WAKE UP CALL FOR THE WORLD'S BIGGEST OIL JUNKIE

An oil-slicked Northern Garnet bird glares at the camera.

Even cleaned, it has little chance of survival.

By Chris Nelder,

GetRealList
May 4, 2010

America, it’s time to get real about energy.

The explosion and destruction of the Horizon deepwater rig and the subsequent oil spill disaster are only the latest in a series of wake-up calls you’ve received. Are you listening now?

Your first warning came in 1956, with the publication of M. King Hubbert’s model of US oil production, which correctly predicted its peak in 1970. When Hubbert updated his model on camera in 1976, he also nailed the peak of worldwide conventional oil production in 2005.

Since then, production has remained flat at roughly 74 million barrels per day (mbpd), despite prices gyrating wildly from $40 to $147 to $33 and back to $86 today. High prices did not deliver more oil to market.

Very simply, the cheap and easy oil is gone. What’s left is smaller, harder to find, of lesser quality, and in much more challenging places ~ Under a mile of water and another five miles of rock, for example. It’s expensive, risky, and yes, dangerous.

American domestic oil production peaked in October, 1970 at just over 10 mbpd. It has been in a steadily declining trend ever since, and now stands at 5.5 mpbd.

Over 30 percent of domestic production is from offshore drilling, of which about three-quarters comes from the Gulf of Mexico. Deepwater oil production has only become possible in recent years with the development of cutting-edge technology. We do it not because it’s without risk, but because we need the oil–badly. Only offshore is it still possible to find a field in North America that can deliver over 100,000 bpd. Just two of the Gulf fields, Thunder Horse and Atlantis, produce a combined 350,000 bpd


Source: Energy Information Administration, Petroleum Navigator. Source data.

By comparison, the remaining onshore resources in North America are now decidedly marginal. The days of gusher strikes onshore in the U.S. are long gone. About 1.2 mbpd, or over 20 percent of domestic production, comes from thousands of small “stripper wells” producing under 15 (yes, 15) barrels per day. Low-quality resources like tar sands and shale oil are vast but expensive, and so difficult to scale that they can’t reverse the long-term decline.

The U.S now imports 9.4 mbpd of crude. At $85 a barrel, that’s an $800 million-a-day hole in our pocket, or $292 billion a year. And our import dependency is only getting worse.

An oil export crisis has been developing for years, as oil producers consume more of their own output and Asia outbids the West for declining global exports.

Even so, as the world’s most dependent oil junkie, our demand for oil has held firm. The decline in U.S. oil demand from 21 mpbd in 2007 to 18.6 mbpd today was almost entirely due to lost industrial demand; gasoline demand remained virtually flat throughout the entire oil price spike and recession.

For every finger pointed at an oil company, three point back at us.

Like the whaling ships of the late 1800s that would sail to the ends of the earth in search of whale oil, deepwater drilling is proof that we are willing to pay enormous sums and go to extraordinary lengths and depths to get oil. We have chosen to accept the risks of environmental damage, the horror of oil wars, and the deaths of rig workers in exchange for a continuing supply of cheap, convenient fuel.

We built an entire economy and topography of civilization on the premise of endless, cheap fuel, and profited handsomely from the ever-increasing bounty of the Age of Oil. But having reached the point where it can no longer be increased, and the risks have grown intolerable, we whine and accuse and complain like teenagers, claim we were victimized, and act as though our demand for oil were an unfortunate accident we had no part in.

Isn’t it time ask ourselves how much more risk we’re willing to take, to accept the situation like adults, and plan accordingly?

Since Hubbert’s first warning, our wake-up calls have come ever faster: The Arab oil embargo of the early 1970s and the gasoline rationing that followed. Oil spills. Oil wars. Economically devastating oil price spikes driven by hurricanes and shrinking spare production capacity. And the increasingly frequent spectacle of sinking and spilling offshore rigs.

Yet somehow, this stark and deadly serious reality has escaped our notice. The eager search for a scapegoat in the wake of the Horizon disaster is a clear sign that America simply doesn’t get it.

After highly visible disasters like the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969, the Exxon ValdezHorizon spill, the public understands the risk of offshore oil production. What it doesn’t understand ~ at all ~ are the choices we now have to make.

Those calling for an end to offshore oil production in the U.S. apparently don’t understand that it accounts for over 30 percent of our domestic supply. They don’t understand that making offshore oil off-limits would be a double-whammy to our pocketbooks, both restricting our income and forcing us to import even more oil at ever-higher prices. They have an inkling that ethanol production is pressuring food supply, but have no concept that the non-food alternatives, like fuel from algae and cellulosic ethanol, are still puny, and a long way from being ready to scale up and replace oil.

Instead of having a rational discussion about how we’re going to manage our remaining offshore oil resources, we look to technology…as if deepwater drill ships and blowout preventers and acoustic shutoff switches were the problem, rather than miraculous solutions only a dedicated junkie could love. These technologies don’t fall from the sky. Every safety measure ever invented came as the result of a lesson learned the hard way.

Instead of discussing how we’re going to break our addiction to oil, we turn to politics…as if yelling “Drill, Baby, Drill” or “Spill, Baby, Spill” even louder, or changing tack on our energy policy every four years, could amount to a solution.

All of our politically-driven energy approaches ~ carbon caps and trading schemes, offshore leases and moratoriums, short-term incentives for renewables, and so on ~ are woefully incapable of addressing our long term problem.

It’s easy to vilify oil and its producers, and it’s politically popular to call for an end to drilling, but replacing oil is far more difficult and expensive than anyone seems to understand.

Leaking ....

Here’s the real challenge.

Within two to three years, global oil production will begin a long decline. As a rough rule of thumb, the world will lose roughly 25% of its oil supply in 25 years, 50% in 50 years, and 100% in 100 years.

It’s likely that we will also see the peaks of natural gas and coal in the next 20 years. Hydropower and nuclear will do little more than hold their current market share.

By the end of the century, nearly everything will have to be powered by renewably-generated electricity, not liquids or gases.

But scaling up renewables to take over for fossil fuels, and transitioning all the infrastructure, is going to be mind-bogglingly expensive, difficult, and slow. Renewables like solar and wind currently make up less than two percent of the world’s primary energy supply. It will take decades of effort and trillions of dollars in investment to offset a mere 20 percent of global demand with renewables, and we’ll have to do it in an environment of declining fossil fuel supply and shrinking economies.

For another rule of thumb, consider this: To compensate for the decline of oil alone using renewables, the world would need to build the equivalent of all the world’s existing renewable energy capacity, every year. Since that is impossible, efficiency and a long transition to renewably powered infrastructure must make up the shortfall. This will take 50 years or more to achieve.

If we use it wisely, offshore domestic oil could provide a crucial portion of the fuel we’ll need in order to build that new infrastructure. But if we remain in ignorance of our energy reality, letting politics be our guide and scapegoating oil companies upon their every misfortune, we’ll go down in flames as surely as the Horizon did.

One more tool in the deepwater toolbox, be it an acoustic shutoff device or something not even invented yet, will not solve our problems. Scapegoating drillers while we continue to pump gasoline into our tanks is unproductive and hypocritical. Hyping the size of marginal resources like shale without acknowledging their low flow rates is disingenuous. And championing alternatives that can’t even meet half a percent of our needs, like non-food biofuels, while trying to shut down the 10 percent of our supply that deepwater production provides, betrays a suicidal ignorance of our reality.

It’s time to wake up, put politics aside, get a grip on the scale of the problem and its solutions, and develop a serious energy plan.

The slick approaches the Louisiana coast. Because of the thin character of this oil, the booms are not adequate to contain it.

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FIRST HAND ACCOUNT OF THE DEEPWATER DISASTER

INDEED!

Again I thank Arthur Topham, Radical Press, for passing on this interview. The article following the interview is from the site

NEW WORLD ORDER ~ NATURAL RESOURCES INVESTING

Thanks to Mark Graffis for sending this along to RadicalPress.com.

mgraffis@gmail.com

DEEPWATER HORIZON: A FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT by Mark Levin Show 5/4/2010 On Friday, April 30th 2010, an anonymous caller contacted the Mark Levin Show to clarify the events that preceded the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. Rigzone has transcribed this broadcast for your convenience. To hear the actual radio broadcast please visit: http://www.marklevinshow.com/Article.asp?id=1790422&spid=32364. Mark: Dallas Texas WBAP. Go right ahead, sir. James: Just want to clear up a few things with the Petroleum Engineer, everything he said was correct. I was actually on the rig when it exploded and was at work. Mark: Alright, let's slow down. Wait, hold on, slow down, so you were working on this rig when it exploded? James: Yes sir. Mark: OK, go ahead. James: We had set the bottom cement plug for the inner casing string, which was the production liner for the well, and had set what's called a seal assembly on the top of the well. At that point, the BOP stack that he was talking about, the blow out preventer was tested. I don't know the results of that test; however, it must have passed because at that point they elected to displace the risers ~ the marine riser from the vessel to the sea floor. They displaced the mud out of the riser preparing to unlatch from the well two days later and they displaced it with sea water. When they concluded the BOP stack test and the inner liner, they concluded everything was good. Mark: Let me slow you down, let me slow you down. So they do all these tests to make sure the infrastructure can handle what's about to happen, right? James: Correct, we're testing the negative pressure and positive pressure of the well, the casing and the actual marine riser. Mark: OK, I'm with you. Go ahead. James: Alright, after the conclusion of the test, they simply opened the BOP stack back up. Mark: And the test, as best as you know, was sufficient? James: It should have been, yes sir. They would have never opened it back up. Mark: OK next step, go ahead. James: Next step, they opened the annular, the upper part of the BOP stack Mark: Which has what purpose? Why do you do that? James: So that you can gain access back to the wellbore. Mark: OK James: When you close the stack, it's basically a humongous hydraulic valve that closes off everything from below and above. It's like a gate valve on the sea floor. Mark: OK James: That's a very simplistic way of explaining a BOP. It's a very complicated piece of equipment. Mark: Basically, it's like a plug. But go ahead. James: Correct. Once they open that plug to go ahead and start cementing the top of the well (the well bore), we cement the top, and then basically we would pull off. Another rig would slide over and do the rest of the completions work. When they opened the well is when the gas well kicked, and we took a humongous gas bubble kick up through the well bore. It literally pushed the sea water all the way to the crown of the rig, which is about 240 feet in the air. Mark: OK, so gas got into it and blew the top off of it. James: Right. Mark: Now don't hang up. I want to continue with you because I want to ask you some questions related to this, OK? Including, has this sort of thing ever happened before, and why you think it may have happened, OK? Mark: Alright, back to James, that's not his real name, Dallas WBAP. I'm not going to give the working title of what you did there either, James, but I wanted to finish. So, the gentleman was right about the point that obviously some gas got into the, I'll call it the funnel, OK? James: Correct, and that's not uncommon, Mark. Anytime you're drilling an oil well, there is a constant battle between the mud weight, the drilling fluid that we use to maintain pressure, and the wellbore itself. There's a balance. The well is pushing gas one way and you are pushing mud the other way. So there is a delicate balance that has to be maintained at all times to keep the gas from coming back in, what we call the kicks. You know, we always get gas back in the mud, but the goal of the whole situation is to try to control the kick. Not allow the pressure to differentiate between the vessel and the wellbore. Mark: Well, in this case, obviously, too much gas got in. James: Correct, and this well had a bad history of producing lots of gas. It was touch and go a few times and was not terribly uncommon. You're almost always going to get gas back from a well. We have systems to deal with the gas, however. Mark: So, what may have happened here? James: Well, the sheer volume and pressure of gas that hit all at once which was more than the safeties and controls we had in place could handle. Mark: And that's like a mistake on somebody's part or maybe its just Mother Nature every now and then kicks up or what? James: Mother Nature every now and then kicks up. The pressures that we're dealing with out there, drilling deeper, deeper water, deeper overall volume of the whole vessel itself, you're dealing with 30 to 40 thousand pounds per square inch range ~ serious pressures. Mark: Not to offend you, but we just verified that you are who you are, which I'm sure you already knew that. I would like to hold you over to the next hour because I would like to ask a few more questions about this, as well as what happened exactly after the explosion, during the explosion and after. Can you wait with us? James: Sure, I don't know how much of that I can share, but I'll do my best. Mark: Alright, well I don't want to get you in trouble. So if you can stay, fine, but if you can't, we understand. PART 2 OF MARK'S INTERVIEW: Mark: We are talking to a caller under an assumed name who was on the rig when it blew up and we've been talking about how it happened. And now James, I want to take you to the point of when it happened. What exactly happened? Where were you standing? James: Well obviously, the gas blew the sea water out of the riser, once it displaced all of the sea water, the gas began to spill out on the deck and up through the center of the rig floor. The rig, you have to imagine a rectangle, about 400 feet by 300 feet, with the derrick and the rig floor sitting directly in the center. As this gas is now heavier than air, it starts to settle in different places. From that point, something ignited the gas, which would have caused the first major explosion. Mark: Now, what might ignite the gas, do you know? James: Any number of things, Mark. All rig floor equipment is what they consider intrinsically safe, meaning it cannot generate a spark, so that these types of accidents cannot occur. However, as much gas that came out as fast as it did, it would have spilled over the entire rig fairly rapidly, you know, within a minute. I would think that the entire rig would be enveloped in gas. Now a lot of this stuff, you can't smell, you can't taste it, it's just there, and it's heavier than oxygen. As it settled in, it could have made it to a space that wasn't intrinsically safe. Something as simple as static electricity could have ignited the first explosion, which set off a series of explosions. Mark: Alright, so what happened? You're standing where? You're sitting somewhere? What happened? James: Well, I was in a location that was a pretty good ways from the initial blast. I wasn't affected by the blast. I was able to make it out and get up forward where the life boats were. The PA system was still working. There was an announcement overhead that this was NOT a drill. Obviously, we have fire drills every single week to prepare for emergencies like this (fire and abandonment drills). Over the intercom came the order to report to life boats one and two, that this was not a drill, that there is a fire, and we proceeded that way. Mark: So, the eleven men who died, were they friends of yours? James: Yes sir, they were. Mark: Did they die instantly? James: I would have to assume so. Yes, sir. I would think that they were directly inside the bomb when it went off, the gas being the bomb. Mark: So, the bomb being the gas explosion? James: Correct. They would have been in the belly of the beast. Mark: Now, let me ask you, and we have to be careful what we say because there are people that will run wild with ideas, so I just want to make sure. James: Sure. Mark: So, let me ask you this, why would the government send in a SWAT team to a rig? What's that all about? James: Well, believe it or not, its funny you would mention that. Transocean, the drilling company, maintains a SWAT team and that's their sole purpose. They're experts in their field. The BOP, the blowout preventer, they call that subsea equipment. They have their own SWAT teams that they send out to the rigs to service and maintain that equipment. Mark: Yeah but I'm talking about what are interior SWAT teams? What is that? James: The interior, from the government now, I don't have an idea about that, that's beyond me. The other gentleman also mentioned the USGS that comes out and does the surveys. I've been on that particular rig for three years, offshore for five years, and I've seen a USGS one time. What we do have on a very regular basis is the MMS, which is the Minerals Management Service. Mark: They're all under the interior department. James: OK. Yes. As a matter of fact, we were commended for our inspection record from the MMS. We are actually receiving an award from them for the highest level of safety and environmental awareness. Mark: Well, I thought you were going to receive that award. Didn't they put it on hold? James: No, we have actually received that award. We received it last year. We may have been ready to receive it again this year. Mark: Let me ask you this, so the life boats, how did you get into these life boats? Where are these life boats? James: There are actually four life boats ~ two forward and two on the left, depending on where the emergency or the tragedy has taken place. Mark: Did you wind up jumping in the water to get in to the life boat? Sometimes you have to do that. James: I'll just say that there were five to seven individuals that jumped and the rest went down in the life boats. Mark: Alright, I won't ask because you don't want to identify yourself that clearly. Good point. How fast were the rescue efforts? How fast did they reach you? James: It is common to have a very large work boat standing by, to bring tools out, groceries, and supplies; it's a constant turn around. So we actually have a very large vessel real close by. It was actually along the side with the hose attached, taking mud off of our vessel on its own. It had to emergency disconnect and then pull out about a mile to stand by for rescue efforts. So, it was fairly quick. Mark: How quick till the Coast Guard got there? James: Mark, it's hard to say, between 45 minutes to an hour is when I recall seeing the first helicopter. Mark: Which is actually pretty fast because you are 130 miles offshore right? James: Correct. If you look at the nearest spill of land which would be Grand Isle, Louisiana, somewhere in that area, we were only about maybe 50 miles where the crew flies up. From civilization, such as New Orleans, it would be 200 miles. The helicopter was more than likely 80 to 100 miles away. Mark: You are going to be beset by lawyers, with the government, and others looking for an opportunity to make money. It's going to get very, very ugly and the officials going there have really no backgrounds or experience... I mean, to what extent is that going to help anything? It's silly. James: To me it seems knee jerk. The number one focus right now is containment. I like the idea about the boom. They are going to try to lower it down into the water to capture the leak. Mark: How long might that take? I've been reading about this boom and it says that it could take 30 days to do that. James: It very well could. You have to remember that this is a challenging environment. You know its 5,000 feet deep, there's a tangled wreck of a rig with the marine riser still connected and twisted into a big wad down there. So it's going to take some time to get all that stuff in place. The engineering has to be there; obviously they don't want to rush into it. You want to move it expediently but you are risking the lives of those men that are going to go out there and try to attempt it - that's just not right. Mark: I was just going say that. That's very dangerous, I mean extremely dangerous. James: Absolutely, absolutely. There will be oil. There will be natural gases. All the same things that caused us to explode are still present, and they're there. The pressure had been cut off dramatically, from the simple fact of the folding of the riser. Basically take this big garden hose and kink it several times. Mark: How old is this rig? How long has it been there? James: It was put in service in 2001. It's a fairly new rig. Mark: And, what is the sense in shutting down every rig in the Gulf of Mexico in response to this? James: Absolutely senseless, whatsoever. This literally could very well be a once in a lifetime freak accident, or it could be negligence. That's for other people to figure out. From my position, it just seems like every now and then, you can't win against Mother Nature. She throws a curve ball that you are not prepared for. Mark: But to shut down every rig in response to this? I mean... I'm not sure why. James: The BOP tests are literally mandated from the Mineral Management Service and they are conducted like clockwork. I mean, if any of those tests ever failed, they would have immediately stopped operations, sealed the well up, pulled the BOP stack back up on the deck, which is 48 hours minimum, and made the necessary repairs or replacement parts, and then would get it back down, re-connect, re-test, and keep testing it, until it passed or kept on repairing it until it passed. Mark: So this was a… I mean this must have been harrowing to you. I mean to experience something like this. James: That's putting it mildly. Mark: Anything else you want to tell me? James: No, I just got into the truck to make a short trip and I heard a gentleman say something about possible terrorism and I want to put that to bed now. I understand you have a large audience. I appreciate your point of view. I try to listen to you as much as I can, the terrorism call just needs to leave everyone's minds and let's focus on the 11 men that are dead and the survivors. That's where the focus of this country needs to be right now. Mark: Alright my friend, we wish you all the best and I tell you that it's really God's blessing that you survived, it really is. James: Yes sir, I completely agree. Mark: Alright James, thank you very much for calling and we appreciate it. James: Thank you, Mark. Mark: Alright, God bless.

http://peakoilpetroleumandpreciousmetals.yuku.com/topic/11895/t/Deepwater-Horizon-A-Firsthand-Account.html

Naples Beach, Florida

HISS BEFORE THE BLAST, RECOLLECTIONS FROM RIG SURVIVORS

By Eric Nalder & Lindsay Wise
Houston Chronicle

5/5/2010

Minutes before the Deepwater Horizon exploded in fire, workers on the deck heard a thump, then a hissing sound. Gas alarms sounded and the rig shook.

Seawater and mud containing gas from the well spewed up through the crown of the derrick and rained down on the drilling floor; fumes reportedly moved into the "safe zones" where the electric generators are located. The generators raced out of control as they sucked gas into the air intakes.

When the electric power surged, light bulbs exploded, computers and other electric systems were destroyed, leaving the rig in darkness except for the light from fires and explosions that ripped apart walls, according to accounts derived from interviews with attorneys representing survivors, missing rig workers and their families, as well as experts in the field of offshore drilling operations.

Before the blowout, the rig's crew had been replacing heavy and valuable drilling mud with lighter salt sea­water in the top section of the pipe, known as the riser -- the purpose being to extract the mud so they could remove the riser, several sources said. While doing so, they had to secure the wellhead to keep oil and gas from blowing out.

But blow out it did.

Kevin Eugene, a steward on the rig, said he was in his bunk watching TV at about 10 p.m. when a "big old loud boom" and an alarm went off "almost simultaneously."

The lights went out. The platform began shaking.

"I thought the place was falling in the ocean, that the whole rig was collapsing," said the father of four from Slidell, La.

Ceiling tiles, dust and debris rained down from overhead. Clad only in his pajama pants and undershirt, he scrambled down a hallway toward an exit to a stairwell that would lead to a lifeboat up on deck. He heard more explosions, but can't remember how many.

Family of a missing crew member. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

When he got onto the deck, he felt a blast of heat and saw flames about 200 yards away.

"I mean it was the hugest, biggest fire I've ever seen," Eugene said. "It was just a big ol' ball of fire up there on the derrick. The whole derrick was on fire. The fire was shooting from out the well over there that the derrick was connected to and you could hear the gas gushing out."

The deck was covered with oily mud.

Blowout preventer failed

All these things ~ the mud, the alarms and the job that was being done that day ~ will be key in determining why the Deepwater Horizon exploded, and ultimately sank, killing 11 and causing the nation's worst oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico.

Alarms designed to detect escaping gas sounded on the drilling floor minutes before the eruption, said attorney Ronnie Penton of Bogalusa, La., whose client, a rig worker, escaped by jumping off the rig and whose job included maintaining the alarms.

When the alarms go off, "you shut it down," said Daniel Becnel, an attorney from Reserve, La., who has filed lawsuits on behalf of fishermen, oystermen and other Louisiana residents claiming damages from the spill. "They've got panic switches all over the place."

Those switches are supposed to activate a blowout preventer on the ocean floor, a huge and complex tower of valves and pipe crimpers designed to shut down a well in an emergency. It didn't work.

Although it had been tested beforehand, BP now says robot submarines have discovered at least one problem with the blowout preventer, though it is unclear whether it caused the malfunction.

"We have found that there are some leaks on the hydraulic controls," said Bob Fryar, senior vice president of BP's exploration and production operations in Angola, in southwestern Africa.

Investigations will be done by the Minerals Management Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, plaintiffs' attorneys, BP and others. The probes likely will focus in part on whether all safety standards were followed, or whether any critical shortcuts were taken.

Daren Beaudo and David Nicholas, spokesmen for BP, said any comment on the circumstances prior to the blowout would be "premature."

Guy Cantwell, spokesman for drilling rig owner Transocean, also declined to go on record, saying, "At this time we cannot get ahead of ourselves with respect to the facts of this incident, and to do so would be speculation."

It wasn't an ordinary day

On April 20, at 11 a.m., the day's procedures were laid out at a crew meeting on the rig, according to Penton, and it wasn't going to be an ordinary workday.

BP was temporarily abandoning the well. The Deepwater Horizon was being detached from the well to be moved to another location, as soon as the next day. And the well was being capped.

Experts say well-capping poses special hazards. One arose that day as crews were replacing the mud with seawater in pipes going from the ocean floor to the rig.

Deep gases exert astounding upward pressure on a well. Drilling mud, a heavy fluid used to lubricate the drill and bring up bits and pieces of rock, is used as the main line of defense against the upward pressure, or a disastrous eruption of gas.

The mud was being displaced so the riser could be detached from the rig and the wellhead, and the well could be capped with a final cement plug. But seawater is much lighter than mud. The pressure the riser was applying to the well would have lessened by as much as 38 percent, experts said.

That could prove significant.

Investigators will be considering whether it is likely that the drill hole and the casing pipe were secured properly with cement a day earlier.

"The big question is how confident were they in the casing cementing job," said Elmer "Bud" Danenberger, who recently retired as chief of offshore regulatory programs for the Minerals Management Service. "They shouldn't have begun this (riser) operation until they were confident in that."

Cementing job tested

Cementing problems have caused other blowouts, including a major one last August in the Timor Sea and up to 18 in the Gulf of Mexico since 1992, documents show.

Directed by BP, Halliburton had cemented the well below the Deepwater Horizon 20 hours before the blowout, presumably enough time for the cement to properly set. Halliburton said in a written release that it had properly tested the effectiveness of the cement job, but it did not reveal those test results.

Questions are being raised about those tests, and about everything from the nature of the fluid used to push down the plug to the chemistry of the cement itself.

Also at issue will be other plugs in the well. Halliburton said the final cement plug at the top of the well had not been installed because "operations had not yet reached the point" requiring it.

Penton said his client told him that the "seal assembly" ~ an important plug down in the well ~ had been set less than a half hour before the blowout.

"This was a modern marvel," said attorney Richard Arsenault of Alexandria, La., referring to the high-tech Deepwater Horizon, built in 2001 and insured by Transocean for $560 million. "If that kind of technology can't prevent this kind of disaster, that's very troubling."

NEW WORLD ORDER ~ NATURAL RESOURCES INVESTING

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MOTHER OF ALL GUSHERS COULD KILL ALL EARTH'S OCEANS

‘...man brought in destructive forces to be used by people that were rulers. These destructive forces combined with those natural resources of the gases, of the electrical forces made in nature, caused volcanic eruptions...we find in various portions of the world, even in the present day, some form of legend of these events referring to an ‘Eden’ of the world.’ (363-4) ~ Edgar Cayce

Thanks to Dublin Mick for passing me this post. What I read it last night left me to suffer a restless night only to awaken three hours later, unable to sleep, alert and on the edge. I have remembered something from far back in the past and I am very troubled. Very troubled indeed. I cannot shake the mood.

All of my life I have considered Atlantis to have been a very real place. Instinctively, I have been aware that much of what has happened in the last few centuries have been repetitions but with our current technology. I will not go into detail, this following piece would never get posted, however, Atlantis blew twice.

‘...These periods when there was the application of much that is being discovered or rediscovered today, in application of power to modes of transit...’ (2562-1; 5/9/41) ~ Edgar Cayce

As always, these earth-shaking events were the result of actions by the malfeasant, power-hungry unheeding soulless individuals who are among us again. With Atlantis, both earth-shaking disasters were the result of meddling with planetary balance as they kept drilling deeper into her.

The first was upheaval was pretty bad, erasing at least one entire continent and most of its inhabitants. For a few thousand years, the will of the surviving people prevailed and the scientific ones laid low. However their quest for domination over the other side of the globe led them to even deeper drilling and the planet responded once again.

This time Atlantis went under and we today hear "myths" in our religious tomes and from many native peoples of the great flood that resulted in so many changes.

I have always felt that fire would take us out when the hour arrived. I remember somewhere that each time the civilization (What a lie that term is in today's climate) was destroyed it would be by a different element. The recent spate of death dealing weapons used to fry or holocaust victims such as in Gaza, were mere portents of what is to come, I felt.

Oil floats and kills all beneath it. The thought of all that oil set alight is a true nightmare. of Biblical proportions. And what caused it? Once again, man's greed and need for dominance which requires fossil fuels to maintain his hideous desires. Once again, Earth has responded to his drilling. And once again, humanity faces a horror like no other.

Our beautiful planet has been sullied beyond repair with this horrid event and will never be the same. NEVER. Never is a very long long time.

We have suffered these greedy bastards long enough! I, for one, am angrier than I have been in a long time for their goddam meddling. As for my rambling about Atlantis, they know EXACTLY what I am talking about. They were there and these same souls are at it again. There are no words foul enough in my vocabulary for them, no words to express my loathing of these creatures.

Now here is the article Dublin Mick sent me.

September 5, 2006 ~ MASSIVE OIL FIELD FOUND UNDER GULF

Imagine a pipe 5 feet wide spewing crude oil like a fire hose from what could be the planets' largest, high-pressure oil and gas reserve.

With the best technology available to man, the Deepwater Horizon rig popped a hole into that reserve and was overwhelmed.

If this isn't contained, it could poison all the oceans of the world.

"Well, if you say the fire hose has a 70,000 psi pump on the other end, yes! No comparison here. The volume out rises geometrically with pressure. Its a squares function. Two times the pressure is 4 times the push. The Alaska pipeline is 4 feet in diameter and pushes with a lot less pressure. This situation in the Gulf of Mexico is stunning dangerous." ~ Paul Noel (May 2, 2010)

Last night we received the following text in an email, author not identified. I passed it by Paul Noel, who is an expert in the field. His response follows thereafter. In calculating the gallons required to kill the oceans, remember that oil goes to the surface, where life is concentrated.

The Oil Mess

The original estimate was about 5,000 gallons of oil a day spilling into the ocean. Now they're saying 200,000 gallons a day. That's over a million gallons of crude oil a week!

I'm engineer with 25 years of experience. I've worked on some big projects with big machines. Maybe that's why this mess is so clear to me.

First, the BP platform was drilling for what they call deep oil. They go out where the ocean is about 5,000 feet deep and drill another 30,000 feet into the crust of the earth. This is right on the edge of what human technology can do.

Well, this time they hit a pocket of oil at such high pressure that it burst all of their safety valves all the way up to the drilling rig and then caused the rig to explode and sink.

Take a moment to grasp the import of that. The pressure behind this oil is so high that it destroyed the maximum effort of human science to contain it.

When the rig sank it flipped over and landed on top of the drill hole some 5,000 feet under the ocean.

Now they've got a hole in the ocean floor, 5,000 feet down with a wrecked oil drilling rig sitting on top of it spewing 200,000 [gallons] of oil a day into the ocean. Take a moment and consider that, will you!

First they have to get the oil rig off the hole to get at it in order to try to cap it. Do you know the level of effort it will take to move that wrecked oil rig, sitting under 5,000 feet of water? That operation alone would take years and hundreds of millions to accomplish. Then, how do you cap that hole in the muddy ocean floor?

There just is no way.

No way.

The only piece of human technology that might address this is a nuclear bomb. I'm not kidding. If they put a nuke down there in the right spot it might seal up the hole. Nothing short of that will work. [See Paul Noel's ideas above.]

If we can't cap that hole,
that oil is going to destroy
the oceans of the world.
It only takes one quart of motor oil
to make 250,000 gallons
of ocean water toxic to wildlife.
Are you starting to get the magnitude of this?

We're so used to our politicians creating false crises to forward their criminal agendas that we aren't recognizing that we're staring straight into possibly the greatest disaster mankind will ever see.

Imagine what happens if that oil keeps flowing until it destroys all life in the oceans of this planet. Who knows how big of a reservoir of oil is down there.

Not to mention that the oceans are critical to maintaining the proper oxygen level in the atmosphere for human life.

We're humped.
Unless God steps in and fixes this.
No human can.
You can be sure of that.

See also: Oil spill Much Much Worse than reported and Not Stopping Soon (Christian Science Monitor)

Response by Paul Noel
for Pure Energy Systems News

I really do think that the situation is getting further and further out of hand.

By yesterday morning, the nature of the crude had changed, indicating that the spill was collapsing the rock structures. How much I cannot say. If it is collapsing the rock structures, the least that can be said is that the rock is fragmenting and blowing up the tube with the oil.

With that going on you have a high pressure abrasive sand blaster working on the kinks in the pipe eroding it causing the very real risk of increasing the leaks.

More than that is the very real risk of causing the casing to become unstable and literally blowing it up the well bringing the hole to totally open condition.

Another risk arises because, according to reports, the crew was cementing the exterior of the casing when this happens.

As a result, the well, if this was not properly completed, could begin to blow outside the casing.

Another possible scenario is a sea floor collapse.

If that happens ~ Katie bar the door.

Possible Fix

I do not see any good possibilities from humans further fracturing the rock particularly at higher levels. That is the cap rock that is holding the deposit together.

I do see a possible use of explosives for favorable outcome. If a properly sized charge were applied in a shaped fashion around the drill pipe at some distance from it ~ say 5 feet or so ~ it is entirely possible that an explosive charge could pinch the pipe off similar to a hydraulic clamp.

The resulting situation would vastly reduce the spill. Once you clamped off the pipe much more substantially say down to 1 foot or less opening the resulting pipe could be charge cut above the location and a tapered pipe fitted to it to collect any leaking oil.

The end result would be to contain the spill and dramatically control any leaks because drill mud could then be entered into the pipe fitted to the exterior. In the end, the pipe could be controlled that way. The size of a charge to do this would be a few pounds not megatons.

A nuclear detonation carries the real risk of giving us the full doomsday scenario on this well.

I just don't like doing that.

There is no coming back from the brink when you do that one.

If it works, which I see as unlikely, great.

If it doesn't work, there is now a maybe a hole 1/4 mile across leaking oil.

That looks worse than any possible outcomes otherwise.

Oil Deposit Capacity

The BP people are not talking, but this well is into a deposit that easily could top 500,000 barrels production per day for 10 or 15 years. Letting that all go in one blast seems more than foolish.

The deposit is one I have known about since 1988. The deposit is very big. The central pressure in the deposit is 165 to 170 thousand PSI. It contains so much hydrocarbon that you simply cannot imagine it. In published reports, BP estimated a blow out could reach near 200,000 Barrels per day (165,000) They may have estimated a flow rate on a 5 foot pipe. The deposit is well able to surpass this.

The oil industry has knowledge of the deposit ~ more than they admit. The deposit is 100 miles off shore. They are drilling into the edge of the deposit to leak it down gently to be able to produce from the deposit.

The deposit is so large that, while I have never heard exact numbers, it was described to me to be either the largest or the second largest oil deposit ever found. It is mostly a natural gas deposit. That is another reason not to blast too willynilly there. The natural gas that could be released is really way beyond the oil in quantity. It is like 10,000 times the oil in the deposit.

It is this deposit that has me reminding people of what the Shell geologist told me about the deposit. This was the quote, "Energy shortage..., Hell! We are afraid of running out of air to burn."

The deposit is very large. It covers an area off shore something like 25,000 square miles. Natural Gas and Oil is leaking out of the deposit as far inland as Central Alabama and way over into Florida and even over to Louisiana almost as far as Texas. This is a really massive deposit. Punching holes in the deposit is a really scary event as we are now seeing.

Rig and Pipe Info

The pipe is a fairly rigid pipe and sticks up out of the Blow out prevention device for some distance before it bends over and kinks off. The distance is not long but is enough to do what I suggested. Explosive forming of metals is a standard technology and under water it is easier. The charge focuses very predictably.

Imagine a long straw that is 1 mile long and has kinked over in several locations. This is about what you have. I have seen the submarine photos from early on. Just a really big straw. It has about a 1.5 or 2 foot diameter drill pipe in the center with about a 10 inch hole down the center. I am not exactly sure on the drill pipe size. The casing here is very thick steel. It has to handle massive pressures.

The rig is quite some distance away from the well. It may be a 1/4 mile or more away. It sort of bent over and then kinked the pipe as it went down.

Deepwater Horizon Rig in calmer days.
"It's burning pretty good and there's no estimate on when the fire will be put out,"Coast Guard Senior Chief Petty Officer Mike O'Berry during rescue mission.

I guess the size here sort of bends the imagination. This rig has a deck area of about 3 to 4 acres. It had a crew quarters on board that had about 120 people in it. (Imagine a big hotel here.) The hotel on the rig was about 4 stories high.

You just cannot imagine until you see these rigs how big they are. If you want to see one go to Mobile Bay. Gulf High Island 2 and other rigs in the area can be seen clearly for 90 miles from Pensacola Florida. The towers go up 1100 feet. You can take the ferry right between two rigs if you go from Fort Morgan to Dauphin Island. There is no comparison to these rig anywhere in the world. They are the biggest ever built bar none.

Controls That Should Have Been In Place

By the way, I am not against drilling it, I am just against doing so without proper controls.

The rig that was drilling was not a US Flagged rig. That means US Inspectors were not allowed on board the rig to inspect it. As a matter of National Security under the GATT the USA has a right to demand US Only in various technology. The USA should never allow a foreign flag vessel to drill for oil in the US Economic Zone (200 mile limit).

Acoustic automated shut of devices should be required.

I think US Federal Inspectors should have to be resident on and inspecting rigs like this 24/7.

I think that the drilling should be required to do some smaller holes that deliberately miss the main deposit that test the structure before main drilling operations happen.

Careful procedures should be in place to set up wells before they hit the main deposit. The well casing should have to be inserted well before the drill hits the deposit and it should have to be cemented in at least 2 weeks prior to finishing the hole down to the oil or gas. This is to give the cement time to set. The casing should have ridging to make this cement have a tight wedged grip on the miles of rock around it. This is required because the lift pressure on a pipe in this case could easily reach 20 million pounds of lift. This is an insane amount of up pressure. Even at 70,000 psi it would lift about 140 million pounds. (almost 64,000 long tons!)

****

I suspect that the series of disasters we have seen in mines around the world and in the USA regards coal and oil are the product of pushing the crews and developments too fast due to the high economic pressures.

This happened the last time (Sago and others) when the economic pressure started rising. The economic pressures on the energy prices are stunning. Everyone is trying to keep their economy going. You can measure the economic output of a nation directly with the energy consumption day to day.

The USA dropped its energy consumption in the current downturn (depression) by about 24%. It is now rising again. We are about 19% down and rising.

The current situation is that the developments in oil/gas and coal are not keeping pace with what is going to be the demand shortly. They cannot even hope to meet the demand.

This is why I said that Alternative Energy is the only hope.

They can push the pedal to the metal (figuratively speaking) and there is not going to be a speed up much.

Since human demand is going to force increases in supply towards 3 times the current level in less than 30 years, we are looking at a big hole with no hope of fixing it.

Air pollution world wide is reaching levels that are at the limits of the environment to take the demands. This increase in energy has to come from somewhere else.

Nuclear power doesn't have the potential. It turns out to run out of fuel in about 30 years. Worse yet solving the problem with nuclear doesn't do anything but boil away scarce fresh water supplies. All combustion does this.

The only solutions are ones where the energy comes from somewhere else.

Solar and Wind are good options.

As you are also aware, the hard core alternatives are there in magnetic power etc. This has to come.

The alternatives to drilling US Waters for oil if we solve this with oil are to depend more and more on hostile powers for oil.

Funding your enemies is insane.

Drilling in US waters risks ever increasing threats of what we have going on right now.

The collapse of rock structures is even more scary.

Mexico has one entire state that is being held up by nitrogen injection wells that would sink if that gas is released. This is not funny stuff. I know I get punched by the "know nothings" out there with political agenda, but I will risk it.

If you will note the Oil and Gas people pretty much don't say anything against me. They know.

I have been to some of their events and they actually like what I have to say. They cannot say it for fear of their jobs.

If one estimates the cost of a barrel of oil from the Middle East, the US Armed Forces cost added in would drive it to about $2000/barrel.

If people paid this at the pump they would be demanding what I say with force so high you couldn't hear anything else. If you factor in the cost of spills and such domestic oil probably costs $500/barrel or more.

This is just insane.

****

Paul Noel, 52, works as Software Engineer (as Contractor) for the US Army at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. He has a vast experience base including education across a wide area of technical skills and sciences. He supplies technical expertise in all areas required for new products development associated with the US Army office he works in. He supplies extensive expertise in understanding the Oil and Gas industry as well.

Born in Lynnwood Washington, he came to Huntsville Alabama, when his father moved to be part of NASA’s effort to put men on the moon. Neal Armstrong may have gotten the ride, but his father’s computers did the driving.

Paul is also a founding member of the New Energy Congress.

Previous Coverage

Oil > Ecological Impact > Deepwater Horizon debacle pushes alt energy - In addition to devastating ecological despoiling, the oil slick could shut down Mississippi River transport, effecting nearly half of U.S. import/export commerce. The damage to the tourism industry in Alabama and Florida could top $25 Billion a year for several years. Faced with this disaster the Obama Administration has just stopped all off shore drilling. (PESN; May 1, 2010)

What They're Doing (Follow-up)

Al Jazeera looks at what engineers are facing in trying to stem the flow of oil. (YouTube; May 01, 2010)

• Picture becoming clearer on BP Deepwater Horizon incident - BP said on Sunday that the GSF Development Driller II will drill a second relief well on the Mississippi Canyon 252 block. GSF Development Driller III spudded the first relief well on May 2. Discoverer Enterprise, also on location will work on containment. Oil flows from the end of the riser, the end of the drill pipe and a crack in the riser. BP sheared off the drill pipe and will install a valve in the next one or two days. This will stop one of the three leaks. (Gerson Lehrman Group; May 3, 2010)
• BP spuds relief well - BP said it spud the first of two planned relief wells to intervene in the Macondo exploration well that is leaking an estimated 5000 barrels per day into the US Gulf. The effort is expected to take at between two and three months, Suttles confirmed. (Upstream Online; May 3, 2010)
• Deepwater.com/.../Development-Driller-III...
  

Additional Links

• Deepwater Horizon.pdf - brief history and photos of fire.
• http://www.state.nj.us/dep/watershedmgt/waterbook_chp10.htm - Motor Oil: "One part per million (1ppm) can make water unsafe to drink; 35 ppm can produce a visible oil slick that damages aquatic life, including fish and shellfish; and 50 ppm can foul a wastewater treatment plant."
• Leaked report: Government fears Deepwater Horizon well could become unchecked gusher 30 Apr 2010 'The following is not public' document ~ A confidential government report on the unfolding spill disaster in the Gulf makes clear the Coast Guard now fears the well could become an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf.

  "The following is not public," reads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Emergency Response document dated April 28. "Two additional release points were found today in the tangled riser. If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought."

Oil > Ecological Impact / Dependence > Productively directing our Deepwater Horizon anger - In response to the Gulf of Mexico predicament, Author Jeane Manning urges against depression, which is anger turned inward. Instead, she suggests that people direct their anger into propagating awareness of solutions to our addiction to oil, which have been available and suppressed for sometimes a century. The book she coauthored, Breakthrough Power, is a good tool. (JeaneManning; May 1, 2010)

Comments

• View/post comments below or at our Examiner.com version of this story. Also at BeforeItsNews

Other forums that have picked up this story include:

• AboveTopSecret.com/forum/thread567266/pg1
  • HarmfulAdditives.com/hd/index.php?t=toxic+mother
• DemocraticUnderground.com/...&address=389x8259665
• GodlikeProductions.com/forum1/message1053829/pg1
• goldismoney2.com/s...3903-Mother-of-all-gushers-could-kill-Earth-s-oceans
  • sodahead.com/united-states/mother-of-all-gushers-could-kill-earths-oceans...
• reddit.com/r/politics/comments/bzgev/mother_of_all_gushers_could_kill_earths_oceans/
• stumbleupon.com/url/pesn.com/...Mother_of_all_gushers_could_kill_Earths_oceans/
• abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/newposts/4645/topic4645868.shtm
• mountainsageblog.com/2010/05/03/mother-of-all-gushers/ - includes a time lapse animation of the oil spill spread so far.
• Environmental-Balance.net/
• CureZone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1616182
• Forums.Hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=2751972
• Forums.MySpace.com/t/4777072.aspx...
• MyGeni.org/view/weblink.mygeni?wid=885
• vnboards.ign.com/ac_friends/b5258/113013315/p1/
• watchermeetup.50.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4954
• dprogram.net/2010/05/03/mother-of-all-gushers-could-kill-earths-oceans/
• linksalpha.com/link?id=mother-of-all-gushers-could-kill-earths-oceans-258977
• gazbom.blogspot.com/2010/05/mother-of-all-gushers-could-kill-earths.html
• geofinancial.blogspot.com/2010/05/mother-of-all-gushers-could-kill-earths.html
• alldeaf.com/...mother-all-gushers-could-kill-earths-oceans.html
• thetreeofliberty.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1010909
• theprogressivemind.info/?p=37340
• hoanewsnetwork.com/...mother_of_all_gushers_could_kill_earths_oceans.php
• truthiscontagious.com/2010/05/03/mother-of-all-gushers-could-kill-earths-oceans
• peopleforfreedom.com/.../mother-of-all-gushers-could-kill-earths-oceans/
• landofthenotsofree.blogspot.com/2010/05/mother-of-all-gushers-could-kill-earths.html
• rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=172411
• freedomsphoenix.com/Feature-Article.htm?InfoNo=068322

Contain the Upsurge: Free Oil On May 3, 2010; 9:45 am, Raphial Morgado phoned and said: It's going to take a long time to cap this at the source. Don't worry about that now. We need to figure out a way to turn a bad thing into good by harvesting the crude oil on the surface where it bubbles up. We should focus all our efforts on containing it there. Don't think of it as a clean up effort, think of it as a collecting effort. Bring all the tankers needed to pump it up. We can't allow this oil to float out into the wider sea. Invite all willing parties to come and pump it up: "free oil".

* * * *

Scriptures of Interest

Revelation 8:9
A third of the living creatures in the sea died...

Ezekiel 32:14
Then will I make their waters deep, and cause their rivers to run like oil, saith the Lord GOD.

Actina Rig Blowout

On May 2, 2010, DaddyBare wrote: This isn't the first time we lost a rig working under those kids of pressures Offshore blowout involving Actinia semi-submersible oil rig, off Vietnam in February 1993. Compilation of footage from various helicopters, planes...

(YouTube; August 09, 2007)

See also

• Directory:Ecological Impact of Oil - index at PESWiki.com
• Directory:Abiotic Oil - index at PESWiki.com
• Directory:Oil - index at PESWiki.com
• Directory:Best_Exotic_Clean_Energy_Technologies - index at PESWiki.com
• More Stories by Paul Nowl

PESN (Pure Energy Systems News) | contributors ~ Feature stories on cutting-edge, clean energy technology.

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This Week in Free Energy™ - Ten-minute recap each Sunday, 7:50 - 8:00 pm Mountain.

More to come on this horror.