This is just a small part of a large article that each of you ought to read in its entirety, including the comments. Many thanks to my friend Diane for the link.
The vast deepwater methane hydrate deposits of the Gulf of Mexico are an open secret in big energy circles. They represent the most tantalizing new frontier of unconventional energy – a potential source of hydrocarbon fuel thought to be twice as large as all the petroleum deposits ever known.
For the oil and gas industry, the substances are also known to be the primary hazard when drilling for deepwater oil.
Methane hydrates are volatile compounds – natural gas compressed into molecular cages of ice. They are stable in the extreme cold and crushing weight of deepwater, but are extremely dangerous when they build up inside the drill column of a well. If destabilized by heat or a decrease in pressure, methane hydrates can quickly expand to 164 times their volume.
Survivors of the BP rig explosion told interviewers that right before the April 20 blast, workers had decreased the pressure in the drill column and applied heat to set the cement seal around the wellhead. Then a quickly expanding bubble of methane gas shot up the drill column before exploding on the platform on the ocean’s surface.
Even a solid steel pipe has little chance against a 164-fold expansion of volume – something that would render a man six feet six inches tall suddenly the height of the Eiffel Tower.
Scientists are well aware of the awesome power of these strange hydrocarbons. A sudden large scale release of methane hydrates is believed to have caused a mass extinction 55 million years ago. Among planners concerned with mega-disasters, their sudden escape is considered to be a threat comparable to an asteroid strike or nuclear war. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a Livermore, California-based weapons design center, reports that when released on a large scale, methane hydrates can even cause tsunamis.
So it is not surprising to anyone who knows about the physics of these compounds that the Deepwater Horizon rig was lost like a waterfly crumpled by a force of nature scientists are still just getting to know… [emphasis original]
Inserted from <Sott.net>
The article and its comments thoroughly document not only the the extreme risks involved with methane hydrates, but also, that the risks had to be well known in advance to BP. They knew that the area in which they were drilling was rich in methane hydrates. They knew the about the blowouts methane hydrates have caused in the past. They knew that reducing pressure and increasing temperature are the two behaviors most likely to cause a blow out. In spite of that, they opted to replace the heavy drilling fluid with sea water and heat it to quicken the setting time for the cement used to seal the drill head. To completely understand the magnitude of their greed, please read the entire article.
They should never have been allowed to drill in such a high risk location, let alone do so without proper supervision. We have GW “No Millionaire Left Behind” Bush, Dick ‘”Horney for Halliburton” Cheney, and the Republican Party to thank for that.
10 Responses to “BP: The Audacity of Greed”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
On top of this, there “Contingency Plan” which is 529 pages long, contained only 8 pages dealing with this type of disaster. In those 8 pages, it basically said ‘we’ll wing it’. In addition, MMS regulators, who were supposed to be regulating the industry, let the oil well owners themselves fill out the paperwork in pencil and then the MMS regulators would go over it in pen and submit it. Several of the MMS regulators were found to have used illegal drugs as well, even on the job, but yet non were fired. All from Huff Po today.
The BP VP head of MMS quit today. No details yet.
I’ve been told I’m to emotional on this topic, I say to them, why are you not emotional about this.
I think by far this is the worst disaster to ever hit us, and it was man made.
Yeah I didn’t forget 911, but this has the potential of destroying all life.
I could go on and on but I wont.
I could, and I will, as the situation develops.
I hope the b’tards rot in hell.
They might like it there, Leslie.
Every time I hear about Methane Hydrates I feel a deathly chill go down my spine. Several articles I have read over the years say that global warming could release massive amounts of methane both locked up in arctic permafrost and the underwater hydrates. Which like you mentioned above maybe happened once before and was the ultimate evolutionary game changer.
As far as the current spill is concerned I am frankly shocked at the general lack of anger in both the people I am around daily and the American public. People seemed concerned but not really caring beyond normal levels. I just can’t shake the feeling that thirty years ago the country would be looking for the heads of those responsible.
Beach, I think that the general lack of anger from the American public stems from getting so many conflicting views from the MSM, without supporting documentation of the type you find here at PP, that the public does not knopw what to think. When kept condused, people tend to tune it out.
What company takes the idiotic risk of drilling 30,000 feet into the earths crust and under deep water. Additionally who was the overseer of the environmental government assessment of drilling in such a Eco fragile area off the us coast?
Welcome Lolly. A company who cares for profit over safety. The overseer was a political hack at the MMS whose only qualification was loyalty to Bush, Cheney and the GOP.