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A massive oil spill in the Pacific Ocean reached the Southern California coast

npr.org

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Re: A massive oil spill in the Pacific Ocean reached the Southern California coast

#6
post #4

It is deemed to be repeated, as long as most people are too indifferent to push this kind of unjustified environmental damage to the headlines

But oil spills have been trending down over the past few decades, even as oil shipments have increased: https://ourworldindata.org/oil-spills.

You're right it won't go to zero, in the same sense that airplane crashes won't ever go to zero. however that's because it's really hard to prevent all airplane crashes/oil spills, not because people are "too indifferent".

Re: A massive oil spill in the Pacific Ocean reached the Southern California coast

#7
post #4

It is deemed to be repeated, as long as most people are too indifferent to push this kind of unjustified environmental damage to the headlines

Southern California has considerable oil and natural gas seepage off shore. Many of the oil rigs aren't drilling but simply harvesting the seeps.

They passively collect 100-150 barrels a day from the Coal Oil Point Seep Field.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field

The oil in question was not from a seep however. It came from the processing platform Elly that supports two other drilling rigs in the Beta field.

Re: A massive oil spill in the Pacific Ocean reached the Southern California coast

#8
post #6
post #4

It is deemed to be repeated, as long as most people are too indifferent to push this kind of unjustified environmental damage to the headlines

But oil spills have been trending down over the past few decades, even as oil shipments have increased: https://ourworldindata.org/oil-spills . You're right it won't go to zero, in the same sense that airplane crashes won't ever go to zero. however that's because it's really hard to prevent all airplane crashes/oil spills, not because people are "too indifferent".

This spill was from an oil rig, not a tanker. Do rig and pipeline spills follow the same trend? Haven't found data on rigs yet, but pipeline spills do not.

Pipeline incidents have been roughly constant over time: https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&P...

Edit: Also, the data you referenced comes from an organization that's run by oil companies and tanker operators (https://www.itopf.org/about-us/the-board/). I doubt they'd just fabricate data, but they are incentivized to massage the definition of what counts as an "oil spill from a tanker". If I were relying on this data I'd probably want to find an independent source.

Edit 2: NOAA data of all spills does not show a downward trend: https://incidentnews.noaa.gov/raw/index

Re: A massive oil spill in the Pacific Ocean reached the Southern California coast

#9
post #4

It is deemed to be repeated, as long as most people are too indifferent to push this kind of unjustified environmental damage to the headlines

Southern California has considerable oil and natural gas seepage off shore. Many of the oil rigs aren't drilling but simply harvesting the seeps. They passively collect 100-150 barrels a day from the Coal Oil Point Seep Field. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field The oil in question was not from a seep however. It came from the processing platform Elly that supports two other drilling rigs in the…

Seems like the "massive oil spill" from the link is equivalent to half a year of natural seepage from this single seep field.

Re: A massive oil spill in the Pacific Ocean reached the Southern California coast

#10
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Southern California has considerable oil and natural gas seepage off shore. Many of the oil rigs aren't drilling but simply harvesting the seeps. They passively collect 100-150 barrels a day from the Coal Oil Point Seep Field. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field The oil in question was not from a seep however. It came from the processing platform Elly that supports two other drilling rigs in the…

Seems like the "massive oil spill" from the link is equivalent to half a year of natural seepage from this single seep field.

More like a month, at 42 gallons per barrel.
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