I saw this image this morning and thought that I’d put this recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico into perspective for myself and for whoever wants to know.
British Petroleum, the company that is cleaning up the mess has estimated that the oil is leaking at a rate of one thousand barrels per day. The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates it at five thousand. Other, supposedly more authoritative estimates by geologists and satellite data put it at a more realistic 25 000 barrels per day.
It was on April 20th, a month ago today, that the leak began. So that gives us some data to work with.
Assuming the satellite data and independent geologists are correct, this gives us a leak rate of 25 000 barrels per day. This gives us 3 975 000 litres of oil per day. Assuming that the 25 000 barrel figure is a result of rounding up, let’s (for the sake of subjective fairness) round our number down to 3 750 000 litres.
Multiply this by 30 days, and we have an oil spill that is projected to contain 119 250 000 litres of crude oil. Now let’s put that in perspective.
I don’t know about you, but every time I hear something large being described in relative terms, the reference point is always a football field. For example:
“How tall is the CN Tower?”
“Five and a half football fields stacked end-to-end!”
So let’s take an American football field (I know, I know… it’s too small) as our reference point. An American football field is , rounded to the nearest meter, 110 meters long and 49 meters wide. This gives us a surface area of 5390 square meters. Cover that with oil a meter deep, and that’s 5390 cubit meters.
But that’s still under 34 000 barrels of oil, just over a day’s production. To account for all 30 previous days, we’d have to cover that football field to a depth of over 22 meters (72 feet for our friends South of the border). And add another meter tomorrow, and the day after…
That’s a lot of oil.
To show this another way, let’s see how long all this oil would run my car.
To date, in the 4+ years that I’ve driven my car, I’ve put 5841 L of gasoline into the tank (Yes, I record my gasoline consumption. Don’t you?) This gives us an average of 1460 L per year. Let’s assume again that the estimates are correct, and there are 119 250 000 L of spilled oil. Since our cars don’t run on pure oil, there is a refinement process, by which just under half the volume of oil is converted to gasoline. The exact number is around 45%. So, that gives us around 53 662 500 L of fuel for my car, allowing me to drive for another 36 755 years. Or… allowing almost thirty seven thousand people to drive similar cars for four years. Each day of estimated leakage wastes us enough crude oil to run my car for over twelve hundred years or for over twelve hundred people to drive for four years.
That’s a lot of oil.
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Black Gold… Texas Tea…
I saw this image this morning and thought that I’d put this recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico into perspective for myself and for whoever wants to know.
British Petroleum, the company that is cleaning up the mess has estimated that the oil is leaking at a rate of one thousand barrels per day. The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates it at five thousand. Other, supposedly more authoritative estimates by geologists and satellite data put it at a more realistic 25 000 barrels per day.
It was on April 20th, a month ago today, that the leak began. So that gives us some data to work with.
Assuming the satellite data and independent geologists are correct, this gives us a leak rate of 25 000 barrels per day. This gives us 3 975 000 litres of oil per day. Assuming that the 25 000 barrel figure is a result of rounding up, let’s (for the sake of subjective fairness) round our number down to 3 750 000 litres.
Multiply this by 30 days, and we have an oil spill that is projected to contain 119 250 000 litres of crude oil. Now let’s put that in perspective.
I don’t know about you, but every time I hear something large being described in relative terms, the reference point is always a football field. For example:
So let’s take an American football field (I know, I know… it’s too small) as our reference point. An American football field is , rounded to the nearest meter, 110 meters long and 49 meters wide. This gives us a surface area of 5390 square meters. Cover that with oil a meter deep, and that’s 5390 cubit meters.
But that’s still under 34 000 barrels of oil, just over a day’s production. To account for all 30 previous days, we’d have to cover that football field to a depth of over 22 meters (72 feet for our friends South of the border). And add another meter tomorrow, and the day after…
That’s a lot of oil.
To show this another way, let’s see how long all this oil would run my car.
To date, in the 4+ years that I’ve driven my car, I’ve put 5841 L of gasoline into the tank (Yes, I record my gasoline consumption. Don’t you?) This gives us an average of 1460 L per year. Let’s assume again that the estimates are correct, and there are 119 250 000 L of spilled oil. Since our cars don’t run on pure oil, there is a refinement process, by which just under half the volume of oil is converted to gasoline. The exact number is around 45%. So, that gives us around 53 662 500 L of fuel for my car, allowing me to drive for another 36 755 years. Or… allowing almost thirty seven thousand people to drive similar cars for four years. Each day of estimated leakage wastes us enough crude oil to run my car for over twelve hundred years or for over twelve hundred people to drive for four years.
That’s a lot of oil.
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