Oil Spill Webcam Goes Live - so how much oil is actually leaking?

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EDITOR'S UDPATE (Tues. June 29th):  You can now try your hand at stopping the Gulf oil leak by playing XBox's new Crisis in the Gulf video game.

(Just hit play and the live feed starts)

Live TV : Ustream

Here's a live feed of the oil spill webcam on BP's website.

This is another feed of the oil spill webcam live on the US Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming site.

British Petroleum (BP) has now made available a live streaming video of their broken oil pipeline that has been pouring thousands of barrel of oil into the the Gulf of Mexico.

You can watch the live oil spill webcam where it is hosted on the website of the US Congress Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee.

It is posted on the Committee's website because the Chair of the committee, Rep. Ed Markey demanded that video footage be made available so outside experts could determine the amount of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.

You might wait awhile before you try and get on though. The webcam went live at 1 pm eastern time and their server is getting absolutely crushed at the moment.

BP maintains that there is about 5,000 barrels a day being pumped into the coastal waters, but experts have said that this number is grossly underestimated.

Steve Wereley, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, told the hearing that, "The media keeps using the 5,000 barrel a day estimate, but there is scientifically no chance...  BP's estimate is nowhere near correct. It [the spill] is certainly larger."

Wereley went on to discuss another myth being reported in the media about the leak being impossible to measure. Wereley stated that, "It can't be measured to plus or minus 2 percent, but our tools can make a good estimate of how much is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico."

So how much oil is actually being pumped into the Gulf of Mexico?

This is a very important question to get right because it will determine the final liability costs BP will be on the hook for and also the size and scope of the clean-up operation.

One commentor on the New Orleans Time-Picayune website (who has been doing great coverage of the oil spill disaster) makes the following calculation:

Just a guess, but that looks like about 10ft/sec velocity. Maybe more.

If this is a 22" pipe that would mean about 17,061,444 gallons per day. this is based on:

ft/sec = (gpm x 0.4085)/ diameter^2

or 10.0 = (gpm x 0.4085) / (22.0 x 22.0) = 11,848.22 gpm

11,848.22 gpm x 60 x 24 = 17,061,444.3 GPD

Now if half of that is water and gas bubbles then thats about 8.5million GPD. and if my estimate is twice as high as it should be then thats 4.25million gallons per day. Thats still a hell of alot more oil that the 210,000 gallons they keep sayin'

If they ARE drawing up 210,000 gallons up the tube thats only 5% of the total flow. BP has been BSing us from the start

Any other experts out there have an ideas based on this new live webcam footage?

Leave your interesting comments or questions below.