Model suggests a third of the oil may have evaporated

[Contrary1]

I had no idea that oil could evaporate. If this is the case, can anything be added to increase that estimated rate of 35%? :shrug:

"NEW ORLEANS - For a leak that’s spilled millions of gallons, the oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster is pretty hard to pin down.

Satellite images show most of an estimated 4.6 million gallons of oil has pooled in a floating, shape-shifting blob off the Louisiana coast. Some has reached shore as a thin sheen, and gooey bits have washed up as far away as Alabama. But the spill is 23 days old since the Transocean Ltd.-owned, BP-operated rig exploded April 20 and killed 11 workers, and the thickest stuff hasn't shown up on the coast.

<snip>

One of their tools, a program the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration uses to predict how oil spills on the surface of water may behave, suggests that more than a third of the oil may already be out of the water.

About 35 percent of a spill the size of the one in the Gulf, consisting of the same light Louisiana crude, released in weather conditions and water temperatures similar to those found in the Gulf now would simply evaporate, according to data that The Associated Press entered into the program..."

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37150109/ns/technology_and_science-science/

[foxfeet]

1. Yum. More hydrocarbons in the atmosphere.

[Oregone]

2. Ummm?

:wtf:


I don't know...there are lots of stuff in oil. They pull it apart with fractional distillation. Maybe some of the more gaseous stuff evaporated...leaving the muck. Im not sure, if thats the case, thats "good" news...itd just be the way it is.

[HereSince1628]

3. Depending upon the chemical mix of the oil, yes, it could

The problem is that even this analysis represents numbers that were arrived at in a hurry. Don't expect this to be the last word on the subject.

[spanone]

4. golly, why the heck were we worried...it'll just evaporate into thin air....stupid me

'model suggests that two-thirds of that shit is still in the gulf'

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. Hydrocarbons with a low molecular weight are highly volatile.

Meaning they'll evaporate quickly.

Methane, ethane, propane, and butanes are all gases at room temperature. Pentanes, hexanes, and so on are liquid but quite volatile. If you ever spill gasoline you'll notice how quickly in evaporates.

It's the higher chain hydrocarbons that stick around.

The volatile hydrocarbons aren't great for the atmosphere, they're much worse for global warming than CO2 is, so it would have been better if they had burned. But they will break down eventually by UV. And of course it's better than having thick crude floating around in the sea.

[Speck Tater]

6. If you can smell it, its vapors are in the atmosphere.

Where there are vapors, there must be eVAPORation, by definition.

[golddigger]

7. Ahh, the new talking point.

Its evaporating.

Just like those oil spots in my driveway.

[Junkdrawer]

8. Enviromental experts think the lion's share of the leak is still underwater....

....

RICK STEINER: Well, it’s very—it’s tragic, actually. I mean, all these spills that we’ve worked on around the world, they have their own similarities and differences, but this one’s really historic in a number of ways. It’s the largest, deepest blowout in history. It’s coming out at 5,000 feet deep, as people know, and about fifty miles offshore. And it’s a light Gulf of Mexico crude, so it’s got some things different than the Exxon Valdez, for instance. By the—when the oil comes out of the wellhead, the blowout, it’s emulsifying very quickly with this very dense, high-pressure seawater. And then these things act in complicated ways, where then the plume will rise a few hundred meters, and some research has shown that in smaller blowouts in a little bit shallower water that then the plume will stabilize at a particular depth, that it will reach a terminal depth, and then just start flowing subsurface. So I think the easy way to look at this is that a lot of the oil that’s come out still probably hasn’t surfaced yet. But even the stuff that has surfaced, it’s covering two to three thousand square miles in broken patches. I mean, it’s not solid, but broken patches. If you use the conservative estimate that BP is putting out and the government apparently is concurring with, then there’s four to five million gallons that have come out so far over the last three weeks. And it’s a very complicated event.

....

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/12/as_gulf_of_mexico_oil_spill

[ShortnFiery]

9. Natural Oils are So Moisturizing ! Let's share THIS with the peoples of the World?!?

:P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WALIARHHLII&feature=related

[TacticalPeek]

10. The same guys that produced the bogus "estimate" of 5000 b/d using specifically discredited methods?

Yep.

"It appears to have been calculated using a method that is specifically not recommended for major oil spills. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14oil.html

Figgers.