[QUOTE=TroubledByThis;35798]Thanks my friend, I appreciate you. But as we know when a bad corporate apple cheats, cuts corners, rushes, abuses employees, all to make a bigger profit, unless corrected it encourages others to play along, like a bad apple spoils the bunch. I don’t know about Taylor but I did a LOT of research on my interests in the “[U]Discovery[/U]” article I quoted last page,[U]Second Oil Spill in Gulf Confirmed (So What?)[/U] http://news.discovery.com/earth/second-oil-spill-in-gulf-confirmed-so-what.html I t seems Michael Reilly, who wrote that simplistic piece, riled me up and since I can’t talk to him in his ivory tower of babble, I’ll share my research here with you. Select excerpts from his story:
“And with natural oil seeps[U]pouring as much as 1.4 million barrels into the Gulf each year.[/U]”
"[U]natural oil seeps accounted for 9 times more oil discharged into U.S. waters than all the spills in the oil industry put together[/U]."
“Taylor Energy’s statement indicates that the spill was caused by a[U] landslide on the seafloor after Hurricane Ivan[/U] rolled through the area in 2004.”
“Environmentalists might argue that any amount of oil is too much, but interestingly, the million-plus barrels of oil naturally flowing into the sea annually don’t support that argument – nature it seems, is somewhat more complex than that.”
My reply and questions from research resulting …
Council (NRC, 1975; NRC, 1985) (see summary by Kvenvolden and Simoneit, 1990). Although it is clear that hydrothermal petroleum occurs in the sea, the rates of seepage are unknown, but are believed to be very small, and therefore are not included in the new global assessment.
In 1975, the estimated worldwide rate of natural seepage of oil into the marine environment ranged widely from 200,000 to 6,000,000 tonnes per year, with a “best estimate” of 600,000 tonnes per year. These rates were based on a comprehensive global survey incorporating extensive geological considerations, but used extrapolations from only a few known seeps. In 1985, little new information had become available, and estimates of individual oil-seep rates had not changed significantly.
Although only a few new seeps have been identified and estimates of known crude-oil deposits throughout the world have not changed greatly from about 300,000 million tonnes, new technologies, particularly [U]remote sensing techniques[/U], have provided better means of natural seep detection and assessment. [U]Studies in parts of the Gulf of Mexico[/U] (MacDonald et al., 1993; MacDonald, 1998; Mitchell et al., 1999), [U]using these new technologies, have resulted in an estimated seepage rate for the entire GoM of 140,000 tonnes per year[/U].
The new North American estimate of 160,000 tonnes per year is only 40,000 tonnes less than the 1985 global estimate of 200,000 tonnes per year, suggesting that the 1985 value was grossly underestimated. [U]To accommodate the new information now available, the “best estimate” of the global crude oil seepage rate has been revised to 600,000 tonnes per year, reviving an estimate made originally in 1975[/U]. These limits are set by the amount of crude oil seepage estimated for North American waters and the amount of crude oil ultimately available for natural seepage during geologic time.
[U][SIZE=1]http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10388&page=69[/SIZE][/U]
[I]They adjusted the world estimate to fit one study using “sensing devices” in the just GoM? But even then doing the math …[/I]
1 toe = 7.11, 7.33, or 7.4 [U]barrel of oil equivalent[/U] (boe) [I]140,000tons x 7.4=1,036,000 barrels not 1.4million[/I]
[U][SIZE=1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton_of_oil_equivalent[/SIZE][/U]
[SIZE=1][B][SIZE=2]How much of this seep is methane, not crude oil? I can show evidence that MOST oil seeps up and is transformed by archea and and bacteria at depths into methane which is further consumed by a layer above that, and what is left over escapes, presumably much of it as methane, not oil. [/B][/SIZE]
[B][ATTACH=CONFIG]959[/ATTACH][/B]
[B][SIZE=2]If dinosaurs are from where oil comes from and this oil has been seeping at this rate for say, 20 million years, then that is 20,000,000 x 160,000 tons from the GoM = 3.2 million, million tons (3.2 TRILLION TONS) of “dinosaur juice” has escaped from the GoM in the last 20 million years. [/B][B]I assume either:[/B]
[B][SIZE=2]1. they are using sensors to detect present amounts and making INFERENCES that this is normal. This is not good science because the sensor cannot determine the origin of the oil whether natural or manmade.[/B]
[B][SIZE=2]2. Oil is abiotic in origin and not sourced from dead fossil remains. [/B][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE]
[B]73.78 million barrels/day = 10 million tons/day x 365 = 365 million tons per year[/B] (world extraction 2008) [/SIZE]
[U]http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/txt/ptb1105.html[/U]
[B][I][U]Consider that it would take us[/U] 3.2 trillion tons at leak rate per yr / 365 million tons world usage rate per yr = [U]8,767 years at 2008 rate of WORLD consumption to use up the oil that has presumably naturally seeped up from the GoM in the last 20 million years[/U]. [/I][I]I find my analysis staggering. Perhaps I am wrong, check my work, but something surely doesn’t add up.[/I][/B]
Offshore oil production involves environmental risks, [U]Produced water[/U] is generated, which is excess water from well drilling or production and includes varying amounts of oil, [U]drilling fluid[/U] or other chemicals used in, or resulting from, oil production. According to the organization Culture Change, a [U]Gulf of Mexico[/U] rig dumps about 90,000 tons of drilling fluid and metal cuttings over its lifetime, with its wells also contributing with heavy metals.[[I][U]citation needed[/U][/I]]
[U]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_oil_drilling[/U]
[I]Regarding Hurricane Ivan as mentioned as the cause of the “landslide” that produced these leaks:[/I] Ivan struck [U]Gulf Shores, Alabama[/U] as a strong Category 3[U] storm[/U].
[U]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ivan[/U]
[I]Regarding landslides in the Mississippi canyon of GoM:[/I]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS][SIZE=2]DOI: 10.1306/A1ADDAB2-0DFE-11D7-8641000102C1865D 0[I]GCAGS Transactions [/I]Volume 32 (1982)
[/SIZE][/FONT]It is highly probable, therefore, that the canyon originated from massive shelf-edge slope failure on an unstable continental margin. A series of successive failures, each one creating an upslope instability that triggered the next failure, caused an elongate trough to form that excavated the canyon. Once the canyon has formed, its steep side walls continued to be unstable and sediments slumped into the canyon axis, forming the initial canyon fill. [U]This phase is well documented: the lowermost sediment fill is composed of displaced material similar to that now found on the canyon rim. Large scars from side-wall failures can also be easily mapped on the seismic data[/U]. From 20,000 years to approximately 5,000 years B.P., a series of late Wisconsin and Holocene delta lobes formed and were responsible for the remainder of the fill of the canyon.[U] During the past 5,000 years only a thin deep-water pelagic drape has been deposited within the canyon[/U]. Maps have been constructed that depict the various horizons, and the geometry of these [B]horizons[/B] verify this mode of formation.
[U]http://search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/A1ADDAB2-0DFE-11D7-8641000102C1865D[/U]
We’re overdue for slides?
[B]“[I]Large skepticism leads to large understanding. Small skepticism leads to small understanding. No skepticism leads to no understanding.” [/I][/B]~ Xi Zhi (borrowed from another poster here)
[/QUOTE] I might buy into 140,000 gallons per year, but I want evidence & not just bullshit to back up the 1,400,000 Bbl. number.