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Georgia Scientists: 80% of BP Oil Remains in Gulf

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  August 18th, 2010 at 12:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

A group for researchers from the Georgia Sea Grant grabbed headlines yesterday by challenging NOAA’s claim that 75% of the BP oil is accounted for – that it has been captured, burned, evaporated, degraded, dissipated or munched by microbes. The study by the Georgia group claims that 80% still lurks somewhere in the environment.

Who’s right?

First off, the numbers aren’t comparable because the Georgia group’s percentage does not account for the oil BP captured in its operations, some 800,000 barrels. By ignoring the captured oil, your headlines can tout a larger percentage of “missing” oil.

The Georgia group also has a very low estimate of the amount of oil that should have evaporated. With a light crude oil, quite a bit of the volume should evaporate, otherwise the residue would still be light than water and would not sink. But even their low-ball estimate of evaporation losses worries the Georgia Sea Grant folks:

Questions have been raised by the state’s scientific community about the vulnerability of communities living downwind of the Gulf of Mexico, including the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Playing to the crowd, maybe?

The Georgia researchers seem to be concerned about the presence of any oil molecules in the pristine natural environment, no matter how dispersed, no matter how dilute. Are they aware that almost 1,000,000 barrels of crude oil enters the Gulf ecosystem from natural seeps each year?

Dilution is also a key factor that seems to be acknowledged in the NOAA assessment. I haven’t checked the math, but something I’ve heard seems credible: that the volume of the oil spill, compared to the volume of water in the Gulf would be like comparing the contents of a can of beer to the volume of the cavernous Superdome in New Orleans.

A 24-ounce can of beer, but still.

Reading the Georgia report left me with the impression that these folks are desperately clinging to the notion that oil may yet foul Georgia’s Atlantic beaches.

It ain’t gonna happen. The spill has stopped. The oil in the water, whatever percentage is left, is too dispersed and too dilute to be of any consequence to anyone more than 100 miles from the spill.

Cross-posted at VladEnBlog.

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  • Achance
    • Richard Mullins

      and UGA isn’t it. I think that the knowledge of oil eating bacteria and major dilution of the oil from rain brought by Tropical storms Bonnie and #5 as done a lot the oil. The new thing is that the oil has just settled to the Gulf floor. I think that stupidness going on with most of these so-called “experts” are shrills for Ed Markey and his minions.

  • avgjo

    yesterday, and I didn’t see any oil. The water looked like the usual. The fishing guides were open for business. Boats were on trucks everywhere.

    A friend of my dad’s gave him about 40 lbs. of FRESH Gulf Shrimp, caught in Louisiana, and they are beautiful and smell wonderful.

    An expert from here, on the Gulf, said that seafood is safe.

    All this alarmism strikes us here on the Gulf Coast as kinda silly.

    We’ve known for a long time that oil seeps and washes up naturally as tar balls. The water’s not as clear near La. and Texas, and it smells kinda strong, but man, that seafood just can’t be beat. Many of us have joked for years that the reason the seafood is so good is the oil that’s in the water. Also, after a good swim, you need a shower so you don’t smell, but I’ve never had a problem, nor has anyone I ever knew.

  • nessa

    Maybe they can get a chunk of stimulus with these fuzzy numbers, theres NO PROFIT in telling the truth.

    • Richard Mullins

      and I figured that when I saw the title “Sea Grant”, knew that it must be utter BS.

  • bk

    BP set up a $20B slush fund at the height of the crisis. If 75% of the oil disappeared, then the feds should be willing to let BP reduce that to $5B.

  • romeg

    would be far more concerned with bovine emissions of all sorts that are much closer to Athens and environs than with an oil slick more than 250 miles upwind.

    BS indeed.

  • http://wadingacross.wordpress.com logus

    I’m glad to hear that the fishing and seafood are looking good down there, but I suspect that the whole region will still suffer economically for quite some time from the hyped fallout and general fear and concern of the populace at large over the spill and seafood quality.

    I’m one of those too that believe much of the oil has settled to the bottom – and scattered. And knowing that there have always been natural seeps and the oil eating bacteria make things a little easier, but the bottom line is that we’ll have to wait and see.

    It’ll probably be a full year before we can truly see what – if any – long term impact the oil spill has had on the ecology of the Gulf and from there, up the Stream.

    • dennism

      is lighter than water. It floats. It doesn’t sink. Trust me on this.

      The crisis was the spilling oil. The catastrophe was the govt imposed moratorium.

    • Read Chesterton

      I suspect that the whole region will still suffer economically for quite some time from the hyped fallout and general fear and concern of the populace at large over the spill and seafood quality.

      Suffer they will. but it won’t be from media fallout or fear of pollution. They will suffer the consequences of $20 billion worth of Progressive mischief compliments the Blamer in Chief and his National Socialist Democrat Party.

  • Scope

    from this government, they would not be awarded any funds that would produce results that were not with or for their cause. The environmentalists need to keep this “crisis” to our ecological system alive. Salazar needs to keep his drilling moratorium in place. To say that 80% of the oil is still out there justifies the positions of both Salazar and the envirowackos.

  • Scope

    were also a part of the Global Warming fraud.

  • jb13

    Why do I have a strong suspicion that these UGA scientists would be among the chorus of enviro-consensus thugs lambasting as “anti-science” anyone — even those with scientific or academic credentials — who would dare to call into question any of NOAA’s findings pertaining to climate change, simply because we don’t think their conclusions sound right?

  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    …as they swear to not rest until they find find the real criminal.

    Except here they’ve already arrested the “criminal” and are now trying to manufacture the “crime”. Especially as they expect to get reward money if they suceed.

  • Scope

    doesn’t seem to make sense. They clam that 47% favored lifting the ban, while 46% favored keeping the ban. Broken down between R’s and D’s, 60 something percent of R’s wanted the ban lifted, while only 30 something percent of D’s favored lifting the ban.

    In the same Gallup report, more than 40% said the spill was worse than they expected, even though there have been stories, reports, articles and pictures showing that the spill did not meet the level of “crisis” that the O admin.rhetoric built it up to be.

    It appears that Gallup is the left leaning polster that they have been accused of being.

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/142172/Americans-divided-future-gulf-drilling.aspx

    In May, during the height of the uncontrolled gushing from the BP well, according to a NBC News/WSJ poll, 60 % favored expanded off shore drilling. 53% said the economic benefits outweighed the environmental hazards.

    http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/05/should-us-expand-offshore-oil-drilling-poll-finds-most-still-say-yes/1

    I guess the question is- How do you honor the majority opinion, and expand off shore drilling, yet keep the bans in place to prevent that drilling?

    Drill baby drill, here, there and everywhere we can.

  • teresakoch

    Good luck trying to find that offshore…….

    ( Source: http://www.unitconversion.org/unit_converter/volume.html
    5,500,000 bbl of oil/petroleum = 0.00087443 km^3 )

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