The Oil Drum: The BP Deepwater Oil Spill - of Plumes, and Drillships, FPSOs and the ASJ

[profgoose]

The BP Deepwater Oil Spill - of Plumes, and Drillships, FPSOs and the ASJ

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has now tested water samples from oil plumes at three sites in the Gulf of Mexico, at varying distances from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said that the tests conducted at three sites by a University of South Florida research vessel confirmed oil as far as 3,300 feet below the surface 42 miles northeast of the well site. Oil also was found in a sub-surface sample 142 miles southeast of the spill, but further tests showed that oil is "not consistent" with oil from the spill.

Lubchenco said the water analysis "indicate there is definitely oil sub surface. It's in very low concentrations" of less than 0.5 parts per million. Additional samples from another research vessel are being tested, she said.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6579

I am Perplexed: Comments on the World Financial Situation and Peak Oil

I am perplexed; I really cannot understand how the world’s economists and commentators on the present precarious global financial situation have not come to the conclusion that must be obvious to all persons who have followed peak oil. Money is not a disembodied quantity; it is related to the real world by means of what people can exchange it for. In particular the relation between energy and money must be very tight to the extent that money pretty well must be a token for energy and therefore for oil.

Except possibly for bare land, all items of trade, food, minerals, motor cars and other consumer goods rely on energy for their manufacture, and crude oil forms the largest share of the world’s energy mix, followed by coal and gas. Thus, if we plot world energy supply against world GDP, we should get a close relationship. Oil is currently around 35% of world energy supply. Figure 1 below gives a plot of world GDP against world oil supply. The GDP figures come from economist Angus Maddison, but other sources would give similar results.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6542

Drumbeat June 9, 2010
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6580