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Southern California has considerable oil and natural gas seepage off shore. Many of the oil rigs aren't drilling but simply harvesting the seeps. They passive
by cptskippy 5y ago
Southern California has considerable oil and natural gas seepage off shore. Many of the oil rigs aren't drilling but simply harvesting the seeps.
They passively collect 100-150 barrels a day from the Coal Oil Point Seep Field.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field
The oil in question was not from a seep however. It came from the processing platform Elly that supports two other drilling rigs in the Beta field.
- joshuahaglund 5y agoJust because it happens in nature doesn't mean it's OK for us to make it happen in more places. If you've ever been to the beach around that oil seep you'd know it sucks to get the tar on you or your surfboard. We don't need more.
- cptskippy 5y agoI wasn't suggesting that it is in anyway acceptable to spill oil, and I think it is interesting that in the same region the spill occurred there have always been naturally occurring seeps that release far more oil into the environment. And it's also interesting that these companies have been passively capturing the oil from the seeps, which potentially reduces the amount of tar washing up on the shores.
- cbogie 5y agoi’ve been getting tarballs on everything and everywhere in santa barbara my entire life. there are several capped oil rigs offshore in the channel. it seems like even without a spill, these things are dangerous to ecologies over the long term. the petroleum industry has negative externalities at every end and throughout it’s operations.
- cptskippy 5y agoSanta Barbara has a lot of seeps, that's the source of the tar balls. It has absolutely nothing to do with off shore drilling. http://seeps.geol.ucsb.edu/ http://seeps.geol.ucsb.edu/
- xyzzyz 5y agoSeems like the "massive oil spill" from the link is equivalent to half a year of natural seepage from this single seep field.
- throwawayboise 5y agoYeah 120,000 gallons is a proverbial drop in the context of the Pacific ocean. Too bad it was close enough to shore to cause this local environmental problem though.
- cptskippy 5y agoI have no idea how a surface spill compares deep water seeps but the seeps have been happening for hundreds of thousands of years. Not sure where I am going with this but I just thought it was interesting.
- dmckeon 5y agoMore like a month, at 42 gallons per barrel.
- jaycroft 5y agoIt would also be very interesting to see seepage from say, 1910, predating the 10,000 wells that were built in the area, 1925, at the height of the oil boom, and today, but I doubt this information exists. Edited to say "area" instead of "city" - there was no city at that time.