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Of people working on this cleanup project. they have a thousand people in their crisis center. so this was all part of what every oil company has as a plan to address things when they go badly wrong. >> jeff: john, what do you make -- we just had steve we wereley on, an expert from purdue. his estimate could be as high as 70,000. bp is sat 5. a huge discrepancy there. >> what i understand, im not a mathematician. i respect his calculations. but i dont understand how a six-inch pipe at the base o...

5,000, 70,000, miles apart. >> it somewhat depends on the amount of oil versus gas that is in the mix. if youre counting crude oil that actually surfaces, you wont see the gas once it dissipates into the water. it eventually surfaces into the atmosphere. but that much crude oil, there shouldnt be that kind of discrepancy. something is missing here, and i dont know what it is. >> jeff: all right. we know its a 21-inch pipe. that seems to be the only thing anybody can agree on. what is your best g...

Yeah, if you look at the video, i dont know if you can run it for -- on the show. >> jeff: its rung. >> okay. the first six seconds of the video, there is a lot of white material coming out of the end of the pipe. and that is the gas. in fact, you can see it float upwards in the video. quite a bit more rapidly than the oil does. >> jeff: and then it turns dark. >> right. and thats the oil. toward the end of the video. i based my analysis -- yeah, go ahead. >> well, i mean, as another engineer, y...

There, it will cut through it and shut it off. but you have to activate it. you have to turn it on to do that. it doesnt happen on its own. and so its not -- >> jeff: so its not like a train where if the conductor goes down, everything shuts down. >> the dead man pedal. in this case, in congressional testimony they said if the battery is dead, the dead man pedal, the dead man system doesnt work. its not quite the same. >> jeff: steve, youre a flow measurement expert. weve been talking about it. ...

Catastrophic failure of how many systems. until we investigate what went wrong, we dont know what happened when. but its catastrophic. i think they have an all-hands on deck response. theyre going through the whole crisis exercise, listing lots of remedies. and while it looks like perhaps theyre changing course, theyre actually following a list, a menu of things they could possibly do to fix this leak. >>. >> jeff: one of the things ive heard talk about is this relief well. is that -- that seems...

Video, there is a lot of white material coming out of the end of the pipe. and that is the gas. in fact, you can see it float upwards in the video. quite a bit more rapidly than the oil does. >> jeff: and then it turns dark. >> right. and thats the oil. toward the end of the video. i based my analysis -- yeah, go ahead. >> well, i mean, as another engineer, you trace a particle, then, and you have software that measures how fast its going? >> exactly. the name of the technique is called particle...

Thats a huge discrepancy. so are you suggesting that they dont know what theyre doing? or you have two very different opinions? or maybe theyre not being as forthcoming for obvious reasons? >> well, i have seen the description of bps number. and their methodology isnt clear. so i cant really say one way or the other that their number is wrong. but i can say -- one thing that i can say for sure, im looking at a snapshot in time. this 30-second snapshot of this video that they posted. and during t...

Are you surprised that there could be such a debate on something that you would think -- me as a layperson would think there are probably a lot of experts that can look at that and say its roughly this, and they would all be fairly close. 5,000, 70,000, miles apart. >> it somewhat depends on the amount of oil versus gas that is in the mix. if youre counting crude oil that actually surfaces, you wont see the gas once it dissipates into the water. it eventually surfaces into the atmosphere. but th...

Earlier. >> yeah, exactly. but these systems in oil wells are really not fail-safe. if things go wrong, you can turn them off. there are systems to shut a valve, a big valve. even if the drill stream is solid steel rod is still in there, it will cut through it and shut it off. but you have to activate it. you have to turn it on to do that. it doesnt happen on its own. and so its not -- >> jeff: so its not like a train where if the conductor goes down, everything shuts down. >> the dead man pedal...

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