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BP Gusher Includes (gasp!) Methane
Texas Aggie prof studying impacts says it's 40% methane, compared to typically 5%. Could hurt fishies, but I don't think he realizes the Global Warming potential!AP - In early June, a research team led by Samantha Joye of the Institute of Undersea Research and Technology at the University of Georgia investigated a 15-mile-long plume drifting southwest from the leak site. I thought everything was going northeast, to the beaches and marshes. They said they found methane concentrations up to 10,000 times higher than normal, and oxygen levels depleted by 40 percent or more. The scientists found that some parts of the plume had oxygen concentrations just shy of the level that tips ocean waters into the category of "dead zone" - a region uninhabitable to fish, crabs, shrimp and other marine creatures. Including the bugs that digest the oil and gas, until, I suppose, it drifts into oxygen-rich waters. BP spokesman disputed Joye's suggestion that the Gulf's deep waters contain large amounts of methane, noting that water samples taken by BP and federal agencies have shown minimal underwater oil outside the spill's vicinity. "The gas that escapes, what we don't flare, goes up to the surface and is gone," he said. See? And then it mixes with our air, and becomes a potent greenhouse gas! Posted by: Bobby 2010-06-18 |
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