Question for chemists re: proposed burning of Gulf of Mexico oil slick

[robdogbucky]

I was wondering if any DUers with a chemistry background could weigh in on this assertion about the plan by officials to begin burning the oil slick that is contained inside the booms:

He responded to my thus; "...that burning it as oil or burning it as products will generate the same quantity of carbon dioxide. So it is physically impossible to create a "concentrated plume" worse than the sum of the parts..."

I had argued with this oil company employee that had asserted this in response to my saying "Great, they may limit the extent of environmental damage to the shoreline, beaches and bottom of ocean, but that smoke contains a concentration of particulates that will get up in the earth's tradewinds and be distributed around the globe, much of it likely back into the oceans." He asserts that this is no worse than having that crude burned as gas in cars, that it is the same net carbon release. My concern is that this burning of the slick releases them all at once, moving in a mass, that it could not be compared to the dispersed consumption in the form of gas in individual cars.

I mean the emissions from a car are first of all scrubbed somewhat with catalytic converters, etc., but I am sure there will be no air scrubber in use in the gulf.

Anyone with a chemistry background like to lend an opinion to this debate?


Just my dos centavos


robdogbucky

[provis99]

1. Dos Centavos? If you're in Arizona, show me your citizenship papers.

but on your main point, they won't be just burning oil, but all the chemicals contained within the oil sludge, too. Oil is cleaned and processed before we put it in our cars; that's what refining does.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. There's a few things going on here.

Let's separate CO2 from particulates.

Yes, burning the oil will be produce as much CO2 as if it were burned in a car. I think there was something like 42,000 gallons per hour being released from the site, and if all that got burned it would be probably less then gets burned on the highways on a large city. I wouldn't worry about a "plume" of CO2, being a gas it will be dispersed quite quickly.

Now the particulates, and those chemicals which would be decomposed in a catalytic converter, would be more of an issue. It will likely create a cloud, and I wouldn't want to be down wind of the cloud. I don't know about the scale, but I'd imagine it'd be something on par with the smoke from a forest fire. It will rise, and eventually get dispersed. So I wouldn't expect it to be a long term problem, at least as not as much as a problem as the oil spill itself.

And speaking of the oil spill itself, there is the problem of volatile hydrocarbons being much more sensitive to IR than CO2, meaning they'll contribute more to global warming, it'd be better, IMO, to burn those.

[izquierdista]

3. It is further dilution

Burning the oil does put a large volume of CO2 and partially burned particulates into the atmosphere, which carry it far from the source of the slick, further diluting its effects. When you have a large spill in a small area, dilution IS a solution to the pollution. Once the spill is somewhat attenuated, you can bring in biological agents that can metabolize the crude into less harmful compounds.

[mike_c]

4. let's be clear-- there is no environmentally benign way to resolve this problem...

...on any time scale that is likely to save coastlines or marine life. Combustion is probably one of the least awful alternatives, IMO.

[thecrow]

5. Then they'll be telling us

"we can't put it out" !!

Quick, everyone abandon the LA coast!