Having got fed up with official press releases, oleaginous presidential puffery, and melodramatic news items, I decided to do a little spadework to find out what the experts are saying about this leaking oil well. I’ve found out, and it isn’t pretty.
What I came across was an fantastically long and detailed comment, fairly bristling with informative links, at a website called The Oil Drum. In short, the story is that the entire steel sleeve lining the hole is compromised, which means that were the pipe to be capped, the oil, under tremendous pressure, would simply blow out sideways and find its way to the surface through interstices in the surrounding rock strata. There is simply no way to plug this thing. The entire reservoir, perhaps two billion barrels (that’s billion, not million, and barrels, not gallons), may bleed out into the Gulf. It will be another two months before relief wells have a chance, and meanwhile the entire structure, from the blowout preventer all the way down the hole, is falling apart.
I haven’t begun to wade through all the links yet, but the original comment is here. See also this excellent graphic depiction of how the disaster happened.
7 Comments
Time for a nuke?
Well, that might be the only thing that could work. Of course, it might not.
In today’s Times, a former Navy man argued for a slightly different explosive solution, here.
Ok, dougr, the author of the article, is a reader (not staff member) of The Oil Drum. The article he wrote and published in the comments at The Oil Drum were originally published at http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1097505/pg1 by member SHR. From there, it has been posted all over the net on different conspiracy sites, or user-provided news forums catering to the likes of the Sisters of
Sorcha Faal
SHR other posts at Godlike productions, including a May 14th piece warning of impending doom as well. SHR has made more than 30,000 posts at that site.
You can make your own judgments about that site, or this character.
I’m not saying that what SHR/Dougr has to say is wrong either. Just that there is some warrant for caution.
SHR posted his/her story as an author abundanthope.net.
That is a *real* interesting site. You should browse it a while.
Thanks, HS. I’ll have a look. According to the box at the bottom of the comment, the author is a journalist who covered the oil biz.
I’ll have to retract my last comment- SHR did not post to the abundant hope site himself. It was copied.
Duly noted, HS.