14-year-long oil spill in Gulf of Mexico may be worst in U.S. history

Re:14-year-long oil spill in Gulf of Mexico may be worst in ... by kbutler on Monday October 22, 2018 @07:51PM (#18279642)

Yes, oil in water is bad. But there's no scale - how does this 100, 300, or 700 barrels per day compare to natural seeps?

"In the Gulf of Mexico, there are more than 600 natural oil seeps that leak between one and five million barrels of oil per year, equivalent to roughly 80,000 to 200,000 tonnes." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_seep with reference)

I think we really need to figure out where all this oil goes.

For another yardstick, deepwater horizon was estimated at 210 million barrels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill.

Even if it is 1000 barrels per day, Taylor has a while to go (575 years...)

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Re:14-year-long oil spill in Gulf of Mexico may be worst in ... by azinman2 on Monday October 22, 2018 @09:18PM (#18280042)

But why add to it?

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Re:14-year-long oil spill in Gulf of Mexico may be worst in ... by Rjevski on Monday October 22, 2018 @10:41PM (#18280351)

Not saying we should add to it on purpose, but if an artificial leak is only the equivalent of 1% of the natural leaks, then it's probably not going to have any serious impact on the environment.

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Re:14-year-long oil spill in Gulf of Mexico may be worst in ... by rbanffy on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @05:25AM (#18281937)

Still, if a company drills a hole, they should allocate the funds to cap it properly. Making that mandatory would sure help with situations like this.

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Re:14-year-long oil spill in Gulf of Mexico may be worst in ... by Ntrails on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @06:09AM (#18282126)

Right, but claiming a thing is a planet/ecosystem defining disaster when in context it's just a bad thing from which the world will inevitably recover is just scaremongering

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Re:14-year-long oil spill in Gulf of Mexico may be worst in ... by BioMeditate on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @09:09AM (#18283021)

I think it's more like I'm trying to teach my 5yr old. When you make a mess, you get to clean it up. Simple as that

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Re:14-year-long oil spill in Gulf of Mexico may be worst in ... by abernard1 on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @01:43AM (#18280984)

It was estimated at 210 million gallons, not barrels.

The natural oil seeps are larger than Deepwater Horizon, every year.

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Re:14-year-long oil spill in Gulf of Mexico may be worst in ... by kbutler on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @02:32AM (#18281177)

Yes, thanks for the correction - 210 million gallons, or 4.9 million barrels. That estimate puts it at the top of the range of estimates I saw for natural seeps within the gulf of Mexico.

And that does put the upper range of Taylor estimates approaching the range of deepwater horizon total estimates.

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