Obviously, neither of us can offer anything conclusive. However two more thoughts:
*Even an oil leak people are VERY worried about and tried hard to fix has grown 60:1 from initial estimates. For an oil leak in Nigeria, estimates will be FAR worse quality, and 4 L/gallon is more than accurate enough for conversion of either Imperial or Customary gallons in this context, as the estimate has no precision at all. Without suitable instrumentation, such estimates are just SWAGs (possibly only WAGs with no science involved). *The curious statement "As many as 546 million gallons of oil spilled into the Niger Delta over the past five decades," is obviously decimal dust, but divides exactly by 42 gallons (the other factors being 13 and 1 million). The ubiquitous oil barrel strikes again. That division by 42 raises my estimate of the probability these are oil barrels and US gallons. The divisibility of an overly precise number by 42 could be a coincidence, but I would not bet that way. ________________________________ From: Pat Naughtin <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sat, June 19, 2010 7:10:53 PM Subject: [USMA:47873] Re: Oil Leak Estimates On 2010/06/19, at 12:06 , John M. Steele wrote: > > >>Given the New York Times byline at the end of the article, and the >>photographic record, I would be fairly confident it is American gallons and >>(petroleum) barrels. Dear John, I noticed the reference to the New York Times but I had already assumed that due to the history of Nigeria as some sort of colony of the UK that the gallons were the old UK Imperial gallon of 1824. However, let me consider another possibility. The Nigerian writer intended Imperial gallons and wrote the word gallon to indicate this. Then the article arrived in front of a New York Times sub-editor who saw the word gallon and automatically assumed that gallon (Imp.) meant gallon (USA) thus reducing the amount of oil by about 15 %. Oh how our minds we do pervert, When first we practise to convert. And all of this confusion can be created without the stroke of a single editorial pen! Cheers, Pat Naughtin Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, Geelong, Australia Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/ to subscribe. From: Pat Naughtin <[email protected]> >To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> >Sent: Fri, June 18, 2010 8:01:28 PM >Subject: [USMA:47858] Oil Leak Estimates > >Dear All, > > >The Gulf oil leak is not the only one in the world. > > >See http://www.theage.com.au/world/large-oil-spills-are-old-news-in-the-niger-delta-20100617-yjnf.html > > >In this story the reporter, Adam Nossiter, routinely chooses to use gallons >but then fails to specify which gallon he has in mind. Nor does he give a >metric system unit that we could use to guess the conversion factor that was >used for the 'dumbing-down'. > > >Cheers, > >Pat Naughtin >Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders >Guide, seehttp://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html >Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY >PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, >Geelong, Australia >Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 > > >Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped >thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric >system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands >each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat >provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and >professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in >Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, >Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the >USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/ to subscribe.
