Tag: oil spill

  • The Stench of Money: Canada’s Environment Succumbs to Oil Sands

    Canada is home to the world’s third largest oil reserves. But extracting the black gold is difficult, and threatens to destroy both the surrounding environment and the homeland of native tribes. With protests growing against a planned US pipeline, the oil sands controversy threatens to spread south.

    Celina Harpe holds up the map like an indictment. “The oil companies are into Moose Lake now,” she says, angrily tapping the paper. Workers have apparently already begun surveying the land.

    “I cried when I heard that,” says Harpe, the elder of the Cree First Nation community based in Fort MacKay in the Canadian province of Alberta. “That’s where I was born.”

    Her feet are shod in moose-leather moccasins decorated with brightly-colored beads. Over her neatly-pressed trousers she wears a checked lumberjack shirt.

    Harpe gets up off her worn sofa and steps out onto the terrace of her blue-painted log cabin. The mighty Athabasca River is just a stone’s throw away. “We can’t drink the water anymore,” says Harpe, 72. Berries and medicinal herbs no longer grow in the woods. Even the moose have become scarce. Harpe wrings her wrinkled hands. “We can’t live off the land anymore,” she laments. “Our livelihood has been taken away from us, and they haven’t even asked if they can use the land.”

    An unequal battle is being waged in Alberta. Multinational oil companies are talking about the biggest oil boom in decades. Standing in their way are people like Celina Harpe, whose culture and health are threatened because the ground under their feet contains the planet’s third-largest reserves of crude oil.

    Geopolitical Significance

    Experts estimate that up to 170 billion barrels of crude oil could be extracted from Canada’s oil sands. Only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have more black gold. In addition, the Alberta deposits are of huge geopolitical significance. Indeed, the US already buys more oil from neighboring Canada than from all the nations in the Persian Gulf region put together.

    Very soon, still more of the so-called bitumen could be helping to fire up the US economy. President Barack Obama wants to decide by the end of the year whether it is in his country’s interests to build a 2,700-kilometer (1,700-mile) pipeline from Alberta to Houston in Texas.

    This pipeline, named Keystone XL, could pump up to 1.3 million barrels of crude oil a day to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. But whereas the industry is dreaming of an oil rush, protests against the plans are growing. Environmentalists spent two weeks in August and September demonstrating in front of the White House against the exploitation of Canada’s oil sands. Among others, they have the support of 10 Nobel Peace Prize winners, including the Dalai Lama and former Vice President Al Gore.

    The protesters’ rage is directed at a form of oil considered the world’s dirtiest. Ecologists are also worried about the fate of wetlands and water reservoirs along the route of the planned pipeline, including the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies no fewer than eight US states with water.

    Above all, the exploitation of the Canadian oil sands could also lead the US to put off seriously thinking about renewable energy sources for many decades to come. “The point is not to get ourselves hooked on the next dirty stuff,” says US environmentalist Bill McKibben, one of the spokesmen of the anti-oil sands movement. He thinks the exploitation of the sands would make it impossible for America to meet its CO2-reduction targets.

    ‘A Dirty Needle’

    “It’s [like] a drug addict reaching for a dirty needle from a fellow addict,” NASA climate researcher James Hansen says. “It’s crazy, and the president should understand that and exercise leadership and reject the pipeline.”

    Criticism of the plans is also coming from Europe. Only last week the European Commission decided to define oil extracted from oil sands as particularly harmful to the environment. If the European Parliament and EU member states agree, it will make it particularly expensive to import it into the European Union. Importers could, for example, be forced to invest in organic fuels to compensate for the increase in CO2 emissions. The Canadian government is opposed to such moves.

    The area around the town of Fort McMurray, a ramshackle assortment of ugly purpose-built houses in northeastern Alberta, is the epicenter of the oil sands industry. Beefy four-wheel-drive vehicles race along the town’s roads. In winter the temperatures fall to as low as minus 25 degrees Celsius (minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s when the locals retreat to the Boomtown Casino or the Oil Can Tavern, a neon yellow-illuminated bar of dubious repute.

    The first oil prospectors came to the region more than a century ago. The commercial exploitation of the oil sands began with the construction of the first extraction plants in the mid-1960s. Suncor and Syncrude were the first two companies involved, but rising oil prices have since attracted the industry’s giants, including Shell, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil.

    (-> read original article at SPIEGEL ONLINE international)

    Heavy equipment is used to dredge out a mixture of sand, clay, water and heavy oil created from the plankton of a primeval ocean. The upward thrust of the Rocky Mountains pushed the reserves into their present position about 70 million years ago. The area of Alberta underneath which the oil sands lie today is about the size of Iowa (see graphic on left).

    The Oil Sands Discovery Centre in Fort McMurray contains a sample of oil sand under a glass dome. Visitors can open a small hatch and smell the contents. Crumbled oil sand looks like coffee grounds, and stinks of diesel. It is the stench of big money.

    Some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Fort McMurray, the smell hangs in the air day and night. The drive north along Highway 63 leads into the seemingly endless pine forests of the boreal climatic zone. But the woods soon open up, affording a clear view of the smokestacks of an immense industrial complex in the center of an apocalyptic-looking lunar landscape.

    Yellow sulfur tailings flash in the distance. Walls of earth surround a gigantic pit in which Caterpillar 797F industrial tippers are shunting to and fro. Each of these tippers can carry up to 360 metric tons of oil sand in a single load. Their wheels alone are four meters (13 feet) high. The plant is the Mildred Lake Mine belonging to the Syncrude company. Approximately 300,000 barrels of oil are produced on the site every day.

    Oil sands contain about 10 percent bitumen on average. To separate the oil from the mixture, the sand is put into a caustic soda solution at about 50 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit). The bitumen floats to the top of the slurry, from where it can be skimmed off. It is then upgraded to produce what is known as synthetic crude oil (see graphic).

    A Dirty Business

    This procedure enables more than 90 percent of the bitumen to be extracted from the oil sands. The only problem is what to do with the remaining few percent. Mixed with water, sand and clay, it ends up in huge storage basins that already span an area of about 170 square kilometers (65 square miles) in Alberta. The sand quickly sinks to the bottom, leaving a gel-like suspension of minute particulate matter that takes up to 30 years to settle.

    The sludge also contains heavy metals and chemicals. Environmentalists accuse the operators of allowing some of the water to seep into the ground. Indeed, elevated concentrations of lead, cadmium and mercury have been measured in the nearby Athabasca River and Canadian Indians speak of deformed fish and complain that their people are contracting rare forms of cancer. A definitive connection with the oil sands extraction, however, has not yet been made.

    From a hill at the edge of the Syncrude site you can look straight down into the ponds. Oily streaks cover the surface. Last October, 350 ducks landed here during a hailstorm. Their feathers covered in bitumen, they all had to be euthanized. Hollow shots from propane canons now echo across the seemingly endless plains to frighten other birds away. Scarecrows tied to oil barrels bob gently on the ponds.

    Biologists hired by the oil companies are trying to reclaim the land. The hill on the edge of the Syncrude site, for example, is directly above a former mine. A sign informs visitors that if they return in 20 years time, they will find “a landscape reclaimed with lakes, forests, wetlands,” an open invitation for “hiking and fishing.” For now, bison graze on a nearby meadow.

    Gripped by Desperation

    Environmentalists say this is all just greenwashing. “This land is definitely being destroyed forever,” says Melina Laboucan-Massimo, gazing scornfully across the artificial oasis surrounded by gouged out earth. The 30-year-old works as an energy expert for Greenpeace and fights for the rights of the first nations, as Canada’s native inhabitants are known. Laboucan-Massimo is herself a member of the Cree nation, and was born in the area.

    When she sees what is happening to her tribe’s traditional homelands, she seems to be gripped by desperation. Only last April, a pipeline burst just a few miles from her aunt’s house, spilling 4.5 million liters (1 million gallons) of oil.

    Although there are agreements between the native inhabitants and the Canadian state giving the first nations land and usage rights, it’s not clear what the contracts mean for the exploitation of the oil sands. The Canadian Supreme Court is currently considering an appeal by several first nations for a greater say in oil exploitation. Some 23,000 Canadian Indians still live in the oil sands area.

    “My father’s family lived off the land,” says Laboucan-Massimo. “My grandparents hunted, they fished, they trapped; they lived in a more symbiotic relationship with the earth.” Many native Canadians now work for the oil industry: “They are essentially getting paid to destroy their children’s future,” she says.

    For years now, Laboucan-Massimo has been fighting an exhausting battle against the industry. “So far they have only developed like 3 percent of the tar sands in Alberta,” she says. “I don’t have a lot of hope if they develop as much land as they want.”

    Numerous new opencast mines have already been approved; many others are still in planning. The prospect of a direct pipeline to heavy-oil refineries in Texas has prompted investors to reach for their checkbooks.

    Oil Tanks in the Forest

    The International Energy Agency predicts production of conventional oil will soon reach its peak. Oil production in Alberta, by contrast, could more than double to 3.5 million barrels a day by 2025. At today’s prices, that means that the oil sands in Canada, exploitable with today’s technology, are worth about $16 trillion.

    And production costs are falling constantly. Whereas a barrel of oil used to cost almost $75 to produce, new production methods promise to cut that to about $50.

    The eight-seater Beechcraft Super King Air 350, leased by Cenovus Energy, takes off into the skies over Fort McMurray. While the plane is gaining altitude, the shimmering Athabasca River comes into view. Then the mines. From the air they look like oozing wounds in the midst of the green forest. Soon square clearings can also be seen, each with its own oil derrick. Straight roads slice through the forest; the trails left by the geologists searching for the oil sands below.

    As the plane descends, oil tanks and chimneys appear near a lake. Christina Lake is the name of this Cenovus production plant, one of the world’s most modern. But there’s no sign of a mine; the oil sands at the site are being drilled here rather than dug up.

    About 80 percent of the oil sands in Canada are too deep to be retrieved using opencast mining. More than 50 years ago, US geologist Manley Natland came up with idea to separate oil and sand below ground rather than digging them up first. Natland suggested superheating the oil sands so that the bitumen liquefies and can be pumped to the surface. Only now are the required machines available. Engineers can now pump 250 degree Celsius (480 degree Fahrenheit) steam through a borehole and deep down into the ground.

    ‘10,000 Barbecues’

    Cenovus perfected the procedure at Christina Lake. The plant is currently undergoing a dramatic expansion. By the end of the decade, the planners hope it will be producing 258,000 barrels a day, enough to supply some 4 million US citizens with energy for 24 hours.

    “We expect to produce oil at this facility for more than 30 years,” says Drew Zieglgansberger of Cenovus. The youthful-looking manager in blue overalls leads the way to one of five towering steam generators that form the heart of the oil factory. Zieglgansberger climbs a ladder on the front of the gigantic structure and looks through a small window into the white-hot fire burning at 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,700 degrees Fahrenheit), turning water into super-heated steam. The plant generates as much heat as “10,000 barbecues,” the manager proudly declares.

    Operating the mammoth oven is a dirty business. Natural gas is burned to bring the machines up to their operating temperature. In fact the energy equivalent of a barrel of oil is needed to recover 10 barrels of oil. The European Commission has calculated that recovering oil from oil sands is about 22 percent more harmful to the environment than conventional crude oil. The US Environmental Protection Agency has even suggested it creates 82 percent more greenhouse gas emissions.

    But that’s not all: Heating bitumen also releases sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides and heavy metals into the air, all of which later return to earth as acid rain. The Canadian Ministry for Natural Resources has confirmed that drilling generates twice the emissions as conventional oil production. Worse still, it’s not clear how drilling affects the water table. The independent Council of Canadian Academies regrets that such information is “absent.”

    Zieglgansberger accepts that there are problems. “Yes, we have the dirtiest oil in the world”, he openly admits. But it’ll be another 50 years before renewable energy can replace oil. “It is needed as a bridge to the next energy source.”

    Destined to Be Lost Forever

    Industry lobbyists are increasing their pressure on Washington. Pipeline operator TransCanada has close ties with the office of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The company’s current chief lobbyist was a top advisor to Clinton during the 2008 presidential primaries.

    Most analysts already assume that Obama will eventually authorize the Keystone XL pipeline. Too many jobs are believed to be on the line, and oil has too great a strategic significance to the US.

    Nevertheless, the pipeline’s opponents continue to rally their supporters. A human chain around the White House is planned for early November. However McKibben doubts it will have much of an impact. “The oil companies have more money than God,” he says.

    Time clearly appears to have run out for the native inhabitants of Alberta’s northeast. Their traditional way of life seems destined to be lost forever. Cenovus Manager Zieglgansberger takes a sober view of the situation: “We are now neighbors, whether they want us here or not.” The oil man is at pains to stress that he respects first-nation traditions. “We bring our stakeholders out with us before we do any disturbance,” Zieglgansberger assures us.

    Such respect seems to be rather limited. When tribal elders discovered a traditional burial ground on the site of one of the Cenovus plants, the oil company agreed to preserve the holy shrine.

    The cemetery now lies in the middle of the industrial complex on a tiny square of land spared from the lumberjacks.

    Now the native Indians must pass directly by the oil tanks to honor their dead.

    Translated from the German by Jan Liebelt

    (-> read original article at SPIEGEL ONLINE international)

  • Oil sands activist Melina Laboucan-Massimo: ‘What you do to the land you do to yourself’

    Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Climate campaigner with Greenpeace Canada and member of the Cree First Nation, on oil sands operations in northern Alberta, threats to her homeland, and the planned Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Houston, Texas.

    Q: US-president Barack Obama has to decide before the end of the year if TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline can go forward. Which effects would the construction have?

    Laboucan-Massimo: If this pipeline is built, the amount of tar sands that will be produced in Alberta is going to increase enormously. And thats problematic because we are already seeing unchecked tar sands development in Alberta. We are already hearing of contaminated water sources. We are already seeing the boreal forest being destroyed and the woodland caribou disappear from the areas where tar sands development takes place. It’s not a thriving, living ecosystem anymore. Also, there is a potential risk for leaks and spills all along the pipeline corridor, and TransCanada does not seem to be able to guarantee that a spill won’t happen. Part of the Keystone-Pipeline has already been built, and we have seen 12 spills already in its first year of operation.

    Q: What’s wrong with producing oil out of Alberta’s oil sands?

    Laboucan-Massimo: Oil from the tar sands is an unconventional fossil fuel. It is a lot harder to reach than conventional oil. It takes more energy, more water and results in more carbon emissions than conventional fossil fuel sources. The ecological footprint is huge. The oil companies have only developed about three percent out of the land they are seeking to exploit. If they develop as much as they want to, that is gonna be very problematic for the way that people live here.

    Q: You were born in this area. As a person connected to the land – how do you feel about the oil sands industry?

    Laboucan-Massimo: It really hurts my heart to see the effects on the land, the animals, the people and the water. Our cultural fabric is based off this land. My Dads side of my family was very connected to the land. They lived off the land, they hunted, they fished, they trapped, they lived in a more symbiotic relationship with the earth. Before colonization, the earth was in a pristine condition for a reason. The indigenous people that lived here had a deep understand and respect for the land. They had traditional ecological knowledge. They knew that what you do to the land you do to yourself. What we see now, however, is a disconnection between people and the earth. People cannot access certain parts of their traditional territories anymore because they are being cut off by the leases that are given out to multinational oil corporations who don’t have the same regard for the land as the people that have lived their for thousands of years.

    Q: What kind of impact do you see on the people?

    Laboucan-Massimo: People have called this resource a curse, and for good reason. There are serious health issues like respiratory illnesses, emphysema or asthma, and also elevated rates of certain cancers. We are not only seeing it in the people, we are seeing it in the animals too. People have found fishes in the Athabasca River that have tumors on them, that have crooked spines. Food, which was once extremely healthy, is now becoming contaminated.

    Q: But local people benefit a lot from the oil exploration.

    Laboucan-Massimo: I don’t agree with that, I see a lot of inequity. The community that I was born into for example still has no running water. Also, a lot of schools are being underresourced in the communities to this day. The industry likes to say ‘we provide jobs’, but how long will those jobs last? If it is a construction job, the job will be over when the plants are all set and done. Fact is: Its just a wage. You are getting paid to essentially destroy your children’s future. You are getting paid to be around toxic chemicals. You are getting paid to potentially have health effects in the future and to destroy the very land that your ancestors lived upon. Billions of dollars are taken out of resources from our traditional territories, and yet, this development is not benefiting the people that actually live here. It is benefiting the companies. And their people don’t live here. They don’t have to live out the consequences of the destruction of the land.

  • Oil Disaster in the Gulf Coast: ‘I Have to Keep My Good Spirits’

    For as long as he can remember Floyd Lasseigne has been a fisherman on Grand Isle, off the coast of Louisiana. Now he has to stand by and watch as the BP oil spill destroys his life.

    The oysters lie in the water like silent harbingers of the disaster. A shiny film of oil washes over the shells. The broth swashes over the flat oyster bed that belongs to Floyd Lasseigne.

    Using a small axe the fisherman extracts a few oysters from the ground and carefully pries them open. Slippery white oyster flesh slides out. Lasseigne bends down and holds his nose closely to the sea creature. “You can smell the oil in them,” the sturdy man says and hands the oyster over. Then he looks away, his eyes red from many sleepless nights, and looks over to the marsh grass, the stalks smudged with oil up to the tideline. “It makes me sick,” Lasseigne says. “This is my livelihood and now I see it going down the drain.” (more…)

  • BP’s Oil Disaster: The Dangers and Difficulties of ‘Bottom Kill’

    SPIEGEL-Online International: BP has only one arrow left in its quiver, a method known as ‘bottom kill.’ The idea is for relief wells to stop the gushing oil from below, but the technical challenges are formidable. Past experiences show that the oil may continue flowing into late autumn.

    For the engineers, it was a blessing in disguise. They had drilled to a depth of up to 3,500 meters (11,500 feet) below the sea floor when gas and oil suddenly began shooting upward. But there was no explosion. The 69 workers at the site were evacuated and no one was killed.

    It was the morning of Aug. 21, 2009, when engineers lost control of the well beneath the West Atlas oil rig in the Timor Sea off Australia’s northern coast. (more…)

  • Hidden Menace in the Gulf of Mexico: Oil Spill’s Real Threat Lies Beneath the Surface

    The Gulf of Mexico spill is vastly larger than the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989, but where is all the oil? While efforts to protect coastlines have been making the headlines, the real ecological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico is unfolding deep beneath the water’s surface.

    Samantha Joye was sure she was right. Somewhere down there, the toxic clouds were sure to exist. And now she was holding the evidence in her hands. A thin film of oil glistened in one of the small sample bottles Joye had filled with water taken from more than 1 kilometer (3,300 feet) beneath the surface.

    “You could see it. Everybody saw it,” Joye, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia, wrote on her blog. Besides, the sample taken from the Gulf of Mexico smelled as if it had come directly from a gas station.

    Joye made this important discovery a few days ago on board the research ship Walton Smith, near the location where the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig went up in flames on April 20.

    The scientists are now referring to the site as “Ground Zero.” They have spotted oddly shaped “pancakes of oil” floating on the surface there, Joye reports, as well as “bizarre orange and black stringers, as deep in the water column as you could see.”

    –> Read original story at SPIEGEL Online International

    The scientist lowered her sample container into this toxic soup. The preliminary lab results show what many had already feared: Massive amounts of oil are billowing beneath the water’s surface in the Gulf of Mexico. Several teams of scientists have spotted clouds containing oil in the depths of the ocean, a number of which are several hundred meters thick and extend for several kilometers.

    The discoveries have added a new dimension to the fight to contain the oil spill. While thousands of workers and volunteers are currently defending the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida against the reddish-brown scourge, what could be a far greater ecological catastrophe is taking shape out in the ocean.

    Where’s the Oil?

    According to new estimates, more than twice as much oil has flowed into the Gulf of Mexico in the last 50 days than was spilled from the oil tanker Exxon Valdez into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989.

    But where has all the oil gone?

    Relatively little has reached the coasts so far, leading scientists to fear that much of it is still lurking underwater. And in addition to the oil, the water is contaminated with massive amounts of chemicals that BP workers have been spraying for weeks to disperse the oil. “In my opinion, the situation is comparable to that of a hurricane that’s building up off the coast and gaining in strength,” warns Larry McKinney of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies in Corpus Christi, Texas.

    Majestic whale sharks and rare Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles are now swimming through the oily water. Sperm whales and thousands of dolphins are forced to breathe the toxic fumes on the ocean surface. A myriad of plankton organisms migrate, in a day-and-night rhythm, up and down through a water column contaminated with oil. Finally, ancient reefs on the ocean floor are suffering beneath the toxic soup.

    ‘There Aren’t Any Plumes’

    “We are now entering a different phase of this disaster,” Samantha Joye, the marine biologist, told the news agency Bloomberg in an interview. “Everybody has been focusing on the surface impacts, which is normal. But now we’ve got to switch gears and start thinking about the deep water.”

    For Joye, it’s also a matter of her reputation as a scientist. Her team discovered the first signs of the monstrous oil clouds in mid-May. But BP CEO Tony Hayward disputes that the clouds even exist. “The oil is on the surface,” he said. “There aren’t any plumes.” He argues that, because oil is lighter than water, it will always float to the surface. BP scientists, at any rate, have found “no evidence” of underwater oil clouds.

    The oil executive is trying to prevent the environmental damage from becoming more and more apparent. The US’s entire Gulf fishing industry could be shut down for years if the scientists’ fears turn out to be true. In the end, the overall damage will determine how much BP will be expected to pay in compensation.

    Despite BP’s claims, the evidence of submarine pollution is now overwhelming. Scientists at the University of South Florida also recently discovered an enormous amount of oil at about 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) beneath the surface. The cloud of finely dispersed oil particles extends for 35 kilometers, billowing to the northeast of the Deepwater Horizon accident site. It’s one of the most species-rich regions of the Gulf of Mexico.

    An Underwater World in Peril

    The scientists lowered highly sensitive measuring devices from on board their research ship, the Weatherbird II, and took water samples from various depths. Their results suggest that the cloud is drifting toward the DeSoto Canyon, which is near the coast, on the edge of the continental shelf. There, nutrient-rich water rises from the depths and supports an enchanting underwater world. Fishermen catch meter-long red tuna, shimmering kingfish and grouper. Magical gardens of intricately branched corals flourish on the sea floor. Green brittle stars, glass-rope sponges and fish like the splendid alfonsino and the blackbelly rosefish populate the reefs.

    “Unfortunately, the depth at which the oil is coming out of the well is home to the greatest diversity of species in the entire Gulf region,” explains Thomas Shirley of the Harte Research Institute. Biologists have counted more than 1,000 species at that depth, and they can only guess at what the oil and chemicals are doing to them.

    Scientists are already collecting the first signs of the damage. Biologists John Dindo and Andrea Kroetz are bent over their catch at Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. They have just returned from a scientific haul. Atlantic sharpnose sharks, marked with yellow plastic bands, have been placed on ice in boxes, next to valuable red snappers with sharp teeth.

    The scientists, who spent 22 hours at sea, are working under high pressure. “We are experiencing these things for the first time,” says Dindo. “We have to collect as much data as possible so that we can study the effects of the oil on the animals.” The fish look normal, but laboratory analyses must now be performed to determine whether the pollutants have already affected their tissue.

    Bathed in Oil

    Dindo has been working at the Sea Lab on Dauphin Island for 37 years. The island off the Alabama coast lies directly in the path of the oil. The first reddish-brown lumps of oil washed up on the region’s beaches last week. The military has built a wall to protect the island’s sand bars.

    But Dindo is more concerned about the open sea than the beaches. “The spawning season for many fish has just started. What happens when fish eggs and larvae are bathed in oil?” the 61-year-old scientist asks. An entire year’s worth of young fish could be lost.

    The scientists are worried about acute poisoning, as well as genetic damage and later deformities. “The oil impairs the organ functions of the marine creatures,” says toxicologist Joe Griffitt of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs. This, he adds, will impair fertility and larval development. Oil components could also become concentrated in the food chain.

    The oil is suspended in the water in tiny, barely visible droplets, which the scientists call “rosebuds.” The emulsion develops directly at the well head, deep beneath the surface, says Griffitt. When the hot oil shoots out of the ocean floor and comes into contact with very cold water under high pressure, methane gas is released, which then atomizes the oil.

    The Dead Zone

    The toxicologist fears that the chemicals that BP are using to fight the oil are actually promoting the formation of oil clouds. The company has already used about 3.8 million liters of the chemicals, about a quarter of which they released into the water directly at the wellhead.

    “The oil alone would slowly rise to the surface,” says Griffitt, “but when it becomes mixed with the dispersants, it remains in the water column.” Although bacteria attack the emulsion there and gradually destroy the oil, the microorganisms consume much of the oxygen dissolved in the water in the process. The result could be that fish and zooplankton die off on a large scale due to the creation of an oxygen-deficient “dead zone.” “The chemistry of the sea water is being completely turned around, and we have no idea what happens next,” says Griffitt.

    In fact, scientists know very little about the effects of oil deep in the ocean. Neither BP nor the US scientific authorities have attached much importance to the issue until now. For the first time, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has now dispatched a ship, the Gordon Gunter, to study the phenomenon. The scientists on board are using various devices, including heavy-duty sonar equipment and an underwater robot named “Gulper.”

    Waiting for Research Funding

    But the funding for independent projects is coming in very slowly, even though BP has pledged $500 million in immediate aid to support the research. Zoologist Eric Hoffmayer of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, for example, has been waiting for weeks to receive money from the emergency funds.

    Time is of the essence for Hoffmayer. He is studying one of the most fascinating animals of the Gulf, the whale shark, which the oil is putting in mortal danger. “When whale sharks swim into the oil, their gills become clogged,” the zoologist warns. “They can no longer absorb oxygen and die within a few minutes.”

    The sharks, which can grow up to 14 meters (46 feet) long, are particularly at risk because they constantly swim with their mouths open to filter microorganisms out of the water. In the process, up to 6,000 liters of water an hour flow through their respiratory organs.

    Ironically, one of the most important feeding grounds for the massive animals lies off the mouth of the Mississippi River, where Hoffmayer has already spotted groups of up to 50 individuals. The sharks are attracted by large masses of plankton, which feast on the tons of nutrients that the river carries into the ocean.

    ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’

    What can be done about the oil clouds beneath the ocean surface? The scientists don’t have any answers. And the ghostly oil shroud is growing larger and larger. Samantha Joye and her team have located a cloud near the damaged wellhead that is about 15 kilometers long, 5 kilometers wide and 100 meters thick. Besides, the oil farther to the south appears to have reached the Loop Current, an ocean current that could carry the oil to Florida. Other currents could even carry it up the US East Coast and into the Gulf Stream.

    The scientists’ greatest concern is this year’s hurricane season. “A powerful storm would be enough to distribute the oil throughout the entire water column,” warns James Cowan, an oceanographer at Louisiana State University.

    A technology to remove the pollution doesn’t exist. Besides, BP is hardly likely to clean up the water voluntarily. In fact, it might suit the company all too well if the disaster remained hidden beneath the waves, says Cowan. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

    Clogged Up

    Nevertheless, Cowan recently got a first-hand look at the underwater oil spill when he lowered a robot with an attached camera to a depth of 150 meters, about 120 kilometers west of the accident site. “First we saw droplets of oil, but then we couldn’t see anything at all,” Cowan reports.

    The underwater oil soup was so thick that it clogged the camera lens and the robot’s headlights.

    Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

    –> Read original story at SPIEGEL Online International

     

  • The Risky Hunt for the Last Oil Reserves: Does Deep Sea Drilling Have a Future?

    The oil catastrophe afflicting the Gulf of Mexico underscores just how dangerous offshore oil exploration can be. Oil companies are seeking to extract the planet’s last remaining barrels by drilling from ever-deeper sites on the ocean floor that wouldn’t even have been considered not too many years ago.

    The oil now coating the Gulf of Mexico in reddish brown streaks has a long journey behind it. Tracing that journey would require diving 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) into the ocean, passing through a massive layer of mud and finally pounding through hard salt.

    The oil originated more than four kilometers (two and a half miles) below the ocean floor, in rock layers that formed millions of years ago, during the Tertiary period. It’s scalding hot down there, a veritable journey into hell, but companies such as BP, Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron are daring to make the trip more and more often these days. Flying over the site where the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon sank in late April reveals dozens more oil platforms projecting out of the water on the horizon, like toys bobbing in a bathtub. … More

  • Deep Trouble in the Gulf of Mexico: ‘A Disaster of Epic Proportions’

    The oil spill from the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico could turn into the biggest environmental catastrophe in US history. It could take months to stop the oil flow, and the damage to the local economy and wildlife could be huge. The accident is likely to hamper US President Barack Obama’s plans to extend offshore drilling.

    Orange booms made of resilient rubber, filling with floating foam, serve as the front line in the battle against the oil. Workers are loading meter after meter of the booms from the pier at Bud’s Boat Rental onto Miss Katherine, a supply ship that normally carries crews and materials to the oil rigs.

    Captain Leonard Murrel glances sullenly over at his men and wrinkles his nose. A brisk ocean breeze is laden with the heavy odor of crude oil. “It’s really a huge mess out there,” says the weather-beaten American, who has been working in the coastal town of Venice on the southeastern tip of the Mississippi Delta for the last 10 years. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”… More