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BP Oil Spill Has The Makings Of A Perfect Storm

By Robert Palmer

20 June, 2010
Countercurrents.org

Thank God the Governor of Louisiana refused to be intimidated by the Coast Guard.

Sixteen barges were stationary for 24 hours. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that was working until the Coast Guard shut the operation down because they couldn't confirm there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board.

A Coast Guard representative told ABC News today that it shares the same goal as the governor.

But the coast guard, the media, BP and Obama don't seem to be aware of the caliber of disaster affecting the Gulf Coast and the nation since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20.

The BP Oil spill has the makings of a perfect storm because one can visibly see the cracks in the ocean floor when reviewing tapes of the live BP feeds. In the tape dated 6/13/2010 you can see oil spewing up from visible fissions.

The pressure at the base of the wellhead deep under the ocean floor is approx. 100,000 PSI. There is no known device to cap a well with such a high PSI pressure. To further complicate things geologists using a GPS and Depth finder system have discovered a large gas bubble 15-20 miles across and tens of feet high under the ocean floor.

A bubble of this magnitude if able to escape from under the ocean floor through a crack would cause a gas explosion that can only be described as Mt. St. Helen 's under water.

The explosion would take place 50 miles off the Louisiana Coast , instantly releasing a toxic cloud that the winds would carry to the shorelines. This explosion would also create what is called a Cavitations', sinking any ships, oil structures virtually anything floating atop the water instantly within at least a 10 mile radius, and thus could create a Tsunami which would travel towards the coast of Florida at a speed of 400-600 miles per hour. This has the potential of putting the state of Florida under water. Gulf Coast Disaster, Is it The Perfect Storm?

We Can Do Something Today

The president of the United States is fiddling while the Gulf bubbles. He says we are at the end of this catastrophe, when we aren't even at the end of the beginning of the end.

The coast guard and BP seem to be doing everything out of the norm with this oil well project, to allow some to wonder out loud if this is a scenario of intentional failure.

But we can do something: This is the one take action campaign of phone calls, emails and faxes that can make a difference.

Why? Because the very people affected by this disaster are our elected officials, their staff and their families.

We have a responsibility to do everything in our power to make sure the U.S. government and BP don't do anything intentionally or unintentionally to make the situation even worse for the people living in and around the Gulf Coast States.

•  Tell the governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal we are behind him all the way .

•  Tell Obama to force BP to release the “proprietary” mud dog or mud log data and cooperate with the expert geologists. link Independent geologists in and out side the government need the data from deep horizon and the other 40,000 wells in the area to assess this “ticking time bomb.”

Mud logs are the physical archive of the drilling operation that is necessary for geologists to accurately assess the situation. The data will enable the Geologists to forecast if the perfect storm is in the making due to the cracks in the ocean floor. Once again it seems the fate of the ocean lies within the openness of the very BP executives who decided to spray our waters with a known neurotoxin, Corexit.

•  Tell the U.S. government to take the Oil Spill Solutions off Hold. Red Tape Could Be Blocking Entrepreneurial Solutions To Gulf Oil Disaster is preventing centrifugal-force oil-water separator and proven oil-eating microbes technologies from being implemented. Contact and show your support to Senator Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine. Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana

And finally we should be very, very concerned that the latest failed efforts: the so-called “top-kill” operation and a "junk shot" injection, are giving the government an excuse to accept a Nuclear option to cap the well ?

NPR reports:

“This scares everybody — the fact that we cannot make this well stop flowing,” Suttles and BP CEO and chief spinmeister Tony Hayward is lowering expectations. This mess is officially out of control.

One listener calls in with a “suggestion”

"The environmental effects of all this oil spewing out are pretty bad," he says. "Could it be that worse if we knew that a small bomb would plug the hole? I say explode it."

Normally I wouldn't be concerned but when on May 29th a “prominent energy expert” and investment banker known for predicting the oil price spike of 2008, tells Bloomberg News on Friday, sending a small nuclear bomb down the leaking well is "probably the only thing we can do" to stop the leak, I get concerned .

"What's worse than an oil spill?" asked a blogger on Full Comment, a blog of The National Post in Toronto . " A radioactive oil spill."

 

Yes I am aware the official response from Energy Department :

Stephanie Mueller, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, said “that neither Energy Secretary Steven Chu nor anyone else was thinking about a nuclear blast under the gulf. The nuclear option is not — and never has been — on the table.”

But her statements worry me even more.

On CNN reporter John Roberts suggested last week, "Drill a hole, drop a nuke in and seal up the well."

And the alternative media… Are they alerting the Gulf Coast to the “ticking time bomb”?

Headlines for June 19 on the main page of Alternet, there is only the usual rant about social injustice and more disinformation about the catastrophe .

Matt Simmons

The “expert”, Matt Simmons, founder of energy investment bank Simmons & Company, now going by the title of chairman emeritus, says he is attributing the nuclear idea to "all the best scientists" and we should try it because the Russians did it 5 times.

Komsomoloskaya Pravda suggested that the United States might as well take a chance with a nuke , based on the historical 20-percent failure rate. Still, the Soviet experience with nuking underground gas wells could prove easier in retrospect than trying to seal the Gulf of Mexico 's oil well disaster that's taking place 5,000 feet below the surface.

 

The Russians were using nukes to extinguish gas well fires in natural gas fields, not sealing oil wells gushing liquid, so there are big differences, and this method has never been tested in such conditions, not to mention the risks when dealing with radiation.

 

Contrary to Matt Simmons assertion that he is attributing this idea to "all the best scientists", the scores of scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and other government labs ridicule the nuke option.

In theory, the nuclear option seems attractive because the extreme heat might create a tough seal. An exploding atom bomb generates temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun and, detonated underground, can turn acres of porous rock into a glassy plug, much like a huge stopper in a leaky bottle.

Kevin Roark, a spokesman for Los Alamos in New Mexico , the birthplace of the atomic bomb, said that despite rumors to the contrary, none of the laboratory's thousands of experts was devising nuclear options for the gulf.

"Nothing of the sort is going on here," he said in an interview. "In fact, we're not working on any intervention ideas at all. We're providing diagnostics and other support but nothing on the intervention side."

A senior Los Alamos scientist, speaking on the condition of anonymity because his comments were unauthorized, ridiculed the idea of using a nuclear blast to solve the crisis in the gulf.

"It's not going to happen," he said. "Technically, it would be exploring new ground in the midst of a disaster — and you might make it worse."

We need to be clear to our elected representatives at every level that we will not tolerate any discussion of a nuclear solution to the BP oil spill.

 

Normally I don't recommend those "take action"- campaigns: the ones that tell us, it's not too late, click-here to importune our "elected"- representatives with emails and faxes.

But the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf is different.

The inconvenient truth for our elected representatives, their families and staff who live in the Gulf states is that this disaster will affect them, they need a fighting chance to know if and when this perfect storm will hit and can get out of the way.

And for those of us who don't live in the path of this disaster we will be affected as well.

A disaster of this magnitude will have an impact on everything we take for granted on a daily basis, food, shelter, energy and social order.

So go ahead and email, fax and phone, this is one email campaign that might just work.

Here is a sample draft that you can customize with your personal concerns.

President Obama: Wake UP, this isn't Over!

The BP Oil disaster in the Gulf has the makings of a perfect storm.

The gulf coast is a ticking time bomb.

The time for bold, decisive leadership is now.

•  We will not tolerate any nuclear option to cap the Oil spill in the gulf.

•  Demand BP release the Mud Log Data.

•  Begin to implement proven mitigation technology NOW.

Sincerely, [Your Name] [Your Address] [City, State ZIP]

Start with the website on How to Answer President Obama's Call to Action to Fix the Gulf Coast Spill and then Contact The U.S. Department of Energy

The Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, By Email: [email protected]

By Phone: 202-586-5000, By Fax 202-586-4403

By the Website contact form

Follow up by Contacting the Elected Officials where you live

If we work together we can make a difference in the lives of millions of Americans.

P.S. Don't forget to tell the governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal we are behind him all the way .