I don't think the big oil spill in the Gulf is as big of a deal as the media is making out and here is why. You all know that I am a man of science and like to use fact and science to support my positions. The Gulf oil spill is no different. Check this out.
Most people think of crude oil as the thick black stuff that was sticking to sea birds after the spill from the tanker in Alaska. The crude oil in that tanker had been partially processed to remove 99% of the water before it was pumped into the tanker. Why would anyone want to ship water from Alaska around the world? The point is that crude oil has a lot of water in it and dissolved gases. In the case of the Gulf spill, the well head was down about 5,000' where the pressure is about 2,500 psi. In your beer bottle the pressure is only about 10 psi. Have you ever opened a warm beer and had it all turn to foam? Consider this happening at a pressure a thousand time that of your warm beer. Deeper in the well the pressure is even higher. What difference does this make? At high pressure, gas dissolves into the crude oil (oil/water/gas mixture) in great quantities and is in equilibrium in the well. When the crude oil comes out of the well and goes from high pressure to atmospheric pressure of about 14 psi, all the gas expands like a balloon. There a millions of molecules of gas per drop of crude and as each expands to thousands of times its original size, it turns the crude oil in to microscopic foam like whipped cream with even smaller bubbles. This stuff starts to rise from the bottom of the Gulf from 5,000' down and as it does it keeps expanding and mixing with the sea water until when it hits the surface, it is just brown water that looks like "weak" tea. From an airplane the stuff can form an oil sheen that can reflect sun light and give the impression that there is a real big mess out there when it is just a few molecules thick.
Think about the volcano in Iceland. The dust is really solid rock that was molten deep under ground with high pressure gas dissolved in it just like this crude oil. When the ash came up out of the volcano, the gas expanded to such a degree that it formed micro small rock particles that were lighter than popcorn or Styrofoam that could float all the way to Europe. This dust is pure rock. Think about how expanding gas can do something like that.
Exactly what is oil? It is mostly hydrogen and carbon, a hydrocarbon. Now the crude in the gulf is in very small particles as small as only a few molecules each. These very small particles have a tremendous surface area compared to a drop of oil on the floor of your garage under your car. Due to this very high surface area, the hydrogen and carbon are exposed to oxygen that wants to chemically combine with them to form Water, H2O and carbondioxide CO2. The water can mix back with the sea water because it is just the same as sea water without salt. The CO2 is just what plants in the Gulf want to grow with the help of sun light. My prediction is that when this is all over we will look back and finally understand that this was not the big crisis that the media made it out to be.
Isn't it amazing how a person can apply high school chemistry and physics to understand a totally new situation? That is just one more reason why we need to make sure that our kids know Math, Chemistry, Physics and Biology. With a simple understanding of these four subjects we can feel confident that can understand what is going on around us and make the right decisions. Do you find this amazing?
