The latest new is that the US Government is downplaying the severity of the BP Gulf Disaster, claiming that most of the oil is already gone [1]. The US Government wants this problem to go away and they do not want the public to know the entire truth. It is stupidity like this that caused the BP Gulf disaster in the first place [2] and will likely kill us in the end. The undisputed fact is that the BP leaked 219 million gallons of oil [3], which is 7 times worse than the Exxon Valdez spill [4]. For the US Government to now claim that three quarters of that oil is already gone just because they cannot see it may also explains why the US government has been strangely silent regarding the 24 billion gallons of methane that BP also released into the environment with the oil [5].
About 60% of the volume that BP spewed from the pipe was oil; but the other 40% was methane [6]. Everyone is focused on the oil; because we can see the damage, but the methane has in the past and can in the future trigger doomsday. During the spill scientists measured as much as one million times the normal levels of methane in the Gulf near the ocean surface [7]. The methane bubbles mix with the ocean but eventually they burst at the surface and enter Earth’s atmosphere. And methane is 10 times worse than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas [8].
Unlike oil, the more serious problem with the methane is the expansion factor. Methane expands 164 times in volume as it rises from the sea floor [9]. Normally, the high pressure and cold temperature keep methane compressed as a solid and stable at the ocean bottom, locked up with water in a form called methane hydrate [10]. Once the BP released that trapped methane into our environment, it expanded from 148 million gallons at the bottom of the Gulf to 24 billion gallons at sea level.
Not to diminish in anyway the tragedy of the Exxon Valdez, but the Exxon Valdez did not release methane and 20 years later the Prince William Sound is largely recovered from the oil damage, admittedly with some heartbreaking consequences [4]. So contrary to the US Government’s latest assessment that the problem is 75% resolved[1], if we look forward, we can expect that the BP Gulf disaster will hit the wildlife and local economies many times harder than the Exxon Valdez tragedy hit Alaska, but in 20 years we will largely recover from the oil damage. But also in 20 years we can also expect that the methane BP released is still warming the planet like a giant magnifying glass.
Scientists have already been measuring a steady increase in the release of methane from the melting methane hydrates beneath the Arctic [11]. As the BP released methane warms the planet, more frozen methane on the sea floor in Arctic will melt, it will also expand 164 times its volume and enter our environment accelerating the runaway greenhouse effect [12]. About 55 million years ago a volcanic eruption triggered a similar release of methane from its frozen state at the sea floor, the methane entered Earth atmosphere and heated the planet up by 13°F, this period of global warming is known as the Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum [13][14]. Regardless if you believe that global warming was man-made or part of a natural cycle; the BP Gulf disaster release of methane into our environment is a global catastrophe on par with extinction events in the past. Hiding our heads in the sand first with the methane and now with the oil virtually guarantees that that history will repeat itself.
Why is the US government largely ignoring the methane and now downplaying an oil spill of this magnitude? They want the problem to go away. Playing politics with an environmental disaster of this magnitude is a greater risk to life on planet earth than the spill itself. Not to diminish BP’s role in this disaster, but it was stupid US Government bureaucratic policies that forced BP to drill the well at 5000 feet [2] in the first place and these policies will not be corrected if we ignore them as contributing to the BP Gulf Disaster.
Sources
[1] Severity of the BP Oil Spill is downplayed by the US Government
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/ener gy/oilandgas/7926398/BP-oil-spill-majority-of-oil-in -the-Gulf-of-Mexico-eliminated.html
[2] BP Originally files to drill the well in only 500 feet of water
A key factor in creating the BP Gulf disaster is that US Government environmental laws intended to protect us were also inappropriately turned into policies that caused the Deepwater Horizon explosion that started this catastrophe. BP originally filed to drill the Deepwater Horizon well in 500 feet of water and there is no methane at 500 feet because the pressure is not great enough to form methane hydrates. However, trying to adhere to our environmental policies, the US government forced BP into 5000 foot of water and the unintended consequences is that policy included the excess risks at that increased depth, including the risk of the methane explosion.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,594783,00.html
[3] 87 days * 60,000 bbls / day * 42 gal/bbl = 219 million gallons oil total release
[4] The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council 2009 Status Report
[5] Here are the methane calculations, for simplicity methane is shown in gallons instead of cubic meters.
The volume leaving the pipe was 60% oil and 40% methane hydrate [5] or 60,000 bbls of oil/day and 40,000 bbls of methane hydrate /day.
87 days * 40,000 bbls/day * 42 gal/bbl = 146 million gallons of methane hydrate at the sea floor.
But since methane hydrate expands 164 times its volume as it rises from the ocean depths to surface, 146 million gallons of methane hydrate * 164 expansion as it rises from the ocean depths = 24 billion gallons of methane after expansion entering the environment.
24 billion / 219 million = 109, so for each gallon of oil 109 gallons of methane entered the environment.
Gulf Disaster Formula: oil in gallons * 109 = methane in gallons
[6] 40% of the volume exiting the pipe was methane
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dee pwater-methane-study
[7] Methane in Gulf 'astonishingly high'-US scientist By Julie Steenhuysen
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2221822720100622
[8] Methane Hydrates are 10 times worse than Carbon Dioxide in Global Warming.
http://marine.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/gas-hydrates/titl e.html
[9] Methane Hydrates expand 164 times at atmospheric pressure.
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~elsworth/courses/egee580/503 _final_team_1.pdf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/20/de epwater-methane-hydrates-bp-gulf
[10] Methane Hydrates
http://marine.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/gas-hydrates/titl e.html
[11] Methane frozen beneath Arctic seabed destabilising, scientists warn March 5, 2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/ar ticle7050312.ece
[12] Runaway Greenhouse Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effe ct
[13] Erwin DH (1993). The Great Paleozoic Crisis; Life and death in the Permian. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231074670.
[14] Methane Explosion Warmed the Prehistoric Earth, Possible Again December 10, 2001
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20011210/