define catastrophe
okay so the top kill failed. that's bad news. that means the well is compromised somewhere in the mile or two between the sea floor and the reservoir. the only way to stop the flow now is to drill a new well and tap into the old well below the leak. and kill it from the bottom. in the mean time the well is eroding. it's a race. if we lose, the well fails catastrophically. and gushes oil faster than we can collect it for years. until all 50 million barrels are dumped into the gulf. and yeah we'll be able to collect maybe half. that's still a billion gallons. that's 100 exxon valdezes. it may seem counter-intuitive but the way to reduce the erosion is to open the well. and let the oil out faster. this relieves pressure at the break. and reduces the erosion. so maybe oil was only leaking at 5000 bpd on day one as they said. but it was doing it in a very bad way. so when we see the oil flow increase over the next few months, that's good, not bad. bp and the wh have been silent on this. probably because they fear the media noise machine. sigh. irregardless, the race is on. drill baby drill.