Dr. Petrolove or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Oil Part 1: OIL: Underwater is where it's At

Back on May 16, 2010, I posted about how the NYTimes was reporting on scientists finding huge oil plums under the Gulf of Mexico. Nearly two weeks later, on May 28, the NYT followed up with an article entitled "Scientists Build Case for Undersea Plumes." I'm not sure how the Times reconciles this chronology--back on the 16th, scientists were finding underwater plumes of oil, 12 days later, it seems the case for the plumes was still being put together. The article is even more frustrating to read because it spends all this time establishing the process the scientists went through to investigate these plumes only to admit "It will take weeks of laboratory work to confirm with certainty that the plumes are made of oil droplets..."

SIGH. NYT: STOP WASTING OUR TIME.

It doesn't take an environmental scientist or an oil expert to understand the basic physics going on here. The oil is spewing forth from a hole in the ground. Water currents are going to hit the oil stream and churn it up. Some of it will reach the surface, some of it won't. THIS IS LOGIC. It's not about IF the plumes exist, it's measuring how big they are.

Posted via web from thepete's posterous