So I decided to take Eddy up on his challenge to model the volume of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico by the BP disaster because it was just announced that the actual oil spilled may now be double the original estimates. Reuters says that approximately 2 million barrels may have leaked since the event on April 20.
2 million barrels =
84 million gallons/317 million litres =
415,895 cubic yards/317,975 cubic meters
How big is that? I started to build some masses in Revit to visualize this volume. First, I used an American NFL football field (160’ x 300’ – end zones excluded). The mass would be about 234 feet (71.3 m) tall. I then linked in a model of the Lever House office building (SOM) in New York. If I modeled a mass based on the footprint of the tower, the oil spill volume would be almost 1,400 feet (426 m) tall!
Here’s a link to download a 3D DWF file of this model to explore the scope of this disaster on your own.
1 comment:
More context to James fine article. Modern supertankers carry 2 million barrels of oil. According to Reuters (when not busy Photoshopping news images to fit the story) the spill now equals 2 million barrels.
2x10^6 barrels = 416,000 cubic yards, which would fill a 225'x225'x225' cube.
About the size of the base of the new WTC.
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