[THS] How the ultimate BP Gulf disaster could kill millions

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

http://www.helium.com/items/1864136-how-the-ultimate-bp-gulf-disaster-could-kill-millions

How the ultimate BP Gulf disaster could kill millions

Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under
the waters of the Gulf of Mexico

by Terrence Aym

Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under
the waters of the Gulf of Mexico ­something far worse than the BP oil gusher.

Warnings were raised as long as a year before the Deepwater Horizon disaster that
the area of seabed chosen by the BP geologists might be unstable, or worse,
inherently dangerous.

What makes the location that Transocean chose potentially far riskier than other
potential oil deposits located at other regions of the Gulf? It can be summed up with
two words: methane gas.

The same methane that makes coal mining operations hazardous and leads to
horrendous mining accidents deep under the earth also can present a high level of
danger to certain oil exploration ventures.

Location of Deepwater Horizon oil rig was criticized

More than 12 months ago some geologists rang the warning bell that the Deepwater
Horizon exploratory rig might have been erected directly over a huge underground
reservoir of methane.

Documents from several years ago indicate that the subterranean geologic formation
may contain the presence of a huge methane deposit.

None other than the engineer who helped lead the team to snuff the Gulf oil fires set
by Saddam Hussein to slow the advance of American troops has stated that a huge
underground lake of methane gas ­compressed by a pressure of 100,000 pounds per
square inch (psi)­could be released by BP's drilling effort to obtain the oil deposit.

Current engineering technology cannot contain gas that is pressurized to 100,000 psi.

By some geologists' estimates the methane could be a massive 15 to 20 mile toxic and
explosive bubble trapped for eons under the Gulf sea floor. In their opinion, the
explosive destruction of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead was an accident just waiting
to happen.

Yet the disaster that followed the loss of the rig pales by comparison to the
apocalyptic disaster that may come.

A cascading catastrophe

According to worried geologists, the first signs that the methane may burst its way
through the bottom of the ocean would be fissures or cracks appearing on the ocean
floor near the damaged well head.

Evidence of fissures opening up on the seabed have been captured by the robotic
submersibles working to repair and contain the ruptured well. Smaller, independent
plumes have also appeared outside the nearby radius of the bore hole itself.

According to some geological experts, BP's operations set into motion a series of
events that may be irreversible. Step-by-step the drilling team committed one error
after another.

Congressmen Henry Waxman, D-CA, and Bart Stupak, D-MI, in a letter sent to BP
CEO Tony Hayward, identified 5 missteps made by BP during the period culminating
with the explosion.

Waxman, chair of the Congressional energy panel and Stupak, the head of the
subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said, "The common feature of these
five decisions is that they posed a trade-off between cost and well safety."

The two Representatives also stated in the 14-page letter to Hayward that "Time after
time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save
the company time or expense."

Called by some insiders investigating the ongoing disaster a "perfect storm of
catastrophe," the wellhead blew on the sea floor catapulting a stream of mud, oil and
gas upwards at the speed of sound.

In describing the events ­that transpired in a matter of seconds ­they note that
immediately following the rupture the borehole pipe's casing blew away exposing a
straight line 8 miles deep for the pressurized gas to escape. The result was cavitation,
an irregular pressure variance sometimes experience by deep diving vessels such as
nuclear submarines. This cavitation created a supersonic bubble of explosive
methane gas that resulted in a supersonic explosion killing 11 men and completely
annihilating the drilling platform.

Death from the depths

With the emerging evidence of fissures, the quiet fear now is the methane bubble
rupturing the seabed and exploding into the Gulf waters. If the bubble escapes,
every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will
instantaneously sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine
biologists measuring the oil plumes' advance will instantly perish.

As horrible as that is, what would follow is an event so potentially horrific that it
equals in its fury the Indonesian tsunami that killed more than 600,000, or the
destruction of Pompeii by Mt. Vesuvius.

The ultimate Gulf disaster, however, would make even those historical horrors pale by
comparison. If the huge methane bubble breaches the seabed, it will erupt with an
explosive fury similar to that experienced during the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in
the Pacific Northwest. A gas gusher will surge upwards through miles of ancient
sedimentary rock ­layer after layer­ past the oil reservoir. It will explode upwards
propelled by 50 tons psi, burst through the cracks and fissures of the compromised
sea floor, and rupture miles of ocean bottom with one titanic explosion.

The burgeoning methane gas cloud will surface, killing everything it touches, and set
off a supersonic tsunami with the wave traveling somewhere between 400 to 600
miles per hour.

While the entire Gulf coastline is vulnerable, the state most exposed to the fury of a
supersonic wave towering 150 to 200 feet or more is Florida. The Sunshine State only
averages about 100 feet above sea level with much of the coastline and lowlands and
swamps near zero elevation. [Elevation map] A supersonic tsunami would literally
sweep away everything from Miami to the panhandle in a matter of minutes. Loss of
human life would be virtually instantaneous and measured in the millions. Of course
the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and  southern region of Georgia,
states with no Gulf coastline ­would also experience tens of thousands, if not
hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Loss of property is virtually incalculable and the days of the US position as the world's
superpower would be literally gone in a flash...of detonating methane.

Links

Evidence that methane gas catastrophe may be building

Video #1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMEr4FctWAM&feature=player_embedded #!

Video #2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMEr4FctWAM&feature=player_embedded #!