Drill, baby, drill,,oops!

of course, if the estuaries really are knackered, the costs will be much, much higher. I really hope something good comes of this, but I think it will be too easy for those not directly affected by it to "forget" about it all too soon. Time will tell, I suppose.

 

the cost of "containment" operations should hit a billion sometime this week. ecological damage?? who knows? can anyone count that high? then comes the loss of revenue for the Gulf Coastal communities.

its funny, a few years ago, i read about a fortune teller guy who predicted a major ecological disaster that would impact our economy for decades. i have been trying to find his prediction over the past few weeks to find out if he mentioned anything about the Gulf or not.

 

Which also raises the question as to why we have a foreign company doing this sort of work.

Naturally, in the UK, poor old BP is the victim of American media hysteria

BBC News - BP suffers Washington blame game after oil spill

The BBC seems far more concerned about the drop in BP value than the boo-boo that BP made

BBC News - BP shares fall again following US probe news

As far as the technology to deal with deep water incidents, makes one wonder if Brazil or Venezuela have addressed this topic, or will also concentrate just on extraction

BP had a choice, ask the engineers what it would take to deal with an incident like this, a costly engineering endeavor, or just cross their fingers and hope it never happened

 

On the news yesterday, one of their execs said the cost has already passed the $1 billion mark.

 

http://ptsd1.blogspot.com/

The funniest exec comment ... that he just wants to:

"... get back to my life". So . . . . destroying the gulf ... that's just a part time hobby. Wow. talk about your "all about me" revelation. what a shame that Mr. Hayward's vacation got all messed up. Anyone want to chip in with me to buy him flowers?

.

 

You may be right. But when the same exact thing happened 31 years ago, in the Gulf no less, do you think they should have planned better for at least that same contingency??

 

Reminder, it's being aired on 6/3 at 3 pm Pacific (for me) and 6/8 at 2 pm (for me). Check your local listings/PVR for your times.

It was insightful, but honestly, for the length (1 hour) and amount of info, it was just ok. If one could only watch this vs. the 60 Minutes piece I posted earlier, watch the 60 Minutes piece.

 

According to the BBC, poor old BP is forced into a "blame game" over this oopsy

 

Real Question:

Why are they not just using that tophat box to seal it off?

It seems to me that every measure they have taken includes some form of being able to extract/collect the oil in the well. So what if the pipe freezes up or gets clogged with crystals... That is the whole point isn't it? To plug the hole.

If you drop a box on the geiser, the pressure from the water above should be enough to counter the pressure of the leak. Or is the bouyancy of the oil once in the box would be enough to overcome the downwards force?

To me it seems like everything has been about closing off the well in a way that keeps it open to collection...

 

Physics. That's why it won't work. If the pressure from the water were enough to counter the pressure of the leak, you wouldn't need a box. Obviously the oil is under greater pressure than the water at that depth, which is why it gushes forth.

You basic idea of sealing with a box is sound, but it needs to be cemented to the well to work. This means they first must cut away the tangled wreckage, then place the box, and finally cement it into place. Typically the oil must vent from the top of the box while the cement hardens, after which a valve is turned to stop the flow. Basically what we have described is a blowout preventer, which was previously installed but failed to operate. The current problem is installing a new one at 5,000 feet.

Tom

 

Forgot about the whole pressure under the water thing

That's what happens when you don't sleep...

 

Um .... no

I'm pretty sure I've already posted this somewhere, but will repeat it again

To find the pressure at a given depth in a water column, the equation is

P = pgh + Po

P = pressure at the bottom of the fluid column
p = Fluid density, in this case of seawater
g = gravity constant approx 9.8 m per sec per sec
h = height of the fluid column
Po = pressure at the top of the fluid column, eg "sea level"

Plug in the numbers, at the seabed in 5,000 ft of water you get about 15 MPa or 15 megaPascals. Call it 148 atmospheres of pressure, or 2,100 lbs per square INCH

Thus, the pressure in that oil deposit is probably closer to 30-50 MPa for the oil to gush out like that, when the pressure is already 15 MPa.

The oil would just spew out from under the bottom of the box. Ironically, at those pressures and temps, the methane (About 50-70% of those Gulf wells are "gassy" in nature), the methane will form methane clathrate and resemble a Slurpee

The oil can be pumped at those depths, a Slurpee substance cannot

 

Pressure is 1 ton per sq inch.
So why not jam a 200 ton spike down the hole ?
Problem solved.

 

First you have to make the hole. Then you have to get the spike to seat into it.

Tom

 

We already have the hole which is the gushing well shaft.
Ive been seating spikes since I was 13 so I can guarantee its no problem.

 

Not true. The well head had about a mile of twisted pipe attached to it, leaking in many places along the pipe. Yesterday BP finally managed to cut off the twisted pipe, but were only able to do it with clippers instead of a saw. This left a rather mangled opening which in no way would seal to a tapered plug.

Tom

 

Im talking about the hole beneath the well head.
Tear the well head off .

 

That's what they did two days ago, which left a jagged pipe. It's not as easy as most people think, especially in 5,000 feet of water.

Tom