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Total North Sea Disaster
Mar. 29th, 2012 11:43 amI don't watch TV, and this hasn't been showing up on my regular national news feeds, so I don't know if it's being reported much. But there's a natural gas rig in the North Sea that's got an issue.
The rig was drilling for natural gas in the North Sea, about 150 east of Aberdeen, Scotland. On March 26, workers reported a gas leak. Workers said that it looked like the sea under the rig was boiling. Uncharacteristically (many said) the company got the workers off fast. Shades of Deepwater, I guess. But considering what a cloud of methane gas will do, it could have been a huge loss of life. All the workers were evacuated safely.
Right now, the guess is that the well is leaking about 2 kilograms per second, but like the early Deepwater Horizon estimates, that may be underestimated by as much as a factor of ten.
The reservoir that was being drilled holds an estimated 15.5 billion cubic meters of methane. According to the internets, 1 billion cubic metres of natural gas equals 730 000 tonnes of LNG. So that would mean that, should the whole reservoir outgas, we'd have about 11,315,000 tonnes of methane.
For back-of-the-envelope calculations, and putting all the more immediate environmental effects aside, this would be .11315 Gt. I like to use Gigatonnes, because a 1 gt burp of methane equals about 25 yrs of current business-as-usual. So, if they just let this thing leak out, it'll be like all of the world's greenhouse gas output, business of usual, for 2.8 years.
And you know? That's just this one gas well. Next year, the US hopes to start drilling in the arctic, an area that is known to be riddled with methane hydrate. Won't that be fun.
The Oil Drum: Gas Leak at North Sea Elgin Platform
‘Well from hell’ spewing estimated huge amounts of gas as Total tries to mobilize relief well rig
LA Times:Arctic drilling: Beaufort Sea oil spill response plan approved
The rig was drilling for natural gas in the North Sea, about 150 east of Aberdeen, Scotland. On March 26, workers reported a gas leak. Workers said that it looked like the sea under the rig was boiling. Uncharacteristically (many said) the company got the workers off fast. Shades of Deepwater, I guess. But considering what a cloud of methane gas will do, it could have been a huge loss of life. All the workers were evacuated safely.
Right now, the guess is that the well is leaking about 2 kilograms per second, but like the early Deepwater Horizon estimates, that may be underestimated by as much as a factor of ten.
The reservoir that was being drilled holds an estimated 15.5 billion cubic meters of methane. According to the internets, 1 billion cubic metres of natural gas equals 730 000 tonnes of LNG. So that would mean that, should the whole reservoir outgas, we'd have about 11,315,000 tonnes of methane.
For back-of-the-envelope calculations, and putting all the more immediate environmental effects aside, this would be .11315 Gt. I like to use Gigatonnes, because a 1 gt burp of methane equals about 25 yrs of current business-as-usual. So, if they just let this thing leak out, it'll be like all of the world's greenhouse gas output, business of usual, for 2.8 years.
And you know? That's just this one gas well. Next year, the US hopes to start drilling in the arctic, an area that is known to be riddled with methane hydrate. Won't that be fun.
The Oil Drum: Gas Leak at North Sea Elgin Platform
‘Well from hell’ spewing estimated huge amounts of gas as Total tries to mobilize relief well rig
LA Times:Arctic drilling: Beaufort Sea oil spill response plan approved