Tag: real numbers of oil spilled
Greenpeace oil disaster widget – Update #6
by admin on Jun.27, 2010, under Real Estate
“… another Exxon Valdez nearly every four days.”
And Exxon is still in court fighting to not pay some of the fines from that “spill”, 21 years later…..
I think a lot of people are getting a bit numb as to what these oil disaster numbers really mean. It is hard to contemplate a release of over (today), 14 million gallons of anything.
Here are comments from the Purdue mechanical engineering professor who was brought to DC to speak before Congress regarding BP’s estimates – which seem to state that BP has lied about volume spilled since Day One:
“Wereley’s latest estimate, based on better videos and data and more scientists, is now 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. A barrel of oil has 42 gallons. This puts Wereley’s top estimate at 2.52 million gallons of oil per day, or another Exxon Valdez nearly every four days.
If BP can stop the gusher with the relief wells it plans to complete by August, it will have spilled roughly 7.8 million barrels, Wereley estimates, or nearly 30 Exxon Valdez-sized spills.”
Read the full article here.
Under the Clean Water Act, BP is supposed to pay a $4300 per barrel fine for each one spilled. This is plenty of motivation for BP to underestimate these figures.
The Greenpeace widget is based on BP’s earliest estimates – now known to be completely false.
Regarding the total amount spilled…Contemplate…
A 1500 square foot house is filled floor to ceiling with oil, two and one half times per day, based on BP’s initial estimate.
Based on Wereley’s later scientific estimate, the same house would now be filled floor to ceiling 28 times per day.
In relation to fines, BP’s original numbers would yield $1.5 billion in fines for the spill to date. According to the scientific estimates, that fine total increases to $17.5 billion. Sixteen billion dollars is plenty of incentive for BP to lie – to US citizens, and to Congress.
So, based on the most reliable estimates currently available, change the number on the widget from 14 million + gallons, to 171 million gallons – a 12-fold increase.
29 gallons per second – a number anyone can understand….
