MATT SIMMONS - GULF IS FINISHED

GULF WATER SAMPLE EXPLODES

I've got to be honest here and say I grew up around marinas so the sample that came from the side of the boat in the marina, the one that exploded, doesn't come as a great shock. There can be fuel in the water around marinas; maybe not enough to explode in the open but trapped in a bottle, where the fumes could collect? I'm not so sure that this wasn't the cause.

Interesting how much they did find though. Of course, I wonder what the normal level in those areas is? I know the chemist said around 5 ppm but that kind'a sounded like a guess.

WKRG.com

WKRG

OIL AND METHANE MAY BE SEEPING NEAR WELL

This would explain why the pressure isn't getting as high as expected on the cap and why officials are continuing the tests. If BP won't follow the plan and figure out a way to get the oil flowing to the surface and the pressure off the sea floor the government may have to step in. If seepage is occurring that means that keeping the pressure up will eventually cause a failure somewhere.

If they have to allow oil to flow into the gulf for a short period of time to allow for the fitting of the pipes needed to accommodate the pumping of oil to the surface, do it. Sure, it'll look bad and BP will catch some grief but they can't let the sea floor fail due to the increase in pressure.

"BP and the Obama administration offered significantly differing views Sunday on whether the capped Gulf of Mexico oil well will have to be reopened, a contradiction that may be an effort by the oil giant to avoid blame if crude starts spewing again.

Pilloried for nearly three months as it tried repeatedly to stop the leak, BP PLC capped the nearly mile-deep well Thursday and wants to keep it that way. The government's plan, however, is to eventually pipe oil to the surface, which would ease pressure on the fragile well but would require up to three more days of oil spilling into the Gulf.

"No one associated with this whole activity ... wants to see any more oil flow into the Gulf of Mexico," Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer, said Sunday. "Right now we don't have a target to return the well to flow."

An administration official familiar with the spill oversight, however, told The Associated Press that a seep and possible methane were found near the busted oil well. The official spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday because an announcement about the next steps had not been made yet.

The concern all along — since pressure readings on the cap weren't as high as expected — was a leak elsewhere in the wellbore, meaning the cap may have to be reopened to prevent the environmental disaster from becoming even worse and harder to fix.

The official, who would not clarify what is seeping near the well, also said BP is not complying with the government's demand for more monitoring."
Yahoo

WILL WE SEE A METHANE EXPLOSION IN THE GULF?

So I know that I've kind'a gone over to the Area 51/George Noory side with the people that are on this video but the fact is that this very scenario has been talked about for weeks now by scientists and other experts. Is it true or even possible? I don't know. But something really strange is up what with the suspension of the 1st Amendment in parts of the cleanup areas and the mobilization of National Guard units over the last couple months. Everything we hear out of the Gulf seems to be a lie. I'm convinced that the government knows a whole lot more than it's saying and that something is terribly wrong.

H/T SHTF

BP'S LAST, BEST HOPE

I just hope they remember to cut the string so nobody pulls it back out.

(Thanks for the picture Laura and Daryll.)

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.

IS IT RAINING OIL IN LOUISIANA?

"Is it really raining BP oil in Louisiana?
That might certainly be what some people across the world might believe.
For instance, here is a video found on Youtube entitled “Raining Oil in Louisiana”.
One watching the video would believe that oil was just pouring from the skies like cats and dogs.
A voice on the video says “it raining oil everywhere”.
He also says he is in River Ridge.
Anyone knowing the New Orleans area would surely know that River Ridge is hours away by car from any oil sighting.
Also, on the Youtube video there is a picture of what appears to be dead crabs near a water drain.
Crabs do not normally crawl the streets of a major residential area totally remote from any waters. And why would a crab just happen to land by a sewage drain dripping in oil?"
Bayou Buzz

The article above is referring to a video that has gone around the net over the last few days and which I posted here. The author says the video is fabricated. Maybe it is. However, if you look at it the mass that he claims is a crab looks an awful lot like leaves to me. Could it be a crab? I suppose. But it could just as easily be something else.

And while River Ridge may be hours away from any oil sighting by car, if you look at a map it's about thirty miles to the Gulf, as the crow flies. Oil is lighter than water so I see no reason it can't be carried in the rain and would expect it to happen.

People in New Orleans have been complaining about the smell of oil and dispersant since this blowout began. If they can smell it, it ain't that far away.

So the question remains whether the video of oil in the streets of River Ridge is true or not. I don't know for sure. The one thing I do know is that there is one hell of a lot of oil on the streets in that video. Even after a long dry spell around here, when the rains finally come and the oil washes of the roads, I've never seen anything like what's in the video.

THE GATES OF HELL ARE ABOUT TO SWING WIDE

"...It is a dangerous game drilling into high pressure oil and gas zones because you risk having a blowout if your mud weight is not heavy enough. If you weight up your mud with barium sulfate to a very high level, you risk BLOWING OUT THE FORMATION.

What does that mean? It means you crack the rock deep underground; as the mudweight is now denser than the rock, it escapes into the rock in the pore spaces and the fractures. The well empties of mud. If you have not hit high pressure oil or gas at this stage, you are lucky.

But if you have, the oil and gas come flying up the well and you have a blowout, because you have no mud in the well to suppress the oil and gas. You shut down the well with the blowout preventer. If you do not have a blowout preventer, you are in trouble as we have all seen and you can only hope that the oil and gas pressure will naturally fall off with time, otherwise you have to try and put a new blowout preventer in place with oil and gas coming out as you work.

Obviously, the oil and gas pressure hasn't fallen off

In fact... it's increased.

The problem is that BP may not only have hit the mother of high-pressure wells, but there is also a vast amount of methane down there that could come exploding out like an underwater volcano."
Petroleum World

I've been accused of hysteria for posting this sort of thing before. Oh well. Look, there is something terribly out of the ordinary in the way this blowout has been handled; from day one. I've had the feeling all along that there is a sense of futility surrounding everything that has happened. It's like the guys that know, really know what's about to happen have given up and are moving on to greener pastures. BP gives away $20 billion without a fight? Come on. If they thought that there was a chance of this thing getting fixed they'd fight this until the end of time. That's how oil companies and most other companies work.

The argument made in the above article makes sense to me. I've seen it or various forms of it since this thing started. Maybe it's because I'm a carpenter and I work with tools all day long but none of this seems mysterious. Pressure is pressure, no matter how much or how little. You can either control it or you can't. If you try to control it with inadequate means it will blow. Depending on how much pressure you're dealing with, the blowout can be minor or it can do extensive damage. And it will continue until it's overpowered or exhausts itself.

We can't control this thing and it's getting worse with every passing moment. At some point it will have eroded enough of the material in the bore that we will see a cataclysmic failure of the sea floor.

Hell is about to erupt in the Gulf.

"Methane bubbles from the sea floor could, in theory, sink ships and may explain the odd disappearances of some vessels, Australian researchers reported Tuesday.

The huge bubbles can erupt from undersea deposits of solid methane, known as gas hydrates. An odorless gas found in swamps and mines, methane becomes solid under the enormous pressures found on deep sea floors."
MSNBC

"...and the third part of the ships was destroyed." Revelation 8:9

I'm just saying...

BP CLAIMS RESERVOIR HOLDS 2 BILLION GALLONS

Since not even one number offered up by either BP or the government has proven to be correct, take this for what it's worth.

"BP CEO Tony Hayward says the reservoir that feeds the gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico probably still holds about 2 billion gallons of oil.
Appearing before a House subcommittee, Hayward estimated that the reservoir tapped by the out-of-control well holds at least 50 million barrels of oil. At 42 gallons per barrel, that's 2.1 billion gallons.

According to government estimates of daily flow figures, anywhere from 73.5 million to 126 million gallons gushed from the breached wellhead—whether into the water or captured.

That means the reservoir likely holds 94 to 97 percent of its oil. At the current flow rate, it would take from two to nearly four years for all the oil to leak from the field if it can't be stopped."
Breibart

MORE PROOF THE CASING HAS BEEN DESTROYED

This video is from June 9, 2010, before the fact that the casing has been blown out of the well bore was reported:

THE WELL BORE IS BLOWN AND WE'RE SCREWED

"...Leifer is a member of a team of experts deployed by US President Barack Obama to estimate the volume of oil currently flowing in the Gulf of Mexico. Just last week, the scientists almost doubled their estimate and now say that between 25,000 and 30,000 barrels of oil a day is gushing out of the well into the Gulf of Mexico. On Tuesday, they once again upped their estimate -- to between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day.

BP's most recent efforts to stop the flow of oil have only made the situation worse, says Leifer. The engineers' attempt to seal off the well from above, using a method known as "top kill," failed and only enlarged the borehole, according to Leifer. Now, he adds, there is almost nothing stopping the oil from flowing out of the well."
Der Spiegel

In the article above the topic is the effectiveness of the relief well , or "Bottom Kill", plan in the Gulf and the dangers and risks associated with it. In the course of the article Ira Leifer, a geochemist at the University of California in Santa Barbara, verifies what others in posts I posted yesterday have said; the well bore is wide open because the casing is destroyed. Those pictures we see of the oil blowing from the pipe are not of the well bore and so are just one part of the leak. BP and everyone else involved are basically out of options. They seem to be focused on the relief wells with no mention of the nuclear option except to say that it won't be considered.

I wonder if that lack of consideration is the truth? At this point my guess is that they'll say that for political reasons while at the same time preparing the bomb needed to get the job done, if that truly is the best or only option. At least, I hope that's the case. I hope that the government in general and the President in particular, have got their hands wrapped around this.

Based on the speech last night, I'm not so sure. It seemed that Obama was making a political speech, more focused on clean energy than the problem at hand. He had no clear solution nor did I get the impression he was overly concerned about finding one. His main concern seemed to be the people and industry affected and promoting some sort of ephemeral and imaginary new energy source. He talked about windmills and solar panels. WTF?

The President just doesn't seem to understand the possible impact of this blowout and its effects on not only the Gulf Coast area but the potential for massive, life altering disaster. It's like we just had Pearl Harbor attacked and the president runs out to play a round of golf. Obama was and is not prepared to lead in a crisis. His whole career, belief system and reason for existence is political in nature and professorial in application. He has lived in the world of academia and protests, places where real life experiences that would prepare a man for leadership never occur. Everything is theory.

He's in the real world now and he's floundering. His solutions are political solutions; create more commissions and panels, more regulations, more red tape. Instead he should clear the decks of everything that is standing in the way of stopping this thing. If we don't get it shut down, and now, all those new regulations will be meaningless because everything will have changed so dramatically.

And the thing he doesn't understand and probably wouldn't accept is that it's regulation that got us here in the first place. Yes, we need regulation of the oil drilling process, not the industry as a whole. It is the proper role of the government to insure that adequate precautions and good practice occur on the rigs because their failure can effect the entire nation and its energy supply.

The thing is that the government expanded its regulation well past the safety issues and got into the business of drilling itself. BP was drilling in deep water because the government forced them to. Regulations and rules have distorted the business of producing oil. Oil companies are not allowed to drill in areas that are far less prone to disaster such as in shallow water off the coast of Florida or California, or on land in places like ANWAR or Montana. Because of this, the only big reserves left to drill in America are in deep water.

Furthermore, government interference in the free market has distorted risk. A cap of $75 million dollars was placed on damage done by oil companies in the Gulf. The government established the cap, I'm sure with the help of their friends in the oil industry.

Risk is an essential component in pricing and in even deciding whether a company wants to take on a job. I've turned down a lot of work over the years because of risk aversion. I look at the price I can charge and weigh it against the potential costs the company would incur in case of failure. Every job I do goes through some sort of risk/benefit analysis. That's the way business works. If I had some outside agency from the government limiting my exposure, well I would definitely have taken some of those jobs. Why not? The risk/benefit formula has suddenly been tilted in my favor. The risk is now on the backs of the taxpayer. I keep the gain and socialize the downside.

This is what happened in the financial markets and we all know how that worked out. Why would it be any different in the oil business?

And of course, as we see happening in the oil blowout crisis, the same government that created the environment that forced the emergency to happen will then use the emergency to blame the company and to create even more regulation of the free market; more control of our lives. This is a wholly predictable pattern and exactly the reason to limit government in every aspect of our lives. It's never satisfied with a little power, it wants it all!

So the oil pours from the blown out casing while the administration focuses on how it can use the crisis to further its political agenda of ever increasing government control of our lives and destruction of our individual freedoms. One of the few legitimate powers the federal government has is to protect the country from harm in times of national emergency. This definitely fits the bill. While this same government has no problem shredding the Constitution to create national health care and will do it again with cap and trade, it just can't find the strength to take care of the blowout.

We're screwed.

VIDEO SHOWS OIL LEAKING FROM SEA FLOOR

The video and text below are from Demcad via SHTF. The video would seem to verify the info from Matt Simmons and The Oil Drum posted earlier at Catawissa Gazetteer.

"A new study by marine scientists indicates that the oil spill was pumping not 5,000/barrels of oil in the Gulf per day, but a whopping 70,000. Meanwhile, a oil leak video has surfaced and it is spending shockwaves throughout the world. On the video, we see oill leaking from the oil floor. What does this mean? It means that the oil pipe in the ocean has burst and now the oil is leaking from the seafloor. Simply put, there's probably no realistic way we can stop this. I highly recommend you check out the video above."

IS A NUKE THE ONLY REAL OPTION?

Matt Simmons verifies the statements made in the post below in the commentary from The Oil Drum. If the casing is no longer in the hole then we have oil pouring uncontrollably from underground with absolutely no way to control it. If the nuke doesn't work, and if the casing is gone, the oil will flow until the pressure equalizes. According to Matt Simmons that could take over twenty years.



H/T Inflection Points

CHEMICALS ARE VAPORIZING AND MOVING INLAND FROM THE GULF

I know, I'm getting all hysterical, again! These EPA tests validate the concern I have that all the toxic crap floating and submerged in the Gulf will move inland with the wind, rain and air. And it won't be limited to the areas close to the Gulf but will be lifted high into the atmosphere and spread across vast portions of the country. Once this stuff vaporizes there's no telling how far it can travel.

"The media coverage of the BP oil disaster to date has focused largely on the threats to wildlife, but the latest evaluation of air monitoring data shows a serious threat to human health from airborne chemicals emitted by the ongoing deepwater gusher.

Today the Louisiana Environmental Action Network released its analysis of air monitoring test results by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA's air testing data comes from Venice, a coastal community 75 miles south of New Orleans in Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish.

The findings show that levels of airborne chemicals have far exceeded state standards and what's considered safe for human exposure.

For instance, hydrogen sulfide has been detected at concentrations more than 100 times greater than the level known to cause physical reactions in people. Among the health effects of hydrogen sulfide exposure are eye and respiratory irritation as well as nausea, dizziness, confusion and headache."
Southern Studies

THE HYSTERIA SPREADS

So maybe I'm not the only hysterical one out there:

"What do you get when you mix a hurricane with an oil spill? How about the potential for a stronger hurricane, higher hurricane winds, toxic rain, and oil infused storm surges. Or, for those of you who prefer a little doom in your forecast, perhaps you’d like to hear that the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources believes “that the BP gas leak is going to become ‘the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with ‘total destruction’.”

To read more go to SHTFPlan.com.

IS IT WRONG TO ASK THE QUESTIONS..OR IS IT THE RESPONSIBLE THING TO DO

I received a comment today on another post on the blog which suggested that I shouldn't get hysterical over the crops and animals dying in Tennessee and the possible connection to the blowout in the Gulf. Firstly, I would like to assure my kind reader that I'm not getting hysterical. Emotions like that always seem so pointless. What's done is done in the Gulf and all we can do now is pray and prepare as best we can.

But prepare for what?

You see, that's the million dollar question and one that I just don't see being addressed either by government or in the media. What are the potential effects of this? I think that if we are to be honest, the Gulf is a dead zone for decades. Best case scenario is that they might, and it's a long shot, get this shut down in a few months. A few months, maybe. Do you really think that the Gulf will still be a viable and productive life supporting environment after all the oil and other chemicals are pumped in for a few more months?

So I think that we have to accept the fact that we may have a toxic sewage dump over 600,000 square miles large. We have to accept the fact that fishing and recreation are over. Most of the economic activity that supports the cities surrounding the Gulf will cease. Even the oil industry may have to downsize with our President creating moratoriums on drilling that are already sending the rigs to other countries.

So we'll have millions more people added to the unemployment roles at a time when those roles are overflowing.

The environmental impacts are the great unknown, though. Will the chemicals filling the Gulf be caught up in the rain and dropped inland? Will the oil make it into the Gulf Stream and move across the Atlantic? If it does, will the oil alter the Gulf Stream in a way that changes the weather patterns in Europe, causing a mini ice age?

The person that commented also pointed out that we've had the volcano in Iceland spewing ash and chemicals for months now without any major ill effects. And he/she's right. The thing is, we've just been lucky. Iceland has had eruptions that have caused major environmental and weather disruptions, even being blamed as one of the causes of the French Revolution.

From Greg Neale at The Guardian:

"Just over 200 years ago an Icelandic volcano erupted with catastrophic consequences for weather, agriculture and transport across the northern hemisphere – and helped trigger the French revolution.

The Laki volcanic fissure in southern Iceland erupted over an eight-month period from 8 June 1783 to February 1784, spewing lava and poisonous gases that devastated the island's agriculture, killing much of the livestock. It is estimated that perhapsa quarter of Iceland's population died through the ensuing famine.

Then, as now, there were more wide-ranging impacts. In Norway, the Netherlands, the British Isles, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, in North America and even Egypt, the Laki eruption had its consequences, as the haze of dust and sulphur particles thrown up by the volcano was carried over much of the northern hemisphere.

Ships moored up in many ports, effectively fogbound. Crops were affected as the fall-out from the continuing eruption coincided with an abnormally hot summer. A clergyman, the Rev Sir John Cullum, wrote to the Royal Society that barley crops "became brown and withered … as did the leaves of the oats; the rye had the appearance of being mildewed".

The British naturalist Gilbert White described that summer in his classic Natural History of Selborne as "an amazing and portentous one … the peculiar haze, or smokey fog, that prevailed for many weeks in this island, and in every part of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary appearance, unlike anything known within the memory of man.

"The sun, at noon, looked as blank as a clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferruginous light on the ground, and floors of rooms; but was particularly lurid and blood-coloured at rising and setting. At the same time the heat was so intense that butchers' meat could hardly be eaten on the day after it was killed; and the flies swarmed so in the lanes and hedges that they rendered the horses half frantic … the country people began to look with a superstitious awe, at the red, louring aspect of the sun."

Across the Atlantic, Benjamin Franklin wrote of "a constant fog over all Europe, and a great part of North America".

The disruption to weather patterns meant the ensuing winter was unusually harsh, with consequent spring flooding claiming more lives. In America the Mississippi reportedly froze at New Orleans.

The eruption is now thought to have disrupted the Asian monsoon cycle, prompting famine in Egypt. Environmental historians have also pointed to the disruption caused to the economies of northern Europe, where food poverty was a major factor in the build-up to the French revolution of 1789."

I don't think that it's hysterical or crazy to ask what is coming. Are the crops and birds dying in Tennessee because of the blowout? I don't know. I do know that it's a possibility and something that I think we will see happen as the hurricane season begins and the storms roll up out of the Gulf and into the heartland. As Americans and as responsible people we need to ask the questions and try to find solutions now while we have the time because time is growing short. The oil is flowing and there is no certain end in sight.

Everything has changed.

GOVERNMENT TELLS BP TO INCREASE ITS CAPACITY TO CAPTURE SPILLED OIL OR...WHAT?

"The U.S. Coast Guard gave BP Plc 48 hours to find more capacity to contain its leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico after scientists and researchers doubled their estimates of the spill’s size.

BP’s efforts don’t “provide the needed collection capacity consistent with the revised flow estimates,” said Rear Admiral James A. Watson, the federal on-scene coordinator, in a letter dated June 11. It was sent to Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, and was released today.

...The spill began after the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon sank April 22, following a blowout of BP’s well that killed 11 of its crew.

It has closed as much as 37 percent of the Gulf of Mexico to fishing, cut offshore drilling in the nation by half, polluted 140 miles (225 kilometers) of shoreline from Louisiana to Florida, and cost BP more than $1.43 billion.

Separately, BP said today its board will meet June 14 to discuss whether to cut or defer its second-quarter dividend payment following the spill.

A decision on the dividend may not be reached at the meeting, BP spokesman Robert Wine said today in a telephone interview today. “All options are being considered,” he said. “No decision has been taken.”
Bloomberg

"Brazil could benefit from the BP Gulf of Mexico spill as a U.S. moratorium on offshore drilling boosts available rigs for the country's deep water oil exploration program.

Even as an ecological catastrophe makes the future of U.S. offshore drilling less certain, Brazil is plowing ahead with a $220 billion five-year plan to tap oil fields even deeper than
BP's (BP.L) ill-fated Gulf well, which is still leaking crude.

With an estimated 35 rigs idled in the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil is already receiving inquiries from companies looking to move their rigs here, where vast discoveries in recent years
may soon turn the country into a major crude exporter."
Reuters

So we threaten and we bellow. We shut down drilling and we cry for justice. And what will happen? The oil companies will move their rigs elsewhere. The Obama administration just can't figure this out. It's just like taxes; raise them high enough and the rich will go someplace else. The people and the companies that control vast amounts of money and power are not constrained by national boundaries.

Our leaders are incompetent. Not just the current crop but stretching way, way back. The ones that have never led, only followed the money and the power, doing as they were told by their masters in the corporate world and the special interests. They sold our freedom for personal power. And now, as they sit in their halls of power and mansions, surrounded by luxury, we watch as our waters, air and freedom drift away.

As the rigs leave the Gulf the environmentalists will rejoice thinking they've realized a dream. In reality, the nightmare will just be beginning. If they think our oversight was lax, just what in the hell do they think China is doing in Cuban waters? How about Mexico or Venezuela? Do they think these Marxist Utopias even have the slightest concern for the environment? They don't. The only thing that concerns their leaders is money and power, just like ours. The difference is that the people are out of the loop. No one can force Castro or Chavez to follow any safety or environmental guidelines.

And the best part of all? Every gallon of oil we buy from them goes to support our enemies and their push to destroy our country and our way of life. And buy it we will. We have to have oil to function and if we won't drill it ourselves we'll get it where we can.

Isn't that special?

CAPPING THE LEAK WON'T CHANGE A THING

From Washington's Blog:

"As I noted Tuesday, there is growing evidence that BP's oil well - technically called the "well casing" or "well bore" - has suffered damage beneath the level of the sea floor.

The evidence is growing stronger and stronger that there is substantial damage beneath the sea floor. Indeed, it appears that BP officials themselves have admitted to such damage. This has enormous impacts on both the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf, and the prospects for quickly stopping the leak this summer."

This seems to confirm what Matt Simmons said weeks ago. The leak that we are focusing so much time and energy on is not the main leak and fixing it will have little overall impact. The only solution may be to try to nuke the well bore in hopes that we can collapse enough seabed into it to stop the flow of oil.

In other words, we might have only one option; one shot. If that fails the oil could flow for years.

Read the report at Washington's Blog because it has a whole bunch of information that will change your perception of just how dangerous this blowout is. This isn't just an environmental disaster, this changes every single thing we know about how life should work.

Consider that if the oil reaches the Gulf Stream (many think it has) it will travel up our East Coast, over to Iceland and on to Europe. The Gulf Stream and the warmth it carries keeps Europe in general and the British Isles in particular at a livable and moderate temperature. If the Gulf Stream stops flowing as it has we have the real possibility that a vast section of Europe will become brutally cold. Go to a world map and look at how far north most of Europe is. If the Gulf Stream is changed or moved, most of Europe will have much more in common with Siberia than it does with Minnesota or Iowa. Not to mention destruction of sea life and how that ripples through the food chain along with changes in rainfall and water purity.

Buckle up and prepare; and pray. There is no way to really anticipate what this blowout will do to the human race and the world we live on. The possibilities are frightening.

PEOPLE REPORTING ON THE GULF...NEWS FROM THOSE MOST EFFECTED

I saw this link to a website named Oil Spill Map at The Coming Depression. It seems to be a site designed to allow Gulf Coast residents a place to report what's going on in their lives. the company that set it up, Radical Designs, seems to be primarily a social change, social justice operation so keep that in mind.

Migraine like headaces, etc.
5+ continuous weeks of the first migraine I've ever had, and 3 weeks of severe double vision and eye pain. I have immune system problems, and have... 2010-06-12 Venetian Isles - Bayou Sauvage

Black oil 1 mile x 15 feet wide spotted 2 miles S of Bayou La Mere.
Black oil 1 mile x 15 feet wide spotted 2 miles S of Bayou La Mere. 2010-06-12 bayou la mere plaquemines LA

Heavy Oil 3x5 yards wide in Bastian Bay.
Heavy Oil 3x5 yards wide in Bastian Bay. 2010-06-12 Bastian Bay, Plaquemines LA

BP discouraing crews from using respirators
BP workers discouraged from using respirators because it could cause public "hysteria". 2010-06-12 Gulf Coast

headache from stench
headaches and coughing in morning from oil smell. day after day. 2010-06-12 Biloxi, MS

oil spill clean up worker with open sores on his hands and arms
Supervisor for BP subcontractor reported to first aid tent that he had a worker referral from a physician to the nurses for open sores on his hands and... 2010-06-12 BP Worker Compound, Grand Isle, LA

Boom stockpile
Boom stockpile at chef harbor. 2010-06-12 21135 Chef Menteur Highway, New Orleans, LA 70129-2585

Barges blocking channel
Big barges used to block off the mouth of the channel north of little bayou magill 2010-06-12 Bayou Magill, LA

Bayou Magill booms
Booms washed ashore in little bayou magill 2010-06-12 Bayou Magill, LA

Citrus cleaner smell
Citrus cleaner (like lysol times 100) coming off beach at Grand Isle. Could smell it from 1/2 mile away. 2010-06-12 Grand Isle State Park,

out of seafood
Restaurant out of oysters and shrimp- Grand Isle 2010-06-12 Grand Isle, LA

IS THE EARTH BLEEDING OUT?

Where does oil come from and more importantly, what have we drilled into in the Gulf? These are two questions that seem as though they should be relatively easy to answer yet when I read up on the subject I find cloudiness and further, it seems to me anyway, that scientific fact is once again obscured by political and economic forces.

One the one side we have the proponents of "Peak Oil". This is an interesting assortment of those that profit from oil speculation, academics, environmentalists and many on the left that are convinced that capitalism cannot survive. I tend to accept many of the core beliefs of the peak oil movement, but not because I believe that we are running out of oil, just the political will to exploit the resource. Whether we run out of oil or just refuse to drill for it, the results are the same. The American capitalist economy will collapse. Without abundant and cheap oil we will revert to a life much closer to that of the 1880's. Of course, in the process, we'll experience massive societal unrest and destruction, opening the door to strongmen rulers to destroy our freedoms in the name of security.

"Peak Oil" has a another effect. It allows speculators an excuse to run up the price of oil based on the faulty assumption that the resource is limited and that demand far outstrips supply. I've a customer that has worked in the oil business as an engineer in the Middle East his entire career. He' retired now yet he stays in touch with people still active in the business. He's told me that the known supplies of oil are vast and that most of it is relatively easy to get to. A friend of his in the industry that does cost analysis said in 2008, when oil was at $147 per barrel that if we were to remove the manipulation of the markets oil should be priced around $40 per barrel. Amazingly, about 7 months later oil prices had collapsed to nearly that. Peak oil and the biomass theory of the origins of oil play into the hands of those that profit from scarcity.

The abiogenic oil theory would work against excessive manipulation and profit because it states that oil is not finite but instead is created deep within the earth as part of a natural and on going process. If this is the case then oil should and would be cheap. All we'd have to do is to figure out the best way to tap into this resource and off we go. The Russians believe that the abigenic theory is the correct theory and they have acted accordingly.

Most scientist say that abiogenic oil is a pipe dream and that oil comes from bio-mass origins; rotted dinosaurs and leaves. The question is whether this is an honest assessment or one driven by funding. I had some other customers that worked for a major biochemistry lab in St. Louis. One of them headed up research on alternative sources of energy; biomass such as corn and algae. We talked quite a bit about how their business (that's what science has become, after all) functions. They both told me that their research is shaped entirely by funding sources. They said that the biggest part of their day is spent in doing the paperwork necessary to justify the results they achieve in relation to the object of those that provide their funding. In other words, the funding directs the research and molds the results achieved, not the search for the truth.

So, can we trust the opinion of the scientists in relation to the origins of oil? Or anything, for that matter?

So what if the abiogenic theory is correct and we've tapped into one of it's sources in the Gulf? What happens if the hole we drilled has penetrated a main supply area for the worlds oil instead of a finger coming off that supply area, where pressure would be much reduced and more controllable? What if, no matter how much effort we use, we can't shut this thing down?

What if we've slashed the earth's aorta and it's bleeding out?

This article from the New York Times was published in 1995:

"COULD it be that many of the world's oil fields are refilling themselves at nearly the same rate they are being drained by an energy-hungry world?

A geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts says she believes that hitherto undetected gas and oil reservoirs lying at very great depths within the earth's crust could stave off the inevitable oil depletion much longer than many experts have estimated.

The scientist, Dr. Jean K. Whelan, whose research is part of a $2 million Department of Energy exploration program in the Gulf of Mexico south of New Orleans, has found evidence of differences in the composition of oil over periods of time as it flows from greater to shallower depths. By gauging degradative chemical changes in the oil resulting from action by oil-eating bacteria, she infers that oil is moving in quite rapid spurts from great depths to reservoirs closer to the surface.

Skeptics of Dr. Whelan's hypothesis acknowledge that oil is almost certainly flowing into certain reservoirs from somewhere, but say her explanation remains to be proved, as does the exact extent of the phenomenon.

A site in the gulf of particular interest to the Pennzoil Exploration and Production Company and several independent scientific teams, including Dr. Whelan's group, is Eugene Island Block 330, which is not an island but a patch of sea floor 700 feet beneath the water's surface. Discovered in 1972, an oil reservoir some 6,000 feet beneath Eugene Island 330 is one of the world's most productive oil sources; it has yielded more than one billion barrels, or 42 billion gallons, and is still going strong.

But Eugene Island 330 is remarkable for another reason: Its estimated reserves have declined much less than experts had predicted on the basis of its production rate."
New York Times

Abiogenic petroleum origin is an alternative hypothesis to the prevailing theory of biological petroleum origin. Most popular in the Soviet Union between the 1950s and 1980s, the abiogenic hypothesis has little support among contemporary petroleum geologists, who argue that abiogenic petroleum does not exist in significant amounts on earth and that there is no indication that an application of the hypothesis is or has ever been of commercial value.

The abiogenic hypothesis argues that petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps dating to the formation of the Earth. The presence of methane on Saturn's moon Titan is cited as evidence supporting the formation of hydrocarbons without biology. Supporters of the abiogenic hypothesis suggest that a great deal more petroleum exists on Earth than commonly thought, and that petroleum may originate from carbon-bearing fluids that migrate upward from the mantle.

Although the abiogenic hypothesis was accepted by some geologists in the former Soviet Union, most geologists now consider the biogenic formation of petroleum scientifically supported. Although evidence exists for abiogenic formation of methane and hydrocarbon gases within the Earth, studies indicate they are not produced in commercially significant quantities (i.e. a median abiogenic hydrocarbon content in extracted hydrocarbon gases of 0.02%). The abiogenic origin of petroleum has also recently been reviewed in detail by Glasby, who raises a number of objections, including that there is no direct evidence to date of abiogenic petroleum (liquid crude oil and long-chain hydrocarbon compounds).
Wikipedia