Oil

Why are we so horror-stricken after the environmental catastrophe at the Gulf of Mexico?

Because we can see the damage!

Yet there are things happening that are just as bad, except we cannot (and do not want to) see it. These things also happen a lot closer to home.

Here is a citation from the “Welt” (Science Section – Wissenschaftsteil):

“Looking for oil in the North Sea in 1990, the English oil company Mobil North Sea Limited did some drilling and accidentally hit a gas pocket that stood under huge pressure”. The pocket finally burst on November, 21st, 1990. Since, regardless of several attempts, the drilling hole could not be closed, it is still open after 16 years (that would be 20 today). On the international oceanic charts, it is marked as a zone of danger.”

Incidentally, the site of the accident is located about a third of the way between Scotland and Denmark.
You really should read this “Welt” article . It also informs you:

• about horrendous quantities of the gas methane being blown into the air. The effects of this greenhouse gas are 24 times as detrimental as those of CO2;
• this one drilling hole being responsible for around 25 per cent of the entire methane- output in the North Sea;
• it being something special that the free CO2 and methane continue rising to finally arrive right at the surface;
• currently around 1,000 litres of the gas being discharged from the drilling hole every second;
  climate protection not having been an issue in the 1990ies. Consequently, the danger evaluation was limited to dangers for oceanic navigation;
• the repeated attempts at closing the drilling hole never being a success to this day and it therefore having been open for 20 years now and
• David Edlington, who is press speaker of the oil company Mobil North Sea Limited,  saying about the blow-out when questioned: „Internal investigations have proved that there has been no massive gas discharge from the drilling hole since 1990. We returned the drilling hole to the British Government several years ago.“

Well, it appears to be quite easy, doesn’t it?

You are also informed that, as time went on, an ecological system of its own developed around the drilling hole. An illustrious community of highly specialized bacteria, mussels, flowery animals and fish have settled there.
Except that, with the exception of a few researchers, nobody has been interested in it for 20 years. It was (quite) convenient to forget about it. Only navigational maps showing the danger zone remind you of the accident. And there is no company and no government in the world concerned with closing this tremendous  blowout.

There are several more forgotten consequences of our energy greed: massive fires still smouldering in hundreds of coal mines after accidents. In those mines, coal is being burned in huge quantities and with a total lack of reason for decades, perhaps even centuries. But that is also something nobody is apparently interested in, regardless of the fact that the quantities of CO2 permanently emitted every year are around as much as by the aviation world-wide.

Neither do the radio-active waste we store in salt mines (!) in rusty barrels seem to concern us very much.
So much on the responsibility of federal and private energy concerns. There is never a correct total balance. What we have is endless destructive exploitation. Profits are privatized, losses socialized, damages ignored and handed on to later generations. Basically, I would call it crime.

What a blessing that it is now oil at the Gulf. Oil smells sticks together and soils everything. That is the only reason why they are now trying to mend the leak. It is the only reason why billions of dollars are now provided for repair works.

Thus, there is a positive side to the accident at the Gulf: it draws the attention of the people to a grievance. Basically, we should hope that the oil leak at the Gulf of Mexico will remain in existence in order to serve as a continual warning.

It is just possible that this might lead to us getting more aware of the other damage we are doing to the environment all the time. We might even start being concerned with other devastating developments, such as the plastic waste on the oceans and much more of the same kind.

And maybe we will manage not to let the hot water running while we brush our teeth, or to change our perverted mobility habits and do without all this mania for plastics and wrappings.

RMD
(Translated by EG)

P.S.
Unfortunately, I did not find anything about how deep down the blowout site in the North Sea is. But I assume that the North Sea will not be more than 1,500 metres deep at the location in question. After all, the North Sea has an average depth of 93 metres. The crater from which the gas is currently emitted by ten springs will probably be at a depth of between 25 and 50 metres. I think that is a depth that should not be too much for modern technology to work at.