Consider this recent article about the advent of a new oil skimming ship.
- capacity of "300,000 to 400,000" gallons per day
- two containment ships are collecting about 25,000 barrels
- well has spilled "50 million gallons of oil, roughly 50,000 to 70,000 gallons per day"
Let's re-state all this information with a common unit of measure, the "oil barrel"
1 oil barrel = 42 US gallons
- capacity of 7,142-9,523 barrels of oil/day
- two containment ships are collecting 25,000 barrels of oil/day
- well has spilled 1.1M barrels of oil, roughly 1,190 to 1,666 barrels of oil/day
Does this mean the ship can collect nearly 5 times the amount of oil being spilled daily?
No... we're really spilling 25,000 to 30,000 barrels/day. (up from previous estimates of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels/day). Or worst case, 100,000 barrels/day.
But since the units are all over the place, nobody notices.
Stop using large numbers without proper context or comparison.
