Gulf Oil Leaks Could Gush for Years - "We don't have any idea how to stop this," expert says.

If the oil can't be stopped, the underground reservoir may continue bleeding until it's dry, Simmons suggested.

The most recent estimates are that the leaking wellhead has been spewing 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons, or 795,000 liters) of oil a day.

And the oil is still flowing robustly, which suggests that the reserve "would take years to deplete," said David Rensink, incoming president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

"You're talking about a reservoir that could have tens of millions of barrels in it."

At that rate, it's possible the Gulf oil spill's damage to the environment will have lingering effects akin to those of the largest oil spill in history, which happened in Saudi Arabia in 1991, said Miles Hayes, co-founder of the science-and-technology consulting firm Research Planning, Inc., based in South Carolina.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100513-science-environment-gulf-oil-spill-cap-leak/




This article was dated last week from National Geographic. However, I posted it here because I couldn't find it on the forum and I think it is an important one.

Bp cut corners, it is obvious it was entirely preventable. Deep sea drilling is risky and BP added tenfold to that risk.

reap individual bonuses. If they didn't go well, the company would have to pay.

We're running out of oil, so in a greedy rush to grab up whatever's left of our rapidly dwindling reserve, BP has managed to hasten the End of Oil, and will not be able to profit from it.

You drill relief wells to almost the same depth as the gushing well, intercept the well, and then pump heavy drilling mud into the gushing well from the bottom. The mud is heavy enough so that when it fills the gushing well, the pressure at the bottom will equalize with the pressure of the reservoir and the well will stop flowing.

It's not easy, but it is has been done before.

And the damage to the environment, while bad, will not be as bad as the worst predictions.

What is most concerning for me is that I don't believe this will have any effect whatsoever on humanity's thirst for oil, and as I've said before, we'll continue to drill and consume oil until it's all gone.

Exxon Valdez was a pretty small one.

The US media pretty much doesn't care about oil spills when they are near some other coast: Australia, Italy, Angola, France, etc.

But none of the comparably sized oil spills has stopped drilling activity or the shipping of oil around the world yet.