FYI - 1.6 million gallons spilled, and counting.

Valdez spilled 10.9 million.

Full moon, high tide, and it's nesting and spawning season.

What is your source? Not to be critical of you, but I'm just saying the media is not checking the numbers it has reported, which have been bullshit. I remember the media at first reporting that the amount was 142 gallons a day. Now it's up to 5,000 and they are saying that the spill is five times as bad as BP first estimated! I'm thinking that BP PR has been given a free run by the media to report this story for them.

They are saying that it's spilling 5,000 gallons a day. So, 5,000 gallons in twelve days is just 60,000 gallons. There's no way.

My thinking: they are also mixing up barrels with gallons. Is it actually 5,000 barrels? That would make more sense in every way because in any other story about crude oil reported, they always speak in barrels, not gallons. A barrel is 42 gallons.

If it has been leaking 5,000 barrels a day, then we've actually have spilled about 2.5 million gallons. The problem is, there's no end in sight for this yet. It could take weeks to stop this.

But it's impossible to tell how bad this is because the media has let itself get led by the nose by BP PR, as has the government, and it won't question the fudgy numbers.

Edit: Cenk on The Young Turks places the total oil spilled at 100,000 barrels so far, which he notes, (Correctly) amounts to 4.2 million gallons. Okay, then the actual amount being spilled would be more like over eight thousand gallons a day. So, it's far worse than what we've been told so far. Unlike the Valdez, however, there is no end in sight unless they can cap this.

And a barrel is 42 gallons, and always has been. That would be over twice what you're saying in terms of gallons. See how they're fudging the numbers any way they want?

What I'm saying is, there's no reason to trust any numbers that are coming from BP, nor from the media who merely report what they say. We're probably not going to hear the truth about this until after the "autopsy" on this disaster.

This means it will be bigger than Valdez in a few days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_spill

The Exxon Valdez was a fairly minor oil spill - Nowhere near the top of the list.

Your source doesn't say gallons, your source says tons. There are about 7-8 barrels to a metric ton.

See what I mean? Are they really talking about gallons, barrels or tons, then? Or are they just taking any unit that's "erroneously" attached by BP? Is BP deliberately deceptive with its figures, taking advantage of our inattention?

Since this slick is in danger of covering beaches in 4 states, I now lean towards thinking they're saying they mean tons, not gallons. But we're not going to know until after the "autopsy."

For the Ixtoc I oil well spill in the Gulf of Mexico (row 2 of the table "Oil spills of over 100,000 tonnes or 30 million US gallons, ordered by tonnes") 454,000 tons x 308 US gallons/ton = 139,832,000 gallons.

Now I will admit that the table says "tons" and the conversion note says "tonnes". Therefore, I used the lower estimate from the table. Futhermore, a conversion from weight to volume is imprecise because crude oil from different sources has different densities.

See http://www.spe.org/industry/reference/unit_conversions.php for a full set of conversion factors from the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

is metric tons. Since oil heating value is expressed based on weight (heating value is what you pay for) there is no fixed constant to convert from barrels per ton (or tonne) as the specific gravity varies.

Obviously since you move oil in finite volumes it's important to reconcile the two values.

In any event, in a spill it's the volume that matters more than the weight.

The various news people seem to get mixed up between barrels and gallons. And I suppose Fox News would like to express it in tons to make it look 7 or so times smaller.

I saw that they reported it in tons and did not expect, from what you wrote, that you had made an effort to convert it.

A morning of stupidity.

My hummer burns that in a week

Or 5,000 barrels a day. Now that begins to make sense.

If this is even the correct number this time. Stay alert for worse estimates, and remember, unlike an oil tanker, this thing is bottomless.