http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=122736&org=NSF&from=news

Press Release 12-005

Scientists document how geology, biology worked together after oil disaster

January 9, 2012

When scientist David Valentine and colleagues published results of a study in early 2011 reporting that bacterial blooms had consumed almost all the deepwater methane plumes after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill, some were skeptical.

How, they asked the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) geochemist, could almost all the gas emitted disappear?

In new results published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Valentine; Igor Mezic, a mechanical engineer at UCSB; and coauthors report that they used an innovative computer model to demonstrate the respective roles of underwater topography, currents and bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico.

This confluence led to the disappearance of methane and other chemicals that spewed from the well after it erupted on April 20, 2010.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the research.

“As scientists continue to peel apart the layers of the Deepwater Horizon microbial story,” said Don Rice, director of NSF’s chemical oceanography program, “we’re learning a great deal about how the ocean’s biogeochemical system interacts with petroleum–every day, everywhere, twenty-four/seven. ”

The results are an extension of a 2011 study, also funded by NSF, in which Valentine and other researchers explained the role of bacteria in consuming more than 200,000 metric tons of dissolved methane.

“It seemed that we were putting together a lot of pieces,” Valentine said. “We would go out, take some samples, and study what was happening in those samples, both during and after the spill.

“There was a transition of the microorganisms and a transition of the biodegradation, and it became clear that we needed to incorporate the movement of the water.”

The scientists believed that there was an important component of the physics of the water motion–of where the water went.

Valentine turned to Mezic, who had published results in 2011 forecasting where the oil slick would spread.

“Our work was on the side of: here’s where the oil leaked and here’s where it went,” Mezic said. “We agreed that it would be beautiful if we could put a detailed hydrodynamic model together with a detailed bacterial model.”

The resulting computer model has data on the chemical composition of hydrocarbons flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, and is seeded with 52 types of bacteria that consumed the hydrocarbons.

The physical characteristics were based on the U.S. Navy’s model of the gulf’s ocean currents and on observations of water movements immediately after the spill and for several months after it ended.

The scientists then sought the help of Mezic’s former colleagues–engineers at the University of Rijeka in Croatia.

“We needed somebody to build the software,” Mezic said. “It was a big task, a mad rush, but they did it.

“The power behind this is a tour de force. A typical study of this kind would take a year, at least. We found a way that led us to answers in three or four months.”

The model revealed that one of the key factors in the disappearance of the hydrocarbon plumes was the physical structure of the Gulf of Mexico.
“It’s the geography of the gulf,” Valentine said. “It’s almost like a box canyon. As you go northward, it comes to a head.

“As a result, it’s not a river down there; it’s more of a bay. And the spill happened in a fairly enclosed area, particularly at the depths where hydrocarbons were dissolving.”

When the hydrocarbons were released from the well, bacteria bloomed. In other locations outside the gulf, those blooms would be swept away by prevailing ocean currents.

But in the Gulf of Mexico, they swirled around as if they were in a washing machine, and often circled back over the leaking well, sometimes two or three times.

“What we see is that some of the water that already had been exposed to hydrocarbons at the well and had experienced bacterial blooms, then came back over the well,” Valentine said.

“So these waters already had a bacterial community in them, then they got a second input of hydrocarbons.”

As the water came back over, he explained, the organisms that had already bloomed and eaten their preferred hydrocarbons immediately attacked and went after certain compounds.

Then they were fed a new influx of hydrocarbons.

“When you have these developed communities coming back over the wellhead, they consume the hydrocarbons much more quickly,” Valentine said, “and the bacterial composition and hydrocarbon composition behaves differently. It changes at a different rate than when the waters were first exposed.”

The model allowed the scientists to test this hypothesis and to look at some of the factors that had been measured: oxygen deficits and microbial community structure.

“What we found was very good agreement between the two,” Valentine said.
“We have about a 70 percent success rate of hitting where those oxygen declines were. It means that not only is the physics model doing a good job of moving the water in the right place, but also that the biology and chemistry results are doing a good job, because you need those to get the oxygen declines. It’s really a holistic view of what’s going on.”

There are valuable lessons to be learned from the study, the scientists believe.

“It tells us that the motion of the water is an important component in determining how rapidly different hydrocarbons are broken down,” Valentine said. “It gives us concepts that we can now apply to other situations, if we understand the physics.”

Mezic said that this should be a wake-up call for anyone thinking of drilling for oil.

“The general perspective is that we need to pay more attention to where the currents are flowing around the places where we have spills,” he said.
“We don’t have models for most of those. Why not mandate a model?

“This one worked–three-quarters of the predictions were correct. For almost everything, you can build a model. You build an airplane, you have a model. But you can drill without having a model. It’s possible we can predict this. That’s what a model is for.”

The U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Office of Naval Research also supported the research.

In addition to Valentine and Mezic, co-authors of the paper are Senka Macesic, Nelida Crnjaric-Zic, and Stefan Ivic, of the University of Rijeka in Croatia; Patrick J. Hogan of the Naval Research Laboratory; Sophie Loire of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UCSB; and Vladimir A. Fonoberov of Aimdyn, Inc. of Santa Barbara.

-NSF-

Media Contacts
Cheryl Dybas, NSF (703) 292-7734 cdybas@nsf.gov
George Foulsham, UCSB (805) 893-3071 george.foulsham@ia.ucsb.edu
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2011, its budget is about $6.9 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives over 45,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes over 11,500 new funding awards. NSF also awards over $400 million in professional and service contracts yearly.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9S5NL4G0.htm

By PETER ORSI

HAVANA
A U.S. inspection of a Chinese-made oil rig due to begin drilling in waters off Cuba has determined that it meets international safety norms, the American government said Monday.

A statement issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior said members of its Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard completed its review of the Scarabeo-9 rig on Monday in Trinidad.

The inspection covered everything from the platform’s drilling equipment and safety systems to generators and the blowout preventer.

“U.S. personnel found the vessel to generally comply with existing international and U.S. standards by which (Spanish oil company) Repsol has pledged to abide,” the safety bureau said in a statement.

Plans to drill for oil off Cuba have raised concerns from some environmentalists and U.S. politicians who fear a repeat of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 workers and spilled more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Repsol YPF, which holds the rights to an exploration block off Cuba covering more than 1,700 square miles (nearly 4,500 square kilometers), has repeatedly said the Scarabeo-9 meets U.S. specifications and technical requirements. Havana officials say it boasts the safest, most modern technology available.

The safety bureau added that neither it nor the Coast Guard have any authority over the Cuba operation, and noted that the review “does not confer any form of certification or endorsement under U.S. or international law.”

It also said U.S. authorities are stepping up local spill-preparedness efforts and coordinating with other countries in the region.

“In anticipation of an increase in drilling activities in the Caribbean Basin and Gulf of Mexico, the United States is participating in multilateral discussions with the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica and Mexico on a broad range of issues including, drilling safety, ocean modeling, and oil spill preparedness and response,” the statement said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57352556/ohios-new-earthquakes-may-be-man-made/?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.0

January 4, 2012
By Michelle Miller

(CBS News) Northeastern Ohio has been rattled by close to a dozen earthquakes since last spring. It’s not an area that is known for them.

Now, CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports that an expert on quakes says he believes they may have been man-made.

John Armbruster is a seismologist at Columbia University. Before March, there had never been a recorded earthquake in Youngstown, Ohio. Since then, there’s been 11.

Residents call the new phenomenon “an experience.”

The new earthquakes caused Ohio state officials to ask Armbruster to investigate.

“These earthquakes were sitting there waiting to happen. We have triggered these earthquakes,” Armbuster said.

Armbruster believes the trigger was a Youngstown well that disposes of contaminated water trucked in from elsewhere in Pennsylvania and beyond. The water is a byproduct of oil and natural gas extraction, called “fracking.”

The disposal well pumps thousands of gallons of the waste into rock a mile or more below. Armbruster says the fluid may have made its way into an earthquake fault line.

“Pumping the fluid into the fault encourages the fault to slip,” Armbruster said.

Armbruster added that seismic readings allowed him to pinpoint the epicenter of a quake near the Youngstown well.

“It was about a kilometer from the bottom of the disposal well,” Armbruster said.
Drilling companies and some scientists are skeptical. 177 similar wells in Ohio have operated without incident, and the technique has been used since the 1930s at more than 100,000 wells across the nation.

“It’s happened with regulatory certainty, regulatory excellence, and it’s the best way to take care of this waste stream,” said Tom Stewart with the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.

Clusters of small earthquakes near wells in Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas have also drawn scrutiny.

“First of all, the location of the earthquakes is quite close to the wells. Secondly, the timing of the waste water injection also coincides with the earthquakes,” said Art McGarr with the U.S. Geological Survey. Arkansas has suspended new wells near a fault line after 1,000 minor quakes were recorded. As for Ohio, officials say they’ll keep the Youngstown, Ohio, well closed until they can be certain of the risks.
© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

January 05, 2012, 11:28 PM EST
By Alex Wayne and Katarzyna Klimasinska
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) —

The U.S. should study whether hydraulic fracturing used to free natural gas from wells is a hazard to people or food sources, a top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The Environmental Protection Agency, which is preparing regulations to govern fracking with the Interior Department, plans to study the effect of the drilling procedure, also known as fracking, on drinking water. Additional studies should examine whether wastewater from the wells can harm people or animals and vegetables they eat, said Christopher Portier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

“We do not have enough information to say with certainty whether shale gas drilling poses a threat to public health,” he said in an e-mail sent by Vivi Abrams, a spokeswoman. President Barack Obama has lauded increased natural gas drilling as a way to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and on coal, which is more damaging to the environment when burned. Officials in his administration have been cautious when discussing possible health effects of hydraulic fracturing.

The EPA “will use its authorities to protect local residents if a driller endangers water supplies and the state and local authorities have not acted,” the agency’s administrator, Lisa Jackson, told Congress in May. Obama, she said, “has made clear that we need to extract natural gas without polluting our water supplies.”

Monitor Exposure
The fracking process injects water, sand and chemicals into deep shale formations to free natural gas. The compounds used should be monitored, Portier said, and drinking water wells should be tested before and after drilling. Studies also should address “all the ways people can be exposed” to fracking products, including through air, water, soil, plants and animals. Increased use of the process has raised gas production, reduced prices 32 percent last year and spurred questions about the environmental effects.
The U.S. has sought to dismiss a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman against federal agencies, seeking stronger regulation of fracking at as many as 18,000 wells in his state. The petroleum industry says the lawsuit could shut down drilling in the Delaware River Basin “for many years to come” if successful.

‘Effective’ Regulation
“Measures required by state regulatory agencies in the exploration and production of deep shale natural gas and oil formations have been very effective in protecting drinking water aquifers from contamination attributable to fracking,” Chesapeake Energy, the second-largest producer of natural gas, said in a document in September explaining the process.

Portier wouldn’t say whether fracking should be stopped or more tightly regulated until studies are completed. “Our role is to determine what the risks are, and it is up to the public to decide if they are OK with that risk,” he said. U.S. natural gas production rose to a record 2.5 trillion cubic feet in October, a 15 percent increase from October 2008, the month before Obama was elected, according to an Energy Information Administration report issued Dec. 28.

Some “data of concern” are showing up at fracking sites, Portier said. Fluids used in drilling contain “potentially hazardous chemical classes” including petroleum distillates, volatile organic compounds and glycol ethers. Wastewater may also contain salts and be radioactive, he said.

In December, the EPA said for the first time that it had found chemicals consistent with those used in drilling in groundwater near wells in Wyoming. The driller, Encana Corp., has disputed the agency’s findings.

Methane, Earthquakes
Pennsylvania regulators warned residents near Scranton not to drink well water in September 2010 after methane was detected in the Susquehanna River and in wells near drilling sites.

Youngstown, Ohio residents say they’ve experienced earthquakes since D&L Energy Inc. began injecting fracking wastewater into a 9,300-foot disposal well. Ben Lupo, president and chief executive officer of the company, said he doesn’t think his well is causing the temblors. While the federal government prepares fracking regulations, states also monitor the process, which has led the industry to complain of unnecessary supervision.

The Obama administration is pursuing “an incoherent approach to natural gas development” by promoting its benefits while “ratcheting up pressure for new layers of duplicative regulations,” said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, in remarks prepared for a speech today. The institute represents more than 490 energy companies including Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest company by market value.

–With assistance from Jim Snyder in Washington. Editors: Adriel Bettelheim, Andrew Pollack
To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Wayne in Washington at awayne3@bloomberg.net; Katarzyna Klimasinska in Washington at kklimasinska@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Adriel Bettelheim at abettelheim@bloomberg.net

Special thanks to Richard Charter

The Florida Current

A bill that would seem to encourage more seismic exploration and new oil drilling in state parks and forests to generate state revenue has been filed in the Florida Legislature.

HB 695 would allow state land management agencies to enter into partnerships with businesses to produce oil and gas. The Cabinet, which oversees the use of state lands, must approve any such public-private partnership agreement.

The bill was filed in November by Rep. Clay Ford, R-Pensacola, chairman of the House Federal Affairs Subcommittee and former chairman of the House Energy & Utilities Subcommittee.

No distinction was made in the bill as to which state lands would be off limits to exploration and drilling. Ford and Sen. Greg Evers, R-Crestview and sponsor of the Senate companion bill (SB 1158), did not respond to calls on Thursday seeking comment.

The bills haven’t been heard by any committees. However, they are raising concerns among environmental group representatives.

Although the fight over drilling in Florida for decades has focused on the Gulf of Mexico, oil wells have existed for decades in the Florida Panhandle and southwest Florida. There are 119 wells in Santa Rosa and Escambia counties in the Panhandle and 36 wells in Lee, Collier and Hendry counties in Southwest Florida, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

There is seismic exploration now at Blackwater River State Forest in Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties, said Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

A DEP spokeswoman said three permitted wells in Blackwater River State Forest are being plugged and abandoned and the sites restored.

HB 695 by Ford states that exploration and drilling on state lands may produce “significant” monetary reward. And the bill says new seismic exploration along with directional and horizontal drilling is more thorough and productive than older methods of drilling and exploration.

The bill is raising concerns among environmentalists because it makes no reference to environmental safeguards nor any distinction about which state lands could be used for exploration and drilling.

David Cullen of Sierra Club Florida said the bill represents an “irresponsible gamble” for short-term monetary game as reflected by the Gulf oil spill in 2010. He said spills could damage state lands for decades and harm the economies of neighboring communities.

Audubon of Florida’s Julie Wraithmell said she doesn’t know whether the bill was written to address a particular parcel of state land, such as Blackwater River State Forest.

“I would hesitate to say unilaterally that no drilling on state-owned lands is appropriate,” Wraithmell said. “But I do think conservation lands should be held to a very high standard, and I think there is an argument to be made that it [drilling] is not appropriate.”
Florida Petroleum Council Executive DirectorDavid Mica mentioned during an interview Wednesday about the Vote4energy.orgcampaign that his group supports the bill along with HB 87 and SB 1188.

HB 87 and SB 1188 would create a tiered tax system to encourage production from “mature” oil fields. During a House Energy & Utilities Committee hearing in December on HB 87, bill sponsor Rep. Matt Hudson, R-Naples, said production from those old wells had not caused ecological harm.

Mica could not be reached on Thursday to discuss his group’s support for HB 695 by Ford. Neither DACS nor the Florida Department of Environmental Protection have taken positions on the bill.

Reporter Bruce Ritchie can be reached at britchie@thefloridacurrent.com.

Special thanks to Richard Charter.