IT'S GETTING WORSE IN THE GULF

First this:

"Since shortly after oil began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico two months ago, relief wells have been discussed as the ultimate solution, their success in permanently plugging the runaway well deemed a foregone conclusion.

But BP and government officials are now talking about a long-term containment plan to pump the oil to an existing platform should the relief well effort fail. While such a failure is considered highly unlikely, the contingency plan is the latest sign that with this most vexing of engineering challenges — snuffing a gusher 5,000 feet down in the gulf — nothing is a sure thing."
New York Times

Then this:

"BP has confirmed its 45-ton blowout preventer is tilting sideways up to 15 degrees. Rogue scientists (the ones not working for BP or the government) point to tilting as evidence of a severely weakened well, and warn it could fall and crash the entire rig through the ocean floor.

A massive sinkhole could either shut down the leak or make the disaster much worse. BNET summarized theories on The Oil Drum from optimistic to apocalyptic:

-Benign rockslides at nearby canyon walls, coupled with “natural bridge” formation, plug the oil leak.

-An exposed reservoir opening bleeds 150,000 barrels of oil a day daily until natural hydrostatic pressures from above and below the surface equalize — think two opposing teams in a tug-of-war running out of energy and calling the game a draw — turning off the leak.

-Weakened sand and salt layers above the reservoir simply collapse, turning a wide area of the outer continental shelf sea floor into an underwater sinkhole that could bleed 2 billion to 3 billion barrels of oil into Gulf waters. In addition, seismic-shock tremors roll in all directions for miles, with an unknown effect on other nearby fields, especially BP’s Thunder Horse (18 miles) field and Shell and BP’s Na Kika complex, located in Mississippi Canyon Block 474 (approximately 15 miles south-southeast of the blowout)."
Clusterstock

I noticed that this week BP started to lay the groundwork for the failure of the relief wells in news articles in newspapers and in the electronic media. So many experts have been saying for months now that the relief wells won't work because the casing has been destroyed that I knew it was just a matter of time before the truth had to be told. Even the report of the blowout preventer tilting sideways was mentioned about two weeks ago. I posted it somewhere on this blog.

The jig's just about up in the Gulf. This blowout won't and can't be contained. We are on the verge of a disaster unlike anything we've ever experienced. The environmental and economic impact of this is unimaginable. Life in America and around the world has been irrevocably changed.