Friday, July 2, 2010

Fire Down Below



I captured this video from BP's feed from the Ocean Intervention ROV number 1. Anyone have an idea what the glowing stuff that looks like lava is?

UPDATE: I have been in communication with other Youtube users who have captured videos from the Skandi ROVs, the ones that are pointed at the spot in the wellhead from where the oil is gushing. Just go to Youtube and search "BP oil well fire" and you'll find at least a dozen videos... There are spontaneous fires breaking out in the oil/methane plume. When you consider that this is happening in water, at a depth of around 4850 feet, this is frightening.

Petroleum engineers say that when you have concentrations of methane this high, even under the enormous pressure and being surrounded by water, fires such as these are not only possible but likely. I believe that what I captured from Ocean Intervention I was in fact molten metal seeping out from the well head. It may be that there is fire down below the ocean floor, in the well casing where the ROVs cannot see. It is possible that spontaneous flames are breaking out intermittently down there and that it is melting parts of the steel well casing, causing further damage to the integrity of the casing, which is already being described as shattered.

If this is the case then it may be only a matter of time before a fire breaks out down inside the giant methane bubble that geologists believed is trapped below the ocean floor, on top of the oil reservoir. If that happens, God help us.

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