Never mind that the water could explode if it comes into contact with the wrong substance. “It likely happened due to the presence of either methanol, or methane gas, or the presence of the dispersant,” says Bob Naman, who’s got more than 30 years in the field, seen here testing beach water samples for WKRG 5 in Pensacola, Florida.
When Naman combined the sample with an organic solvent that separates the oil from the water, which he did for all the other samples as well, it exploded in his lab, breaking the container and destroying the sample in the process. Naman thinks the reaction was caused by the presence of methane gas or Corexit, the dispersant that BP has been using in the Gulf.
h/t: Joe Szilagyi, quote via Huffington Post.
Gets even better in the interim:
BP has confirmed that there is an oil leak on the sea floor several miles away from the Deepwater Horizon’s damaged blowout preventer. The undisclosed specific location of the sub- sea leak is reported to be billowing oil and deadly methane gas.
http://www.examiner.com/x-55371-Tampa-Gu…
Organic solvents are not very common in nature.
@2: So the water is totally safe! What a relief.
…Anyone else find it odd that the “chemist” has shelves of peanut butter and campbell’s soup in his “lab” ?
when she says 221 parts per million that was a really powerful newsy voice. very strong. i want a woman to talk like that while i buttfuck her
@2: Are you kidding? I know you won’t see much dichloromethane, dimethylsulfoxide, dimethylformamide, or diethyl ether out there, but simple alcohols like methanol and ethanol are very common in nature. Plenty of organic solvents that might be in the water in trace amounts.
@5 awkward
Did you know that birth projections in the South are likely to remain low for the next 4-5 years, due to the Great Recession and the Cheney Halliburton Oil Spill?
It’s a good thing.
I just spoke with my husband, who is a chemist in the oil industry, and this report doesn’t really tell us anything of significance.
‘Oil’ is not one toxic substance, it is made up of different kinds of hydrocarbons. Some of these hydrocarbons are toxic, like benzene, some are not. It does not make sense to get all worked up about parts per million of oil, we would need to know which specific hydrocarbons are in the water.
And, regardless of which specific hydrocarbons are in the water and sand, it’s not the humans or other air breathing creatures that will be suffering from the contamination. Us and the whales will be OK.
It’s the water breathers like fish, molluscs, and squids that are dead and dying because the membrane they use to filter the dissolved oxygen out of the water gets coated in the hydrocarbons and they choke to death. Similar to us dying of carbon monoxide poisoning.
@9: The oily water is unlikely to kill anyone (unless by drowning, in which case it’s the water, not the oil). However, it’s sensible to assume that in there with the usual mix are long-chain tars and greases, phenols and their derivatives, and substantial amounts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Those PAHs in particular are incredibly pervasive and found in pretty much all oil. And those fuckers will cause skin burns and probably make you more likely to get cancer.
Whales will suffer from these chemical burns even worse, since they are immersed full-time. Also, the Mysticeti will swallow oil every time they take a gulp of plankton, since the oil will coat their food and probably adhere to their baleen.
Don’t minimize the dangers of the oil’s toxicity.
@9 Dying from carbon monoxide is painless. Dying from choking and chemical burns is not.
In general I’m a glass half full kinda guy,
Low birthrates in the south..WHOO-HOO!
The oil spill is awlful. That being said the high numbers obtained from the samples near children are more likely due to sun tan lotion than anything else. The exploding sample looked to be taken from a boat with a running motor- lots of oil and gas in the exhaust, and since it came from the marina there were probably dozens of boat motors running around it.