Today I read an article about the final amount of oil that was spilled this spring/summer in the Gulf of Mexico. One of the first postings I ever made to this blog was about previous major oil spills so I wanted to revisit that and see how 4 months have added a bit more to the context of this spill. At that time this was the list of the top oil spills:
1. The Gulf War = 360,000,000 gallons
2. Ixtoc 1 = 138,000,000 gallons
3. Atlantic Empress = 90,000,000 gallons
4. Nowruz Oil Spill = 80,000,000 gallons
5. Exxon Valdez = 10,800,000 gallons
In the article I linked above the oil spilled in the gulf this year was approximately 4.4 million barrels. Some of you may be wondering how to reconcile this barrel v. gallon question. One barrel of oil is equal to 42 gallons. I have no idea why the number of gallons is used in these measures above as well as practically every report of an oil spill I have ever heard but maybe it is because it makes it sound much bigger, maybe it is easier for people to conceptualize 138,000,000 gallon size milk cartons but filled with oil rather than milk, I just don't know the answer to that.
OK, I know all of you are waiting for this, since math is hard, I will do the calculation.....the grand total is 184,800,000 gallons of oil! Still much less than the deliberate destruction of oil infrastructure during the 80-88 gulf war but definitely in solid 2nd place and #1 for accidental spills.
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