THE CLOCK IS TICKING AND THE OIL CONTINUES TO FLOW

I suppose the next week or so will tell the tale. The primary hope of controlling the flow of oil in the short term rests on lowering a concrete containment dome over the main hole that will allow the oil to be captured and pumped to the surface. Before that is done a couple smaller leaks need to be fixed.

And all of this needs to happen at 5000 feet below the surface in oily, pitch black water using remote controlled vehicles, while at the same time dealing with seven foot seas on the surface; and hoping the casing in the hole doesn't completely collapse, causing a gusher with no possibility of control, potentially flooding the worlds oceans with oil and causing massive damage up the East coast of America.

The beginning of hurricane season in the Gulf is less than a month away. And guess what:

AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center meteorologists, led by Chief Long-Range Meteorologist and Hurricane Forecaster Joe Bastardi, are calling for a much more active 2010 season with above-normal threats on the U.S. coastline.

"This year has the chance to be an extreme season," said Bastardi. "It is certainly much more like 2008 than 2009 as far as the overall threat to the United States' East and Gulf coasts."

Bastardi is forecasting seven landfalls. Five will be hurricanes, and two or three of the hurricanes will be major landfalls for the U.S.

He is calling for 16 to 18 tropical storms in total, 15 of which would be in the western Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico, and therefore a threat to land.

In a typical season, there are about 11 named storms, of which two to three impact the coast of the United States."
Accuweather

This would make a great edge of your seat page turner, something Tom Clancy could write. A potential disaster of Biblical proportions requiring the best and brightest minds and the latest technology to have even a slight chance of solving it.

Unfortunately, it's all too real.

"BP is trying to cap one of three leaks at a mile-deep well spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico in a bid to make it easier to shut down the gusher off the Louisiana coast.

Coast Guard spokesman Brandon Blackwell said the company did a "clean cut" overnight on the location in a pipe that is leaking the smallest amount of oil.

BP spokesman Steve Rinehart said an underwater robot was being used in an attempt to put a sleeve and valve over the leak. So far, he said, the effort had not yet proved successful.
Federal officials have said they hoped closing off two of the smaller leaks may make it easier to place a single concrete-and-steel container over the wreck to capture all the leaking oil."
Yahoo

THE Gulf of Mexico oil spill may be growing five times faster than previously estimated and is in danger of accelerating out of control, it was claimed yesterday.

Experts said satellite data indicated the oil was gushing from BP’s sunken Deepwater Horizon rig at 25,000 barrels a day. Previous estimates had put the leak at 5,000 barrels a day.

Professor Ian MacDonald, an ocean specialist at Florida State University, said the new estimate suggested the leak had already spread 9m gallons of heavy crude oil across the Gulf. This compares with 11m that leaked from the Exxon Valdez tanker when it hit a reef off Alaska in 1989.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said deteriorating conditions on the sea bed may result in an even greater flow of 50,000 barrels a day, sufficient to produce one of America’s worst ecological disasters.

Experts and officials said their greatest fear was that a disintegration of pipes close to the rig could produce an “unchecked gusher” that would ravage America’s southern coastline.

...BP has calculated that it might take up to three months to sink a new well that could cut off the flow of the Deepwater Horizon’s oil.

The worst oil spill affecting US waters was caused by a 1979 blowout aboard the Ixtoc, a Mexican rig that discharged at least 130m gallons, 600 miles south of the Texas coast. It took nine months to plug the leak."
Times

"BP PLC (BP.) chairman Lamar McKay told ABC's "This Week" that he can't say when the well a mile beneath the sea might be plugged. But he said he believes a dome that could be placed over the well is expected to be deployed in six to eight days.

...Crews have had little success stemming the flow from the ruptured well on the sea floor off Louisiana or removing oil from the surface by skimming it, burning it or dispersing it with chemicals. The churning slick of dense, rust-colored oil is now roughly the size of Puerto Rico.

Adding to the gloomy outlook were warnings from experts that an uncontrolled gusher could create a nightmare scenario if the Gulf Stream current carries it toward the Atlantic.

...The oil slick over the water's surface appeared to triple in size over the past two days, which could indicate an increase in the rate oil is pouring from the well, according to one analysis of images collected from satellites and reviewed by the University of Miami. While it's hard to judge the volume of oil by satellite because of depth, images do indicate growth, experts said.

"The spill and the spreading is getting so much faster and expanding much quicker than they estimated," said Hans Graber, executive director of the university's Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing.

...Oil industry experts and officials are reluctant to describe what, exactly, a worst-case scenario would look like. But if the oil gets into the Gulf Stream and carries it to the beaches of Florida - and potentially loops around the state's southern tip and up the eastern seaboard - several experts said it stands to be an environmental and economic disaster of epic proportions.

"It will be on the East Coast of Florida in almost no time," Graber said. "I don't think we can prevent that. It's more of a question of when rather than if."
AP News