According to BP, the oil flow has been stopped

Today, the lates attemp to stop the oil flow has been succesful according by British Petroleum.

Engineers got to work after replacing a leaky pipe. Kent Wells, a BP PLC vice president, said at a news briefing in Houston that the leak was found on the side of the towering, 75-ton capping stack and it was fixed by replacing the assembly, called a "choke line."

The work sent the oil giant back to restarting preparations for testing whether the cap can stop the oil without blowing a new leak in the well. If it works, the cap will be a temporary fix until BP can drill into the gusher to plug it for good from underground, where the seal will hold better.

"If the well is leaking, then they have to open the valves again and they have to let the oil out again," Harris told NPR's Robert Siegel. "But if it's not, they can just leave these valves closed and this is the end of the spill essentially for right now."

They claim this is only the beginning of the end to the catastrophy. Check it out for yourself, here's a link to 12 bots working underwater.

Let's hope everything goes as planned.

© BP p.l.c.

The Darkness is Closing In

The Darkness is closing in, getting nearer and covering the vast oceans with a thick black poison that will clog the hearts of all.

This is the status of the oil flow June 19th, 2010. Two months after the Deepwater Horizon explosion all procedures that have been tried have failed. This is what the oilcano has left the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

Image source: Nasa Earth Observatory

Gulf Spill in context

Gulf Spill higlighted in false color in context

All of the contingency plans that BP has concocted, have utterly failed. There are rumors that involve the detonation of a small yield nuclear bomb to try to collapse and stop the flow from the well. I don't think it such a good idea as a lot of methane gas can be stored in that deposit, and if the yield of the bomb is not calculated right, some bad things could result that would affect us all, dooming us all even before December 21, 2012.

Here are some views of the spill taken May 22nd, almost exactly one month ago.

Top Kill procedure might be Successful

BP's procedure to block the flow of oil involves injecting "heavy mud" over the open well. Once the mud kills the flow, BP will then inject cement to cover the leak.

This procedure might be successful after all as initial reports seem to corroborate BP's efforts.

For a time I started thinking this well would never be shut but we might as well wait a little more before we all jump into conclusions.

Thank you British Petroleum

Thak you BP for this bright future.

What Have We Done?

This is not a spill, Exxo-Valdez was a spill. This is a fucking catastrophe. Exxon-Valdez spilled aproximately 40'900,000 liters. The BP Oil Spill' has not been measured correctly as BP is not allowing external scientist to accurately measure the rate of crude oil flowing from the damaged well.

Initial calculation by BP claimed that the flow was in the order of 160,000 liters PER DAY.

Calculations made by unbiased scientists estimate the flow around 151'416,471 liters PER DAY!

The flow has been going on uninterrupted since April 20, 2010. As of today, one month later, just imagine the damage this catastrophe has been brought upon all the Gulf of Mexico's ecosystems, not to mention the future repercussions this will pose.

As of today, the U.S. government and BP set up a LIVE FEED of the leaking well.

I found a photograph of the spill taken from the ISS (International Space Station) dating just a few days ago, but the picture itself does not show the magnitude of the spill in comparison to a known context. I took the liberty to superimpose the image over a map provided by Google Earth just to have an idea of the magnitude of this man-made gift to mother nature.