Numbers game... oil leak wouldn’t fill New Orleans Superdome

OVERWHELMED and saddened by the gargantuan size of the Gulf oil spill?

A little mathematical context to the spill size can put the environmental catastrophe in perspective.

Viewing it through some lenses, it isn’t that huge. The Mississippi River pours as much water into the Gulf of Mexico in 38 seconds as the BP oil leak has done in two months.

On a more human scale, the spill seems more daunting. Take the average-sized living room. The amount of oil spilled would fill 9,200 of them.

For every gallon of oil that BP’s well has gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, there is more than 5 billion gallons of water already in it. And the mighty Mississippi adds another billion gallons every five minutes or so, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

So BP chief executive Tony Hayward was factually correct last month when he said the spill was “relatively tiny” compared to what he called a “very big ocean”.

But another big number that Hayward provided last week also offers some troubling news. He said the reservoir of oil under the sea that is the source for the leak is believed to hold about 2.1 billion gallons of oil. That leaves about 2 billion gallons left to spew. So there are about 17 gallons of oil underneath the sea floor yet to gush for every gallon that has already fouled the Gulf.

If the problem were never fixed, that would mean another two years of oil spilling based on the current flow rate.

More not-so-dreadful context: The amount of oil spilled so far could only fill the cavernous New Orleans Superdome about one-seventh of the way up. On the other hand, it could fill 15 Washington Monuments.

If you put the oil in gallon milk jugs and lined them up, they would stretch about 17,300km. That’s a roundtrip from the Gulf to London, BP’s headquarters, and a side trip from New Orleans to Washington for Hayward to testify.

BP has spent more than $54.8 million (€44m) lobbying federal officials in Washington since 2000; that’s about 44 cents for every gallon of oil it has spilled. Since 2000, the oil and gas industry — along with their employees — has contributed $154.2m (€125m) to candidates for federal office.

That’s $1.23 (99c) for each gallon of oil spilled. Of that money, 78% went to Republicans and the rest to Democrats.

Take the 125 million gallons of oil spilled in the Gulf and convert it to petrol, which is what Americans mostly use it for.

That produces 58 million gallons of petrol — the amount American drivers burn every three hours and 41 minutes. It’s enough to fill up the tanks in 3.6 million cars — more than those in Louisiana and Mississippi combined.

At $2.75 a gallon for petrol — the national average — that’s nearly $160m (€129m) worth spilled into the Gulf.

If all the oil spilled were divided up and equal amounts given to every American, everyone would get about four coke cans full of crude oil that no one really wants.