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Gulf Oil May Not Degrade for DECADES
As you might have heard, scientists are finding gigantic under oil plumes from the BP spill, including one that is more than 22 miles long, more than a mile wide and 650 feet deep.
On
Thursday, Dr. Ian MacDonald and and Dr. Lisa Suatoni testified to a
Congressional subcommittee that the oil will stay toxic, and will not
degrade much further, for decades. MacDonald
is an expert in deep-ocean extreme communities including natural
hydrocarbon seeps, gas hydrates, and mud volcano systems, a former
long-time NOAA scientist, and a professor of Biological Oceanography at
Florida State University. Suatoni
has a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale, and is Senior
Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council's Oceans Program.
Dr. MacDonald told Congress that the oil has already degraded,
emulsified and evaporated about as much as its going to, and it is
going to very resistant for further biodegradation. The oil will be in
the environment for a long-time, he said, and the imprint of the BP
discharge will be detectable "for the rest of my life" (he's 58, and
the average lifespan for American men is about 76; so that's some 18 years).
Dr. Suatoni told Congress that oil which goes into low-oxygen zones will remain in a full toxic form for decades.
Why isn't the oil degrading faster?
As National Georgraphic noted Thursday:
The
oil plume's stability is "a little unexpected," study leader Richard
Camilli, of WHOI's Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Department,
said at a Thursday press briefing in Washington, D.C.
"We don't have any clear indication as to why it set up at that depth."
It's
unclear why the Gulf's microbes aren't eating the oil plume, but the
organisms are infamous for being unpredictable, said study co-author
Christopher Reddy, a marine chemist at WHOI.
***
Further studies are needed to figure out why the plume isn't degrading, Reddy said during the press briefing ....
Indeed, one of the world's leading experts on oil-eating bacteria told me yesterday that the main oil-eaters aren't even present in the underwater plumes he sampled.
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"bleeding from the mouth and anus!"
You sure you did not mean , that this is what the Fed, and Gv't are doing to the Taxpayers?.
The microbes are busy eating what we thought was Obamas brain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexually_transmitted_disease
"May not"? Try " Will not".
On the positive side the economy and US will be fucked for decades so no one will notice how bad the GOM is.
Yes, but these are phd's making claims. What do they know? Oh wait, they have phd's in REAL science.
Appeal to Authority logical fallacy.
WineSorbet
Narrator: The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate. Some had high hopes the genetic engineering would correct this trend in evolution, but sadly the greatest minds and resources where focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections.
Electrolytes: It's what plants crave.
Has the plume moved at all? Will it catch currents and move up the east coast? Will it get stirred up in a storm and make it to the beaches ?
Payne
Well listen Sonny, way back in my day, like May, everyone had some kind of fancy oil tracking site. Funny how those days are gone. Anyway kid, we could follow the projection rate of spread up the East coast possibly even into European waters.
Now you can't find hide nor hair of one.
Sniff, sniff, those days are long gone now.
i wonder if people got tired of listening to all the ludicrous disaster scenarios being touted by the doomsters, none of which came to pass of course, as always.
so now, why pay attention to them, with all credibility shot?
a shame, since maybe there was some legitimate criticism of bp that's now been mixed up with the illegitmate.
VW, I wish I had started reading your posts from the top, instead of the bottom of the page.
"maybe there was some legitimate criticism of bp"
I wouldn't have wasted so much time.
everyone is either a comedian, troll or scientist hoping for a new grant.
But, but, but Obama's lackeys have said 75% of the Oil is gone!
GW, thank for continuing to post on this important story.
Please don't let the lemmings on the BP payroll who show up every time you post deter you from exposing this criminal cover-up.
+1. And ditto.
Jim Sinclair Got It Right, While All Else Is Moot And Noise:
People are seriously underestimating how much liquidity in the global financial world is dependent on a solvent BP. BP extends credit – through trading and finance. They extend the amounts, quality and duration of credit a bank could only dream of. The Gold community should think about the financial muscle behind a company with 100+ years of proven oil and gas reserves. Think about that in comparison with what a bank, with few tangible assets, (truly, not allegedly) possesses (no wonder they all started trading for a living!). Then think about what happens if BP goes under. This is no bank. With proven reserves and wells in the ground, equity in fields all over the planet, in terms of credit quality and credit provision – nothing can match an oil major. God only knows how many assets around the planet are dependent on credit and finance extended from BP. It is likely to dwarf any banking entity in multiples.” (Click here for The Market Oracle story in its entirety.) The government knows that a BP bankruptcy would cause a giant financial meltdown that would probably make what happened in 2008 look tame. That is the reason I think the government is working so hard to protect BP.
They are protecting themselves. I hear what you are saying but this is not like trying to protect the buggy whip makers or the Chevy Volt UAW crooks. The 100+ year oil reserve doesn't disappear with BP. Only BP disappears with BP.
The (not so) proud owners of those reserves should be the people in the Gulf states and the US taxpayer. And then said (not so) proud owners would then be the liquidity to jump start the US economy.
Of course that would mean George Soros would then be taking it up the ass with his stake in Petrobras. And the Obama White House would be sitting opposite of some very energized US federal prosecutors with the US Marshals manning the exits.
Don't forget the 20 Billion Obammy sent Pertobras...........out of the Stimulous cache..............that's Taxpayer money too.
Why the hades are WE funding Petrobras with QE $$$?.
Esp one of the BRIC nations intent of fracking us?.
You missed the point, entirely. It is NOT that BP disappears. The point is the OTC Derivatives IMPLOSION on a GLOBAL basis. It is like a massive Asteroid lands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and you say that there is no problem since it landed way out in the ocean. It would literally DESTROY the world.
Get it?
This is just fear mongering in order to bail out big oil. "Destroy the world", my butt. The world will be just fine. The Western empires, though, are a different matter. As is the current level of human population.
I've got very bad news for you. There's no avoiding the Derivatives implosion. The entire thing is a Ponzi scheme. It's not a question of "if" it will implode, but "when". All Ponzi schemes implode. They are mathematically guaranteed to implode. And this one is no different.
BP represents just one cog of the $1+ Quadrillion Derivatives market.
The real problem is that the various Governments have been going through extraordinary measures to keep all the holes in the dike plugged. Think back on the Fall of 2008, and what's transpired since. The TBTF Banks, Greece, the other PIIGS, and now BP. This list just keeps growing and getting worse. At some point, probably in the near future, it will be too big to contain.
My advice is to quit shilling and fear mongering for BP, and try alerting people to the real problem of what is coming down the road.
If you're being paid by BP to promote this fear mongering, my suggestion is to take a different tack. Because it only provides an opportunity to present the entire picture and the problems thereof.
Don't feed the troll (aka GW).
specific gravity
+1
It was really pretty obvious, wasn't it?
"We don't have any clear indication as to why it set up at that depth."
Oil: The crazy people, with the boats and planes... fuck it, I'm staying right here.
Interesting perspective from the Harte Institute, which was vocal about the Plumes early on:
seem to be softening their outlook (this from July)
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100714/full/466304a.html
and this from August 11
http://www.caller.com/news/2010/aug/11/harte-research-institutes-larry-m...
(edit)
follow the money
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51942
and it seems he has wasted no time starting to spend it - check out his blog
http://ixtoc1expedition.blogspot.com/
I wonder if they are softening their stance of this little fact. 40% of our seafood comes from the Gulf of Mexico.
I'm no longer buying the seafood version of pet food for my critters. I'm guessing that's where the first batch of junk seafood (which is too obviously tainted to ignore) will go.
We really should harvest the fish,shrimp, oysters, etc,and ship it to China, you know, return the favor?.
+1
Thank you for making this point regarding pet food! Luckily, we have about 6 months of food for our animals right now - but we're going to have to find an alternative in the future...
I'm no longer buying the seafood version of pet food for my critters.
I passed a Purina plant the other day. There was a Purina tanker pulling in with umm... stuff that they make into dog food. Read online about how pet food is made and what goes into it. I wouldn't feed any "pet-food" to a member of my family. If you look out for meat on special you can buy cheap roasts, chickens, lamb, etc., cut them all up and slowly cook them into a stew (add vegetables too) which when cooled can easily be frozen into daily sized portions. A rice, lentils and barley mix is simple to cook up and lasts days in the fridge to be used as the filler side of the meal. About 75 cents a day to feed a medium size dog and you know there is no melamine, chemicals, mixed-meats, tumors, cartilage, feces in the mix.
". I wouldn't feed any "pet-food" to a member of my family."
what about guests
I certainly wouldn't feed the guests to them either, Hanibal. Added: Though you might be onto something there as far as keeping costs down while also dealing with Jehova's Witnesses and those annoying Natural gas plan pimps.
There's a particular 4 leg hair ball that's been haunting the comment section of ZH for a while now. Maybe we can feed that feline some GOM crude carefully disguised as cat food.
Here kitty kitty. Come here little puddy cat. Nice kitty. Are you hungry? I've got a treat for you. Yum yum, eat up now, there's plenty more where that came from.