Mumford and Sons

Where does Tim Tebow find the time to front an English folk band?

Estimating the Volume of the GOM Oil Leak

The Exxon Valdez spilled just under 11 million gallons (~250,000 barrels) of light crude. How much has leaked from the Deepwater Horizon's well since it ruptured?



If the outside experts are right, then the current leak has already released twice the volume released by the Valdez. Unfortunately there are also a number of additional factors that make this worse than the Valdez spill.

1) The Valdez impacted a remote, sparsely populated area of minimal economic significance. The Gulf leak is in pretty much the worst possible location for such an event, given the profound economic importance of the area.

2) The gulf well is leaking a heavy oil that is a nightmare to clean up compared to the light sweet crude leaked by the Valdez

3) The gulf well is a leaking a tremendous amount of natural gas. The reserves that the Deepwater Horizon was drilling into were estimated to hold 3-10 thousand times more gas than oil. It is this gas that caused the 'dome' attempt to fail, as methand hydrates rapidly crystallized inside of it.

4) The Valdez held a relatively small amount of oil. The situation in the Gulf of Mexico, on the other hand, involves a leaking well that could eventually release 5, 50, or even 500 times as much oil as the Valdez if we don't seal it off.

Also, note that the 210,000 gal/day figure cited in the calculator is the long outdated 5,000 barrels/day estimate from a couple of weeks ago (1 barrel = 42 US gallons). Officials from NOAA and BP have both been publicly presented with the findings of the outside scientists who are claiming 25,000 barrels/day, and did not contest those estimates. Furthermore, BP just testified behind closed doors in the Senate that the current flow could be 60,000 barrels/day. BP pegs the worst-case flow from an unrestricted gusher at 163,000 barrels/day, a scenario becoming more likely by the day as the Blow Out Preventer and piping continue to be relentlessly eroded by the oil/gas/sand mixture blasting out of the well.

Symphony of Science

Symphony of Science is an amazing project that takes actual footage of some of our great scientists and sets their words to music (electronically massaged so as to be in key and on beat). The result is mesmerizing: poetic, profound, and beautiful.

"We Are All Connected"




"A Glorious Dawn"