or able to do. Not very glamorous, not exciting, just solid.

So check out his latest piece on the future, and present, of Chinese coal consumption/production China’s Coal Bubble…and how it will deflate U.S. efforts to develop “clean coal” .

He’s getting to be a pretty good systems thinker in my opinion, though he’ll never win any awards for exciting writing, but that’s probably for the best, these subjects really require fairly unemotional treatment.

Here’s a few snippets:

It is true of course that China’s coal consumption is enormous and growing, and that coal is the basis of the Chinese economy, fueling over 80 percent of electricity generation. China’s coal output grew an astonishing 28.1 percent from first quarter 2009 to first quarter 2010, to over 750 million metric tons consumed in just the past three months. But this is a situation that is patently unsustainable—not just because of the carbon emissions it entails, but because China simply doesn’t have enough coal to continue growing its consumption much longer.
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If you want to understand what the best level of knowledge and understanding of this event is as of today, read the The Oil Drum – Tech Talk: Revisiting Oil Well Pressures and Blowout Preventers after BP’s Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill.

Yes, I know it’s a mouthful. But it’s got all the information you need to actually understand what’s happening.

In the comment threads, pay especial attention to what ROCKMAN talks about, he is beyond good in this discussion, he’s an oil field engineer, works with drilling pressure I believe, and he knows this stuff inside and out. Heading Out, the author of the initial piece, is also excellent, as are several other contributors to that thread, toolman, a few others.

This discussion is frank and honest and a blessed relief when you compare it to the deluge of pseudo-knowledge the mainstream media subjects us to in such events.

There’s more background on BP as well coming out, for example that they got the Bush group to pull back on the requirements for the very component that failed in this case. As well as their relatively poor safety record, and other issues. But the interesting part in the comment thread is the information these guys are sharing.

In an earlier thread, in the drumbeat part of the oil drum, a few days before, by the way, ROCKMAN revealed that he’d been offered a job in one of the relief well drilling ships, because I guess he’s one of the best guys around at his area of expertise, but he’d sworn off offshore work for his family’s sake some years ago, but he was tempted, due to the catastrophic nature of this disaster.

Educate yourselves though, this is a good resource.

Reddot from the oil drum reposted this comment from an oil company insider, the original posting was in 2008. Really this says it all. The gap between what Television and the corporate media are telling us and what they are telling themselves is pretty massive.

I didn’t want this to just vanish, so I’m also reposting it here.

reddot on May 1, 2010 – 4:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | [Parent subthread ] Comments top

Relayer, ex-AMOCO, posted Sept 2008 on TOD an insider’s view of the current scene and BigOil knowledge of Peak Oil:[begin quote]

“Thank you and all contributors very much for all the hard work that goes into pieces such as this.

I have been lurking almost since the inception of this site and consider it one of the best places on the web for info and informed speculation on the oil situation.
I have refrained from contributing in the past, for the most part having not much of import to add that someone else has not already said. But one detail I would like to comment on.

The MSM have been touting the current link between high gasoline prices and refining capacity. Sure, there is a short term problem here, but only short term.
I began my career with Conoco in 1971. I distinctly remember meetings in the mid 70s in which it was stated that no more new refineries were going to be built in the U.S. We had enough existing capacity along with future upgrades to existing refineries to take care of foreseeable production. Small wonder that no new refineries have been built here since 1976.

Most of the world had been well explored for quite some time already, the U.S. peak was finally accepted, and the big question was where to risk capital next? Offshore, yes, North Slope, of course. The North Sea was a pleasant surprise. Nigeria was the last place in the world Conoco wanted to go, lol. One of the countries they considered ‘relatively’ stable was Venezuela. Well, that worked out ok for some time, but now look, nationalized.
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