When FPL 'NextEra' was asked about their relationship to the Gulf disaster, they chose to speak only about their use of oil, conveniently ignoring the role of natural gas in offshore drilling...
According to company spokesman Mark Bubriski commenting to the Palm Beach Post:
"NextEra is very concerned about the ecological impacts of the oil spill, Bubriski said. However, only about 1 percent of the oil used by the United States goes toward producing electricity. Florida Power & Light obtains oil from a variety of sources, with about 4 percent of its generation is powered by oil." http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/fpl-shareholders-approve-name-change-to-nextera-energy-701830.html
From the get-go of the battle to stop the new 3800 MW FPL power plant in Loxahatchee, and all its natural gas infrastructure, one of our group's contentions was the over-reliance on this fossil fuel being used as an excuse for increased offshore drilling for gas. About 75% of FPL's energy generation in Florida comes from gas. According to EIA, near 1/4 of the domestic supply of this gas is currently used for electric power. 14% percent of that came from gas drilled offshore.
“FPL’s creating a regional dependence on natural gas...” said Peter Shultz, a Hobe Sound resident and member of Everglades Earth First. Shultz said money should instead be invested in renewable energy instead of gas. http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/apr/27/critics-take-aim-fpl-natural-gas-pipeline-during-o/?feedback=1#comments
Below is some information on the relationship of gas extraction to the BP disaster and dead zones in the Gulf, which FPL would like to distance itself from but cannot in any honesty.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 10:05 PM
Subject: really bad gas! "the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history"
"leak" vs "the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history"
(2 articles from news services)
1) Date Published: Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 According to Reuters, the team took measurements of both surface and deep water within a 5-mile radius of the leaking well. Kessler characterized the leak as "the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history," Methane Levels From BP Oil Spill Raise Environmental Concerns Methane levels in the ocean near the site of the BP oil spill
The April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 men and spawned the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Since then, oil has been gushing into the Gulf at a rate of as much as 60,000 barrels a day, according to U.S. government estimates. Methane is a colorless, odorless gas that is a major component in natural gas. It is also highly flammable. A bubble of methane is believed to have ignited the Deepwater Horizon explosion. John Kessler of Texas A&M University in College Station, one of the scientists on the research expedition, said last week that methane in deep-ocean waters (below 1,000 feet) near the oil spill are 10,000 to 100,000 times higher than normal. At times, the team measured methane levels that were 1 million times above normal.
According to Reuters, the team took measurements of both surface and deep water within a 5-mile radius of the leaking well. Kessler characterized the leak as "the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history," The team of 12 scientists from Texas A&M, Texas A&M Galveston and The University of California, Santa Barbara, discovered that the methane, which makes up 40 percent of the substances coming from the well, is staying in the deep waters and not escaping into the atmosphere.
Kessler said the amount of methane seen was enough to potentially deplete oxygen and create a dead zone in the Gulf. High concentrations of methane can encourage the growth of microbes that consume oxygen needed by marine life. "At some locations, we saw depletions of up to 30 percent of oxygen based on its natural concentration in the waters. At other places, we saw no depletion of oxygen in the waters. We need to determine why that is," Kessler said. Though oxygen depletion hasn't reached a critical level yet, Kessler said he feared what it might look like "two months down the road, six months down the road, two years down the road?"
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 at 9:57 am and is filed under Accident
2) BP weighs an option in case relief wells fail Piping oil and natural gas to platforms may be an option
By SHARON HONG and JEANNIE KEVER Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle June 22, 2010, 11:2010
As researchers reported that the Macondo well blowout appears to have elevated levels of methane in the Gulf of Mexico, government responders said BP might pipe oil and natural gas from the well to production platforms if relief wells fail to stop the flow. Officials of BP, which owns the well, and other government and industry experts, have said they expect to stop the flow by drilling relief wells to intercept the Macondo near the reservoir 13,000 feet below the Gulf floor and then plugging it with cement.
One of the drilling rigs has reached 10,677 feet, said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the response commander, and a backup relief well has reached 4,662 feet. Engineers have looked at a number of ways to proceed if the relief wells fail, Allen said, including piping oil and natural gas from the well to facilities nearby.
Allen said the idea, still in early stages of evaluation, was discussed at an industry meeting hosted last week by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu. The group identified a couple of platforms in the area that could take some of the oil and gas through pipelines along the ocean floor. Then it could be brought to the surface for processing or pumped back into a reservoir. Since early June, BP has been capturing thousands of barrels of oil a day through systems on the seafloor. But some is being burned off because vessels on the surface can't contain it all.
Containment reached nearly 26,000 barrels on Monday, more than a million gallons and the highest since the spill began, Allen said. Much of it is coming through a containment cap installed after undersea robots cut a leaking riser pipe that once connected the wellhead on the seafloor to the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig almost a mile above. Allen said Tuesday that teams are retrieving the sheared-off portion of the riser as evidence in the investigation into the disaster. When the Macondo well blew out April 20, it destroyed the Deepwater Horizon, killed 11 workers and began spilling millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Allen said the amount of oil being collected could double by the end of June with the arrival of another vessel that is expected to catch 20,000 to 25,000 more barrels a day. But sending the oil through undersea pipelines to existing production platforms would reduce or eliminate the need for collection operations on the surface right above the well, which might have to be suspended if a hurricane threatens. And it could provide a backup plan if BP is unable to plug the blown-out well, or if the process takes longer than expected.
BP has said it won't complete the first relief well until at least sometime in August. In a new measure of the possible scope of the disaster, a Texas A&M University researcher just back from an eight-day trip through the Gulf waters surrounding the spill site said his team found far higher-than-normal levels of methane gas in the area, as much as 1 million times higher in a few places. As a result, oceanographer John Kessler said, oxygen levels in some deep-sea regions are abnormally low, although it's not yet clear what that means for sea life. The low oxygen levels could lead to another dead zone, Kessler said during a briefing Tuesday. Most dead zones - areas where oxygen levels are too low to sustain fish and other sea life - are caused by fertilizer runoff.
"The dead zone is a very complex problem that combines chemistry, biology and physics," Kessler said. Most are found in relatively shallow water. The team found the highest concentrations of methane, a component of the natural gas that has spewed from the well along with crude oil, at deeper levels, although he said he isn't yet sure why. "In very hot spots, we saw them approach 1 million times above background concentrations," he said. High methane levels can lower oxygen levels because the microbes that feed on methane deplete oxygen. Kessler received a $160,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to assess the spill area, sailing from Gulfport, Miss., on June 12 and spending eight days within the restricted area close to the site of the blast.
Data collected will offer another way to determine the size of the spill, he said, and may yield insights into previous oceanic eruptions of methane and natural gas. Researchers worked within a five-mile radius of the destroyed rig, at times coming within one-third of a mile, Kessler said.
sharon.hong@chron.com
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