5 ms·

I think individuals should make it their business of collecting the crude oil into drums and selling it back to BP or at market. This isn't an Exxon Valdez situ

by darien 16y ago

I think individuals should make it their business of collecting the crude oil into drums and selling it back to BP or at market. This isn't an Exxon Valdez situation where the oil was contained inside a tanker, this gulf oil is spilling out of the earth. It should be anyone's oil, especially when the spill is in the process of destroying the environment and people's livelihoods. People should get out there and make some money... get congress behind you.

jacquesm 16y ago
If it were that easy to collect this oil in a usable form then I'm pretty sure that it would be done already. The problem here is that the oil is spread out and mixed in with all kinds of contaminants (or rather, there is all sorts of clean stuff mixed in with the oil, but since you're looking at extracting the oil let's name them contaminants), to do so cost effectively is likely impossible. The best you can hope for at this stage is that BP does not go bust (down about 29% since this all started, from $60 to $43 now), and that they will be able to pay for the cleanup.
- darien 16y ago
  Are you talking about the chemical dispersal contaminants more more physical containments (ie: algae, etc)? I don't think this is necessarily a for-profit situation in terms of refinement, but I think that there is a possibility that if groups and organizations assembled themselves to simply collect the oil, that they could publicly lobby congress to purchase the oil back. Essentially it will be the taxpayers who pay for cleanup either way. At least this way is faster and is more populist (in terms of flag-waving and what it means to be an american).
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    "simply collect the oil" If it were simple we wouldn't have a problem to begin with. There have been some pretty naive ideas tossed out that got huge media coverage (hair, straw and all kinds of nonsense), but these all seem to miss the main point: this stuff is spread out, it will spread out even further if you do nothing, and the amount of energy that goes in to collecting a spilled barrel of oil may well be more than the amount of energy that you gain by collecting it in the first place, which means you are going to have to do this at a substantial operational loss. You can't just stuff a few thousand cubic kilometers of ocean water in to a centrifuge and swirl it out, and then there is the law of diminishing returns, once you've done the 'easy' bit the hard bits only get harder because the concentrations diminish, so the cost of recovery goes up as the concentration goes down, the more it is mixed in the first place the harder this gets. Waiting until it comes ashore only compounds the problem, since it is going to be a lot harder to remove the oil from solids than it is from seawater.
    - krschultz 16y ago
      Nobody cares about the oil in the middle of the ocean, it will break down. Oil naturally breaks down in the ocean from microbes and the sun, not to mention it is flammable and they can burn large sections of it. The problem comes near the shore - and thats where absorbents and booms come in. Oil absorbent are not naive ideas, they are standard operating procedure. Any place that sells gas on the water in this country has a box full of booms and absorbent mats by law. This is just a much larger version of that so the availability of mats becomes an issue and so hair, mattress padding etc become options.
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        Yes, but from what I understand reading elsewhere they've done a lot of work to keep the oil underwater, so it will come ashore with the water itself rather than just on the surface, right ? As for the hair being naive, I figured the sheer quantities involved would make it rather impractical, the hay was a nice little setup in two bins of water on a benchtop but to execute that principle on a several hundred by several hundred kilometer area (at the moment) is a little bit harder.
        krschultz 16y ago
        I might be a little cynical, but I personally believe that keeping the oil underwater is worse and is simply a BP PR move. If it is underwater you can't burn it, you can't skim it, you can't absorb it, and the sun won't break it down. Sure it might not get into marshes as quickly, but instead microbes eat it and create total deoxygenation of the water. I have dealt with the cleanup of minor sewage spill that caused total deoxygenation of a sound, I know how horrific that is. Basically all of the fish suffocate, die, and float to the surface to rot. Expect to see bumper to bumper fish carcases for miles. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life. I think the goal with absorbing is that you will put out booms to protect sensative areas, and then when oil collects near them you can absorb it where it is more concentrated. The oil does not cover the surface completely, it is in patches, so collecting it into a solid slick makes the economics a little better (note: the idea that collecting it could be profitable is ridiculous, but you can optimize the dollar per barrel cleaned up ratio)
- rjett 16y ago
  "The best you can hope for at this stage is that BP does not go bust (down about 29% since this all started, from $60 to $43 now), and that they will be able to pay for the cleanup." Does anyone know much of this cleanup is being covered by some form of disaster (or other) insurance?
  - jrockway 16y ago
    BP does not have insurance -- they are too risky to insure. (They have their own internal insurance division, that operates like an insurance company. But basically, it's a savings account.)
    - rjett 16y ago
      Hmm I don't know how I overlooked that. You're right though: http://www.businessinsider.com/bp-jupiter-insurance-2010-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/bp-jupiter-insurance-2010-5
      - thefool 16y ago
        What happens if it does (go bust)???
- waterlesscloud 16y ago
  "BP PLC, Europe's second-largest oil company, said Tuesday that first-quarter profit more than doubled from a year earlier to $6.1 billion " http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/27/business/main6436070.shtml http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/27/business/main64360...
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Their market cap has dropped a staggering 40 billion since the spill broke in the media, maybe the stockmarket knows something that is not yet too visible ? The rough estimates of what it could cost are topping 8 billion already, if that's 'all' (for want of a better term) then why that huge drop in stock price ? I'm thinking the economic damage claims that will be filed could easily eclipse the cost of the actual cleanup.
    - waterlesscloud 16y ago
      Yeah, it's a good question. If it's going to cost say 5 months profits, that sucks, but it's hardly the end of the company. Does that estimate include lawsuits?
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        No, that's just the cost of cleanup. After the Exxon Valdez the law was changed, back then you had to be 'physically touched' by the oil to be able to file a claim, now you can claim economic damages.
- krschultz 16y ago
  It is still usable in some context, and they are collecting it, it is just a matter of square miles covered in oil vs vessels capable of collecting it. http://www.slate.com/id/2252136/ http://www.slate.com/id/2252136/
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Any estimate on the value of a barrel of this stuff vs a barrel of crude?
    - krschultz 16y ago
      Not sure, obviously cheaper but how much cheaper would depend on its makeup.
whyenot 16y ago
Over time (12 hrs - 3 days), oil in spills becomes weathered. The more volatile compounds evaporate, photo-oxidation takes place, and the oil to some degree forms an emulsion with sea water. It's not like oil straight out of a well, and probably wouldn't be worth very much or useful for much of anything.
- krschultz 16y ago
  It is still usable, both for asphalt and for burning in some furnaces. It won't end up in your car but it will be used. I'm pretty sure Slate.com had an explanation of this recently: http://www.slate.com/id/2252136/ http://www.slate.com/id/2252136/ As for oil/water emulsion in sea water, having been around that stuff one thing people don't point out is the stench. It is at or worse than sewage.

by darien 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

If it were that easy to collect this oil in a usable form then I'm pretty sure that it would be done already. The problem here is that the oil is spread out and mixed in with all kinds of contaminants (or rather, there is all sorts of clean stuff mixed in with the oil, but since you're looking at extracting the oil let's name them contaminants), to do so cost effectively is likely impossible. The best you can hope for at this stage is that BP does not go bust (down about 29% since this all started, from $60 to $43 now), and that they will be able to pay for the cleanup.

darien 16y ago
Are you talking about the chemical dispersal contaminants more more physical containments (ie: algae, etc)? I don't think this is necessarily a for-profit situation in terms of refinement, but I think that there is a possibility that if groups and organizations assembled themselves to simply collect the oil, that they could publicly lobby congress to purchase the oil back. Essentially it will be the taxpayers who pay for cleanup either way. At least this way is faster and is more populist (in terms of flag-waving and what it means to be an american).
- jacquesm 16y ago
  "simply collect the oil" If it were simple we wouldn't have a problem to begin with. There have been some pretty naive ideas tossed out that got huge media coverage (hair, straw and all kinds of nonsense), but these all seem to miss the main point: this stuff is spread out, it will spread out even further if you do nothing, and the amount of energy that goes in to collecting a spilled barrel of oil may well be more than the amount of energy that you gain by collecting it in the first place, which means you are going to have to do this at a substantial operational loss. You can't just stuff a few thousand cubic kilometers of ocean water in to a centrifuge and swirl it out, and then there is the law of diminishing returns, once you've done the 'easy' bit the hard bits only get harder because the concentrations diminish, so the cost of recovery goes up as the concentration goes down, the more it is mixed in the first place the harder this gets. Waiting until it comes ashore only compounds the problem, since it is going to be a lot harder to remove the oil from solids than it is from seawater.
  - krschultz 16y ago
    Nobody cares about the oil in the middle of the ocean, it will break down. Oil naturally breaks down in the ocean from microbes and the sun, not to mention it is flammable and they can burn large sections of it. The problem comes near the shore - and thats where absorbents and booms come in. Oil absorbent are not naive ideas, they are standard operating procedure. Any place that sells gas on the water in this country has a box full of booms and absorbent mats by law. This is just a much larger version of that so the availability of mats becomes an issue and so hair, mattress padding etc become options.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      Yes, but from what I understand reading elsewhere they've done a lot of work to keep the oil underwater, so it will come ashore with the water itself rather than just on the surface, right ? As for the hair being naive, I figured the sheer quantities involved would make it rather impractical, the hay was a nice little setup in two bins of water on a benchtop but to execute that principle on a several hundred by several hundred kilometer area (at the moment) is a little bit harder.
      - krschultz 16y ago
        I might be a little cynical, but I personally believe that keeping the oil underwater is worse and is simply a BP PR move. If it is underwater you can't burn it, you can't skim it, you can't absorb it, and the sun won't break it down. Sure it might not get into marshes as quickly, but instead microbes eat it and create total deoxygenation of the water. I have dealt with the cleanup of minor sewage spill that caused total deoxygenation of a sound, I know how horrific that is. Basically all of the fish suffocate, die, and float to the surface to rot. Expect to see bumper to bumper fish carcases for miles. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life. I think the goal with absorbing is that you will put out booms to protect sensative areas, and then when oil collects near them you can absorb it where it is more concentrated. The oil does not cover the surface completely, it is in patches, so collecting it into a solid slick makes the economics a little better (note: the idea that collecting it could be profitable is ridiculous, but you can optimize the dollar per barrel cleaned up ratio)
rjett 16y ago
"The best you can hope for at this stage is that BP does not go bust (down about 29% since this all started, from $60 to $43 now), and that they will be able to pay for the cleanup." Does anyone know much of this cleanup is being covered by some form of disaster (or other) insurance?
- jrockway 16y ago
  BP does not have insurance -- they are too risky to insure. (They have their own internal insurance division, that operates like an insurance company. But basically, it's a savings account.)
  - rjett 16y ago
    Hmm I don't know how I overlooked that. You're right though: http://www.businessinsider.com/bp-jupiter-insurance-2010-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/bp-jupiter-insurance-2010-5
    - thefool 16y ago
      What happens if it does (go bust)???
waterlesscloud 16y ago
"BP PLC, Europe's second-largest oil company, said Tuesday that first-quarter profit more than doubled from a year earlier to $6.1 billion " http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/27/business/main6436070.shtml http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/27/business/main64360...
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Their market cap has dropped a staggering 40 billion since the spill broke in the media, maybe the stockmarket knows something that is not yet too visible ? The rough estimates of what it could cost are topping 8 billion already, if that's 'all' (for want of a better term) then why that huge drop in stock price ? I'm thinking the economic damage claims that will be filed could easily eclipse the cost of the actual cleanup.
  - waterlesscloud 16y ago
    Yeah, it's a good question. If it's going to cost say 5 months profits, that sucks, but it's hardly the end of the company. Does that estimate include lawsuits?
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      No, that's just the cost of cleanup. After the Exxon Valdez the law was changed, back then you had to be 'physically touched' by the oil to be able to file a claim, now you can claim economic damages.
krschultz 16y ago
It is still usable in some context, and they are collecting it, it is just a matter of square miles covered in oil vs vessels capable of collecting it. http://www.slate.com/id/2252136/ http://www.slate.com/id/2252136/
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Any estimate on the value of a barrel of this stuff vs a barrel of crude?
  - krschultz 16y ago
    Not sure, obviously cheaper but how much cheaper would depend on its makeup.

whyenot 16y ago

Over time (12 hrs - 3 days), oil in spills becomes weathered. The more volatile compounds evaporate, photo-oxidation takes place, and the oil to some degree forms an emulsion with sea water. It's not like oil straight out of a well, and probably wouldn't be worth very much or useful for much of anything.

krschultz 16y ago
It is still usable, both for asphalt and for burning in some furnaces. It won't end up in your car but it will be used. I'm pretty sure Slate.com had an explanation of this recently: http://www.slate.com/id/2252136/ http://www.slate.com/id/2252136/ As for oil/water emulsion in sea water, having been around that stuff one thing people don't point out is the stench. It is at or worse than sewage.