Well that's alright then
 
 
....
£52m?!?!? BP make this a second

Some slightly encouraging news from BP this evening is that they worked out that in the first 24 hours after the cap was installed they siphoned off some 6000 barrels of oil which is better than the 1000 original guestimate. They hope to be able to increase this over the next few days, but they've still got a long way to go before they can say that they've got it under control and a lot further to go before this catastrophe is ended and the coastline/wildlife/livelyhoods are restored.

Hurricane season is coming too Loro
That should make things interesting!

I hope not too interesting. Today's news is an improvement in that BP reckon that the amount has increased to 10,000 barrels. It's not clear as to how much oil has been leaking though - estinates vary between 12,000 barrels (which would be 83% is now being picked up) to 19,000 barrels a day (which would only be 52%). BP has a second containment system to install which they say should be in place by next week-end, so they reckon that virtually all the leaking oil will be being caught.

They say that they are working on a different containment system which should be in place by the end of the month which would be able to withstand hurricane conditions. This would then be replaced in due course by the replacement wells being drilled which are not expected to be in place until August.

Of course, there's still the vast amount of oil which has leaked to be cleared up - that is estimated at between 20 and 45 million gallons of oil. In the US a barrel of oil consists of 42 gallons. So that works out at between about 475,000 and 1,070,000 barrels. Which is a lot of oil.

Tbh Loro, if all[or at least some] of the money raised in taxes from oil had been ploughed into H&S and R&D, then this wouldn't [probably] have happened
 
We always[nearly] reap what we sow

The figures I quoted on 6 June of the total daily leakage at up uo 19,000 barrels is now proving to be hopelessly too small, with the scientists today increasing this upwards to between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels.

At least, this has made Obama in his speech to the American people give a very strong indication of the need to reduce their dependency on oil and embark on a future of clean energy.