about the BP Disaster... I'm wondering if they 'Frack'd' the Methane Hydrate, to maximize profits.

[sam sarrha]

i heard that just before the blowout of the Global Horizon they pumped thousands of gallons of an unknown liquid into the well.

i read that the methane levels in the oil of this sort of well usually runs about 5%, the blown BP well is 40% methane. so i can't shake the suspicion they fracked the methane hydrate to maximize profits.. sell both gas and oil to make up for all the millions they lost F'n up other wells in the area.

at the end of the last ice age when the Halocene Thermocline started pushing warm water to the north pole it fractured a Methane hydrate deposit in a Norwegian fiord. the cracked methane spontaneously detonated an threw so many cubic miles of dirt and so much methane into the Stratosphere that the resulting "Methane Winter" set the end of the ice age back 1000 years. methane hydrate expands 3000x when it sublimates.. there is an occasional phenomenon when methane can give up all its energy spontaneously.. such as the Fieord event.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/21/fracking-epa-takes-new-lo_n_653903.html
The industry says there is no evidence that fracking chemicals – some of them suspected human carcinogens – contaminate drinking water, wells or aquifers once blasted deep underground.

EPA summarized numerous reports of "water quality incidents" in residential wells, homes, or streams in Alabama, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming but said there was inconclusive evidence linking the incidents to fracking.

http://www.propublica.org/article/fracking-tales-stories-from-the-frontlines-of-gas-drilling
This month's Vanity Fair has a long piece, "A Colossal Fracking Mess <3>," on the human and environmental effects of the drilling. It follows Dimock, a town in northeastern Pennsylvania, where residents are fighting the hydraulic fracking that they say has contaminated the town's aquifer. The story reports that the water supply is so harmful that the town is "now known as the place where, over the past two years, people's water started turning brown and making them sick, one woman's water well spontaneously combusted, and horses and pets mysteriously began to lose their hair."


if they did Frack it, and they appear stupid enough to, it could create a serious Extention Event. even just a serious venting event could result in millions of prople being evacuated with no idea when it would stop. methane is 30x worse than CO2.. it could finish off what ice is left and start an ice age in our life time.


http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Indonesia_mud_volcano_still_spewing_sludge_four_years_later_999.html
2010
Four years after it erupted from the well of a gas company linked to one of Indonesia's richest men, the mud volcano known as "Lusi" is still spewing its toxic sludge over Java's countryside.
All attempts to plug the geyser have failed and new spouts are opening up, threatening to destroy more villages, homes and livelihoods in the East Java district of Sidoarjo.

The mud lake is so huge -- seven square kilometres (almost three square miles) and 20 metres (66 feet) thick -- it is now visible from space, and geologists say "Lusi" could continue gushing sludge for centuries.

[truedelphi]

1. One of the big ironies surrounding the fracking of the deposits beneath

people's homes is that researcher Theo Colburn, who is well known for her exposure on pesticides affecting male genitalia (frogs, alligators other reptiles becoming hermaphrodites on account of low level exposures) bought a home in one of these areas.

I am imagining that at some point she will bring the house of cards down in terms of exposing the truth about the damage these practices are doing to people, animals, plants and the entire environment.

[Kali]

2. "fracked the methane hydrate"

the phrase indicates a severe lack of knowledge about chemistry and the process of extracting oil and/or gas

there is a website that can give you a good overview and answer thoughtful questions about all sorts of energy related topics

http://www.theoildrum.com/

[nebenaube]

3. I agree...

but he's right on the concept, they injected an unpublished catalyst or enzyme which even I have considered must have been simply for the purpose of partially refining the oil in-situ. The phrase he needed to use was "cracking the long chain hydrocarbons to produce lighter hydrocarbon molecules" or in other words "attempted to modify the contents of the reservoir into sweet crude".

[Kali]

4. "they injected an unpublished catalyst or enzyme"

:wtf: what and where is your evidence for this - and there is still a big component of scientific literacy missing here!

"refining the oil in-situ":wtf:

[nebenaube]

5. I base this conclusion

on the report that unidentified fluids were injected into the well. Since it would be pointless to inject hazardous waste into the well(they would just have to extract and isolate it again), what else would they have put down there? It had to be a reactant of some type. Something to crack the longer chains? Or something to polymerize methane? The article I read never said what the fluid was. Btw, you can stick your attitude where the sun fails to shine.

[nebenaube]

6. And yeah,

I know that polymerizing methane would be like the holy grail but whatever...

[Kali]

7. WHATreport? link? my attitude? WTF? you talk nonsense with a few

science-y sounding words tossed in like a palin salad and expect obsequious responses?

"what else would they put down there?" EXACTLY! You are the one making the claim that they injected unidentified fluids - what is your evidence?

the only thing "injected" into the well was drilling mud and sea water (and the chunks of junk during the early attempt to kill)
corexit was "injected" into the spewing oil, but not into the well or the formation

[Igel]

8. That's not entirely true.

A "fluids specialist" testified to Congress that there were drums of two kinds of liquids. He seemed to say there was twice as much as they normally used (of course, this well wasn't quite "usual"). They mixed them as they pumped them in.

They were described as spacing fluids. The drilling mud they use has very specific properties and is expensive; it's mostly recovered. The cement and "stuff" they finish off with contaminates the drilling mud and vice-versa, so that the drilling mud, a lubricant, prevents the cement from doing its job. So they pump an intermediate fluid that doesn't make the drilling mud unusable into the well to remove the drilling mud and allow recovery; this fluid also doesn't keep the cement from doing its job.

The insinuation was that this spacer fluid was some sort of hazardous waste; it's usually polymeric to give it high viscosity and create turbulence as it flows through the pipe, helping to scour off the drilling mud and wash it out (it's "reactive"). It also flushes the drilling mud that escaped from the bore hole into surrounding strata away to keep it from contaminating the cement.

But it's much more outrage-inducing to think in terms of hazardous waste and un-attested technologies so as to make the bad guy as evil as is conceivable. One must always demonize and dehumanize one's enemies.

[nebenaube]

9. There you go...

a plausible explanation. Thank you.

[Kali]

11. thanks

so I wonder if this is the mystery fluid the other poster is freaking out about

guess it isn't being used to "refine oil in-situ" or polymerize methane :eyes:

[nebenaube]

10. Gee...

What happened? Did Cali get served a pizza?