The potential effects of the spill are being categorized in terms of (as bad as the) Exxon Valdez units. These are a little like Friedman units as applied to the various wars in the Mid East IMHO. Few have ever heard of the Ixtoc 1 spill. This disaster was somewhat like what we are seeing with the BP Deepwater blowout, with some close parallels. The Ixtoc well was owned by Pemex (Mexican oil company) and is located in the gulf or Mexico, (ironically) not too far from the apparent impact site of the asteroid that is suspected of causing the KT extinction event! This well lost 30K barrels per day for months before being brought under control!
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
There have been other very massive spills besides Ixtoc, some in the gulf of Mexico. Of course the biggest one so far was Saddam's trick at the end of the first gulf war, but there have been plenty of others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The point of this diary is to call some attention to just how bad the current situation in the gulf has the potential to be! The situation has gone from being described as "no spill at all" to the possibility that the fuel tanks on the rig itself might spill a bit. The progression of spill volume has gone up from 1000 barrels to 5000 barrels/day, and is now starting to be described in gallons, tons and liters - confusion seems to reign, or is being sown.
I see no reason that the spill volume could not go to around an order of magnitude beyond what is being described as the current "worst case".
If the well head is abraded away by a constant stream of oil/gas/sand passing through or one of the "kinks" that must exist in the drilling riser, then the flow may far greater than it is currently..
http://blog.al.com/...
There is reason to think that the 5000 barrel estimates are about as reliable as the other estimates that have been given credence in the last few days.
http://blog.skytruth.org/