Hey BP, This Barrel’s For You!

You’d think a barrel would just be a barrel.

But no, it turns out that a barrel of oil is 30% smaller than a barrel of wine. F2U Rio Linda a barrel of oil holds 42 gallons, while a barrel of wine holds 60 gallons.

I discovered this the other day while standing in front of a restaurant’s urinal in Healdsburg, California which is in the midst of Wine Country. If you are a guy you know that restaurants typically post ‘theme’ documents at strategic spots in their restrooms so that you can educate yourself while relieving yourself.

This was perhaps the very first form of multi-tasking.

Yes, I Stopped What I Was Doing To Snap This Pic With My iPhone

But I digress.

If you do the math, a ‘leak’ of 40,000 barrels of oil a day, is equivalent to a ‘leak’ of only 28,000 barrels of wine.

That sounds a lot better for several, mostly obvious, reasons.

Some might call this obfuscation, but I call it creative.

I’m surprised BP isn’t quoting the size of their spill using a wine barrel standard with a footnote to that effect on the second page of their press releases.