Isn't the news of the 2 giant plumes of oil found in the gulf a

[napi21]

bit of good, or at least better, news than we've had? I say that because if all this heavy oil is accumulated in 2 large areas, isn't it easier to siphon it up into ships to remove it from the water? Maybe I'm crazy, but that's the way it sounds to me.

[mike_c]

1. the volume is huge-- FAR bigger than all the shipping capacity on Earth...

...many times over. I'm serious. There is no way to Hoover all of that mess up into any sort of containment. I wish it was possible, but it's not. :cry:

[Cant trust em]

2. I'd still rather have it be all in one place than scattered all over.

Not quite taking a lemon and making lemonade.

[napi21]

3. Not lemonade but better than scattered everywhere, nt

[napi21]

4. Honestly I don't know that. The capacity of these hugh super tankers is HUGH!

I would think it's a whole lot easier for them to vaccuum all this sh*t up from one or two areas than it is drilling for it! I guess I'm looking at this too simplitically, but it makes sense.

[TheMadMonk]

6. While in a plume, the oil is still well and truly mixed with water.

It's not like it's a gigantic globule (like in a bottle of salad dressing) that anyone can stick a straw into and suction up until it's gone. To remove the oil would require that the entire volume be processed. Millions (at least) of cubic metres.

[mike_c]

7. the underwater plumes are MILES long and wide....

There are no ships on earth that big.

[readmoreoften]

5. No. Some industry folks are speculating that this indicates that there's a worse leak

5-6 miles from the blowout. I have no idea who is right, but one thing is for sure: there is absolutely no consensus about what's going on down there within the industry. It's a huge unknown.

I was really hopeful today, but it seems now that Top Kill has failed and that we've moved into Junk Shot, which could make it worse. This seems to be turning into a clusterfuck of epic proportions.