Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachussetts yesterday pushed BP to release a Live Spill Cam of the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. This request comes in response to BP’s unwillingness to share information with outside parties and severely underestimating the flow of oil being released. Following the first video (shown above) showing the leaking oil, scientists were able to use a method called particle image velocimetry to estimate the amount of oil being released to be 10-15 times BP’s inititial claim of 5,000 barrels per day. However the short, grainy video leaves scientists with a large margin of error.
“This is 4th grade math. We know the numerator here—the couple thousand barrels a day BP is siphoning out of the sunken pipe. But we still don’t know the denominator,” said Rep. Markey. “BP is capturing a fraction of the oil, but they don’t know what that fraction is. By releasing this video, we’ve taken the first step towards allowing better access to the information BP has about this spill.”
The live feed was expected to be broadcasted on The Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming website starting last night, however, technically difficulties seem to be causing some delays.