Murphy’s Law? Lightning Sets BP Gulf Oil Spill Containment Ship On Fire!
Posted by Alexander Higgins - June 15, 2010 at 3:48 pm - Permalink - Source via Alexander Higgins Blog
Loading ...It clears that Muphy’s Law is in full effect. What can go wrong will go wrong.
Nola.com reports a lightning strike has hit the Transocean Discoverer Enterprise, the ship BP is using to collect oil from the leaking oil well, setting the ship on fire and shutting down oil collection activities in the Gulf of Mexico.
A fire aboard the Discoverer Enterprise drill ship this morning has suspended oil collection activities in the Gulf of Mexico, BP said this afternoon.
The fire was discovered at about 9:30 a.m. and extinguished. BP said in a press release that it is believed that lightning caused the fire.
There were no injuries. But pumping activity was shut down. Operations are expected to resume this afternoon, BP said.
The Discoverer Enterprise is the ship used to collect oil as it is captured from the leaking Maconda well in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Transocean Discoverer Enterprise, the ship BP is using to collect oil from the leaking oil well
Transocean drillship Discoverer Enterprise delivers 4 Story Gulf oil spill containment dome
“At the moment, there’s no capture, no containment going on, but we’ll start up the Enterprise when it’s safe to do so,” BP spokesman Robert Wine said.
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BP has been beefing up its containment efforts with the hurricane season in mind, building a sturdier system that can withstand the volatile weather that is so common in the Gulf in the summer months.
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Scientists have estimated that anywhere between about 40 million gallons to more than 100 million gallons of oil have spewed into the Gulf since a drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers. Though the latest cap installed the well has been capturing oil, large quantities are still spilling into the sea.
The company said it would use robotic submarines to survey the entire containment system, including the cap over the well, for possible damage from the fire. The fire occurred in a vent pipe leading from a tank on the Enterprise where processed oil is stored, Wine said.
Louisiana has been hit with several storms and lightning strikes in the past day.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Murphys Laws, Alexander Higgins. Alexander Higgins said: Murphy's Law? Lightning Sets BP Gulf Oil Spill Containment Ship On Fire! http://bit.ly/9I4Q51 [...]
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You have a great web / blog I enjoy visiting it.
just which of the big oil companies would have done things differently? Hindsight is a great gift!
Did You Know?
BP engineers alerted federal regulators at the Minerals Management Service that they were having difficulty controlling the Macondo well (Deepwater Horizon) six weeks before the disaster, according to e- mails released by the Energy and Commerce Committee.
“I don’t think this would have happened on Exxon’s watch,” Tom Bower, author of “The Squeeze: Oil, Money and Greed in the 21st Century,” said in a June 11 Bloomberg Television interview. “They’d be much more careful and much more conscious of the need to supervise subcontractors.”
WELL excuse me your sainted Exxon……. and Chevron and ConocoPhillips.
Let’s just take a look at a few of your past misdemeanours, and then we can consider again – if the moratorium on deepwater drilling should be lifted, and place it all firmly back into your nice clean hands!
http://just-me-in-t.blogspot.com/2010/06/fairy-stories-about-oil-companies.html
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Deeper things are at play here.
Geomagnetic currents that influence tectonic plate movements are influenced by the magnetosphere,which is in turn influenced by the ionosphere, which just happened to get heavily charged by the solar flare NASA observed this week, which, BTW, was huge. Look it up or read my post under this one down a bit and look at the photos. Also , significant here…is COREXIT and a chemical found in the gulf area that is commonly used for refining oil.
Go read this link real quick from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_battery
Ok, you’re back. Now how this pertains to the burning of oil in the Gulf….trust me it does.
First off, there are 6 very relevant things going on in the Gulf of Mexico that can facilitate a giant electrochemical reaction between the ionosphere and the earths crust by passing through conductive sea water . The conditions are ripe.
They are :
1, Our ionosphere is highly charged right now, due to the massive solar flare being observed by NASA,
( check the site.) hence the lightning everywhere,,,
2. The Gulf is a dead zone, …sadly now more than ever, but the significances here are the low oxygen levels in the water and salt saturation in the deep-water areas.
3. There are large amounts of heavy metals in the water in the deep-water G.o.M. .They have accumulated because the Mississippi river brings them to the Gulf in the form of runoff, They accumulate at the seafloor.. Their relevance here is that it has been known for a long time that all the common metals behave relatively similarly in terms of being able to allow the flow of electrons. Some metals conduct electricity way better than others. Common knowledge.
4. There are also large amounts of 2-Butoxyethanol in the depths in the G.o.M. Contrary to popular belief , it does not ” breakdown ” at 5k feet deep like it does in shallower water. Pressures keep it from going anywhere until deep currents sweep it into the shallower areas where it can sublimate and diffuse from the water. That’s when it where it rapidly breaks down. It use as an ingredient is because it keeps chemicals in suspension. That’s why it’s used as a common ” adjuvient ” ingredient in everything. So, due to it’s solubility in water it will remain suspended.
5. Methane, produced by microbes in the process called methanogenesis.
An anaerobic organism or anaerobe is any organism that does not require oxygen for growth, could possibly react negatively and may even die in its presence. There are three types:
* obligate anaerobes, which cannot use oxygen for growth and are even harmed by it;
* aerotolerant organisms, which cannot use oxygen for growth, but tolerate the presence of it; and
* facultative anaerobes, which can grow without oxygen but can utilize oxygen if it is present.
And …how to grow them
Culturing anaerobes
Given that normal microbial culturing is undertaken in an aerobic environment, the culturing of anaerobes poses a problem. To overcome this, a number of techniques are employed by microbiologists. One way required the injection of the bacteria into a Dicot. The Dicot would then provide an environment without oxygen thus ensuring the survival of the anaerobes. The GasPak System is an isolated container which achieves an anaerobic environment by the reaction of water with sodium borohydride
In other-words…..these microbes need a dead zone to grow……now onto the chemicals and the gases suspended in the water at great depths in the Gulf presently
6. Sodium borohydride. Important here why ?
First, there are millions of kilograms of Sodium borohydride produced annually, far exceeding the production levels of any other hydride reducing agent. It is a common runoff into the Mississippi . It is also used in refining oil in the process of cracking, and thus found in the gulf area. Most typically, it is used in the laboratory for converting ketones and aldehydes to alcohols ( which, if you read down to the other type of fuel cell, the methane fuel cell alcohol can be used instead of methanol) . It’s less flammable and less volatile than gasoline, but more corrosive. It is relatively environmentally friendly because of the low toxicity of borates.
Scientists and chemists achieve an anaerobic environment by the reaction of water with sodium borohydride and sodium bicarbonate tablets to produce hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide. Hydrogen then reacts with oxygen gas on a palladium catalyst to produce more water, thereby removing oxygen gas. This is how dead zones are recreated in a laboratory.
The hydrogen gas produced by sodium borohydride is generated for a fuel cell by catalytic decomposition of the aqueous borohydride solution. In other-words how you make a fuell cell with water .
Another type of fuel cell runs off sodium borohydride, also known as sodium tetrahydridoborate, is an inorganic compound with the formula NaBH4. This white solid, usually encountered as a powder, is a versatile reducing agent that finds wide application in chemistry, both in the laboratory and on a technical scale. Large amounts are used for bleaching wood pulp. The compound is insoluble in ether, and soluble in glyme solvents, methanol and water, but reacts with the latter two in the absence of base.[2] An alternative IUPAC name is sodium boranuide.
Remember that you just read about it being used to create conditions in a laboratory to produce those microbes that eat hydrocarbons ? Onward.
So there is a very high amount of methane and sodium borohydride beign kept in suspension in water under great pressure with a very high salt saturation ad barely any oxygen…that’s prime factors for electrical discharge due to low resistance.
Solar flare 1080 which just happened, The problem of magnetic disturbances and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave generation in the ionosphere from solar flares is well known. How does this have to do with an Earth battery and tectonic movements ? The magnetohydrodynamic generator or dynamo, transforms thermal energy or kinetic energy directly into electricity. The problem of magnetic disturbances and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave generation in the ionosphere are known to directly play a part in both hurricane and storm growths as wells as tectonic interplay.
So now, keep in mind our ionosphere is highly charged right now, from the solar flare observed by NASA ,
And think hard about what you just read.
http://mentaljudo.blogspot.com/
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[...] Murphy's Law? Lightning Sets BP Gulf Oil Spill Containment Ship On …about 18 hours agoMaggie's Notebook: Lightening Strikes Oil Spill Containment Ship … about 20 hours agoGulf oil spill: Fire aboard Discoverer Enterprise, BP halts oil … about 13 hours ago kapp.mCallback($('google_blogsearch_api'));kl.add_module_info('google_blogsearch_api', { 'n': 'google_blogsearch_api', 'r': '1190101', 'c': '1', 'mod': $('google_blogsearch_api)'), 'a': 'n', 'i': 06 }); More Opinions & Discussion from Yahoo! Answers, Google, Answerbagkapp.assignCol($('opinions___discussion'), 'left_container');Forums for Oil Spill Containment Forum Search from Omgili [...]
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As me old pop (a twice decorated WWII LCI Commander) so often said:
"Murphy was an optimist."
p.s. Alexander: You've been officially blogrolled at urantiansojourn.com
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Thank you. It is a nice blog and I appreciate the Hat Tip.
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i wonder how long that skimmer will be out of commission? The skimmers need to stay functioning for sure. Want real containment solutions – use the SQUID to channel the oil to the surface, then skimmers siphon off the oil from the top containment pool – the oil never spreads out, and it never comes close to our coasts! Environmentally friendly, no chemicals in the water, no wasting of millions of bales of hay meant for livestock, contains the oil from spreading and harming more wildlife, no nukes! Allows divers and machinery access to the ocean floor leak for repair/rebuild. Or allows them to drill another well 20 feet over for pressure relief of the leaking well.
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I think the way everyone is coming together with all available information is amazing!
Here’s another overlooked theory. Lightning activity is likely to increase dramatically, and become more and more frequent at, or around the spill zone.
I’ve been a licensed HAM radio operator for around 15 years, and actively involved in ‘Skywarn’, (a realtime/emergency weather reporting, colaboration of NOAA, National Weather Assoc., and Amatuer Radio Operators)
My very basic knowledge of electricity, electrical circuits, di-electric compounds, insulators, and conductivity support this well. I’m sure the effect even has a name (unknown to me).
1) Oil contains many dielectric chemicals, and insulating properties. When a VERY LARGE area becomes coated in oil, it becomes electrically insulated, from energy on the otherside of the “coating”.
2) Large pools of oil reaching the surface, absorb heat from the sun, raising both surface and subsurface temperatures, of the oil and it’s surrounding waters. This increase in surface temperature will add to the “energy” that creates violent thunderstorms, not to mention the ‘columns’ of rising hot air, over the oil slick. This turbulance also adds to the enegry that creates these monster storms.
3) Coat the water (conductor) with vast amounts of oil, (insulator) now expose the surface to electrical energy. Like with a capacitor, the energy will build. The enrgy ‘storage’ will continue to build until you eventually have a discharge (lighning). This discharge, being surpressed by the insulator will build until it can find a path to discharge. (around the oil) However!
Should you place a very large conductor through the insulator, you will give a HIGHLY preferred point for discharge. The ships that are on the scene are doing just that. The ships ARE the conductor, and the oil is the insulator. The ships complete the electrical path through the oil to water.
Basically this means that electrical storm activity is GOING TO INCREASE and the ships will inevitably be struck much more often. As the season for storms come into play, you’ll see more and more lighning activity over the area, and increased discharge. Basically it will likely get to a point that will terrify anyone who believes we’ve opened the “gate to Hell”.
What Isaac mentioned is also a VERY important factor, affecting my theory also.
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