Posts Tagged ‘bp oil spill’
Bacteria Ate All the Methane From the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, New Study Says
Within four months of the oil spill, bacterial blooms had removed more than 200,000 metric tons of dissolved methane, returning concentrations to normal background levels.
That was a surprise, because in mid-June, scientists found methane concentrations nearly 100,000 times above normal levels, and learned it was decomposing slowly, suggesting it would take years for the hydrocarbon to dissipate.
“We couldn’t have been more wrong. It decomposed rather quickly and was completely consumed within a matter of months,” said lead researcher John Kessler, an oceanographer at Texas A&M University, in a .
Kessler and colleagues took three cruises aboard the NOAA ship Pisces between Aug. 18 and Oct. 4, collecting 207 separate water samples and measuring their oxygen and methane concentrations. Oxygen drops when bacteria breathe methane, so the researchers say the depleted oxygen levels can only be explained by consumption of the methane.
They also examined the genetic sequences of bacteria in the samples, which suggested a growing population of methane-munching life forms.
Methane, the primary ingredient in natural gas, was to blame for the spill in the first place — on April 20, a methane bubble surged from the Macondo well up the Deepwater Horizon’s drill column, busting several seals as it belched toward the rig. The resulting explosion killed 11 workers and severed the rig from the well, allowing oil to spew forth for 83 days.
As workers attempted to burn, vacuum, sponge and contain the oil, invisible microbial communities were hard at work. Scientists said last August that a previously undiscovered species of bacteria had made ; apparently methanotrophs, species of methane-munching bacteria, were also feasting on the spill.
Bacteria have evolved to live with the Gulf’s naturally occurring oil seeps and high methane concentrations, so it makes sense that they were ready to go to work. Apparently they are more effective than we thought.
As with any controversial study, not everyone was satisfied with the results — Ian MacDonald, a professor of biological oceanography at Florida State University, the team did not account for deep-sea currents that could have carried away the methane. Further studies will shed more light on the findings.
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Secretaries Chu and Salazar: Newly Plugged BP Macondo Well is ‘Effectively Dead’
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar have that the cement cap permanently plugging BP’s Macondo well is successfully in place, ending a five-month effort that nonetheless saw nearly 4.9 million barrels of oil escape into the Gulf of Mexico. "With the successful first intercept by the relief well and our confirmation through pressure tests that the cement plugs are secure, we can now declare BP's Macondo well effectively dead,” the secretaries said in a joint statement. Finally.
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Gulf Oil Disaster Update: Up to 80% of the Crude May Still Be Lurking in the Water
A University of Georgia analysis of the estimates made by the government earlier this month came to very different conclusions. Those estimates were largely misinterpreted, the researchers said, and the idea that three-quarters of the oil from the spill has already disappeared is absurd.
That conclusion was bolstered by a 10-day mission into the Gulf by a team of University of South Florida researchers. The USF team found that not only has oil settled to the seafloor further east than originally thought, but it has done so at levels toxic to marine life. Sediment samples from DeSoto Canyon, a nutrient rich spawning ground for several important fish species off the western coast of Florida, showed oil present at deadly levels.
While we knew we weren’t out of the woods in the Gulf, this news certainly casts a dark cloud over the that at the time were the best news coming out of the disaster to date. The Obama administration and BP have both pledged that the cleanup will continue until all the oil is gone. With oil settling into the sediment deep on the seafloor, it’s difficult to see at this point exactly how they are going to pull that off.
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After 106 Days, ‘Static Kill’ Appears to Have Stopped the Gulf Oil Leak
Before we talk about what this means, a quick spin through the numbers is in order. It's now day 106 since the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion occurred, claiming the lives of 11 rig workers and kicking off what is most currently being estimated as a 62,000-barrel-a-day (barrels, not gallons, making it 12 times faster than BP originally claimed) flow of oil into Gulf waters. All in, 4.9 million barrels, or 205 million gallons, of crude were spilled, costing BP billions in cleanup efforts (they're still on the hook for more) and causing unquantifiable damage to Gulf and Gulf Coast ecosystems.
That's the bad news. The good news is that the worst appears to be behind us. BP is still mulling its options with Coast Guard officials and may either pump in more drilling mud to push the oil deeper into its source rock, or it may begin pumping concrete into the well to cap it off for good. BP is also moving forward with the drilling of the relief well so they can also seal the well from the bottom for added security.
So where are all these 5 million barrels of oil? There's good news being reported on that front as well. The reports this morning that the government is expected to announce that only 26 percent of that oil remains in the water. The other three-quarters have evaporated, dispersed, or been removed by cleanup efforts. How damaging the lingering and dispersed oil is remains to be seen.
Of course, there's still the issue of the 1.8 million gallons of that were dumped into the water and the various unknown effects they might have on ocean life. But for now, the spill itself appears to (finally) be over with, and that's as good as the news can get at this point.
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Navy Sending MZ-3A Airship to Gulf for Cleanup Effort
The airship -- the first to enter the Gulf cleanup effort -- began making its way toward the spill site from Yuma, Ariz., last month and will operate form a mooring near Mobile Bay, Ala. A handful of sensors are being considered for use aboard the airship, including the electro-optical, infrared and radar sensors already used on some support aircraft.
But the real advantage of having an airship on hand is its low operating speed. The MZ-3A can stay aloft continuously for 12 hours while monitoring a large swath of territory at low speed, greatly enhancing the capacity for raw visual observation and helping crews to coordinate skimming, burning, and dispersing efforts below. The airship is also far more economical to use over extended periods than the helicopters and airplanes currently assisting in the cleanup effort.
Crews will also report on the location of any affected wildlife they observe, relaying locations to Incident Commands that will dispatch crews to find and clean up oil-tainted fauna along the shoreline.
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