Drill, baby, drill,,oops!

GOP Senators Can't Remember This "Drill, Baby, Drill" Thing People Keep Talking About

Senators Jon Kyl (R-Ariz) and Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) are basically telling reporters, "Drill, baby, drill? Was that, like, a thing?" From The Hill's E2 Wire blog:
"That was not a Senate Republican phrase,"

Sarah Palin made the slogan the "Republican battle cry" of the 2008 campaign, and Palin

'" McCain, meanwhile, told a crowd chanting the phrase, "you're right, pal. Drill, baby, drill. Drill offshore and drill now."
Moreover, there didn't seem to be much "opposition" to the slogan when future-Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele introduced it at the 2008 Republican National Convention.

, and erupted in chants of "drill, baby, drill" throughout the event, egged on by leaders like former New York City Mayor

. The chant even interrupted McCain's speech at points.
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Does any of this ring a bell, to anyone?


MJ: When you sloganeer on false pretenses then 'forget' who said that it makes you look more out of touch with 'real Americans' (SP) than if you just own up to your mistakes. How I wish the mid-term elections were NOW!

 

The American public is just as "forgetful" as those senators. Look at how few people will admit they voted for Bush these days.

 

HYPOXIA
From EV world, it seems Oily Goo is not the only plague the gulf is facing. Progress ... It just keeps getting better:

EV WORLD CURRENTS: The Doubly Dead Zone


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The dead coastline will be a reminder

 

I missed this the first time round. You are referring to an "acoustic" BOP. That is a BOP with a backup power supply and a means to control it with sonar signals

Acoustic control system for BOP operation - Kongsberg Maritime

When the Topside is destroyed, so is the control link and power source to the BOP on the sea floor. However, that is a moot point in this tragedy, as the ROV could NOT operate the manual valves on the BOP, they are physically jammed

There is no evidence that subsea BOP "acoustic" systems improve reliability and/or safety. Indeed, subsea BOP's generally have a poor reliability record

"Acoustic Switch" Would Not Have Saved BP Well - The Daily Hurricane

319-Reliability of Subsea Blowout Preventer Systems for Deepwater Applications--Phase II

For example, on page 12 of the above document, the BOP main control system will have a MTTF of slightly over two MONTHS.The ram preventers had a MTTF of about a year, and a time to repair of 136 hours

The media has been quick to put out "acoustic" as if it is some sort of magic solution, but have done a very poor job of explaining that "acoustic" is simply a sonar backup control link. That assumes the backup power supply on the BOP is still functioning, and that the rams/valves are not seized or jammed

 

How comforting. Not exactly 'fail safe', is it? More like guaranteed to fail.

Also assuming the rig hasn't sunk straight down and landed on it.

 

In normal day-to-day operation, the failure has always been with the BOP in a fail-closed mode. Production is totally stopped until repaired. I suggest you carefully read the reports I linked to.

Usually, the most common failure mode is routine testing. A combination of engineering (BOP not designed for routine testing) and the extreme pressures, can cause the BOP to stick closed

When the BOP does fail, it takes a huge amount of time to replace it. Even during routine testing, seals have to be replaced as they are one-time-use

It's like the main water shutoff in your home. How often to you cycle it? Do you even know where it is?? If you have a typical gate valve that is +30 years old, never EVER try to cycle it - it WILL fail.

The stem packing will be dried out and rotten, the seal on the gate valve itself will be gone, etc. Even if you can budge the handle, you will have water peeing out the stem. And the water will still be flowing into the house

I personally use 1/4 turn ball valves as a main water shutoff. They are easy to cycle, and I cycle mine once a month. But if the valve was NEVER engineered to be test-cycled, then it WILL fail

It sounds nice in theory having a sonar backup control link. Too bad the Mainstream Media has portrayed the Acoustic BOP as some sort of "acoustic sensor" that "listens" for oil leaks and automatically closes the BOP tree, or as some sort of magical valve that works by "acoustic energy."

Such bulls*** it actually gives me the s***s

I don't expect everybody to be a chemical engineer. I just wish more folks would listen to us. When a Cluster F*** like this happens, 99 times out of a 100 it was the bean counter who made the "engineering" decision

Not somebody like me

A Topside a mile up, sinking straight down? Ever seen the engineering studies of the impact of ocean currents, normal wave activity, on how an object drifts on the way down?

Anything is possible but most casings are designed to be fairly tolerant of that sort of abuse. They are intended for pressures >15,000 psi.

Much like how if you run over a fire hydrant with a car or light truck, the operating stem is designed to shear off. The actual valve is usually 3-6 ft below grade.

The only time that fails is if a big rig runs over a hydrant, due to the much heavier weight pressing down on the valve and breaking it. Or the time that guy stole the Army tank and was mowing down hydrants

As far as the tragedy that happened, what I would like to know is why the BOP physically jammed, such that even a ROV couldn't operate it manually. In time, once the pieces are recovered, the Failure Mode Analysis will tell us the failure sequence and by inference, how to prevent a similar event from happening again

But I am getting sick and tired of the Media, and some PriusChatters, suggesting that there was NO installed BOP in place. Every wellhead has a BOP in place during exploratory drilling.

The only difference is that the vast majority of BOP's depend on the Topside for control and power to operate. There are a small but increasing number of BOP's that are equipped with backup power systems (Very much unproven at those depths, btw) and backup sonar control

The jury is out on whether a backup power supply and backup sonar control link would have mitigated this tragedy. Backup sonar control BOP's have been around less than 20 years, and their early operational reliability was dismal

Considering that the BOP in question is mechanically JAMMED, how would having a backup power supply and a backup sonar control link have helped any? If a ROV is used to operate the manual valves, and it shears off the control rods, that tells me the jam is pretty serious

 

OT.. one of the first things I did (well, my contractor did) after moving in was to replace every shutoff valve in the house. None could be operated. I also had him install a new main shutoff after the existing gate valve (which leaked from the stem when closed, but otherwise still worked).

It is quite frustrating that they now make these valves that are not designed to.. valve! (Is valve a verb? It is now! But what's the right word there? 'Actuate' seems too technical..)

I have a 1/4 ball on the radiator feed (probably went in along with the 15-20 year-old boiler, predating my ownership). It currently drips when open. Luckily it doesn't while closed... yet, but I have to top the system off every couple of weeks in the winter so it's always getting a workout (can't seem to find where water is getting out of the system, but that's another issue).

Where's that bottle..

 

Yes, that would have been smarter of me.

 

Not trying to be mean or anything, and I understand that the data is of a highly technical nature, but it is clearly spelled out

Executive Summary: BOP's - whether equipped with backup sonar acoustic control or not, represent one of the highest contact points for Single Mode Failure. Yes, they almost always fail CLOSED and totally shut down all operations until replaced

I really can't wait to see the Failure Mode Analysis on that BOP once it is recovered. I really want to know exactly why it jammed so badly that even a ROV couldn't operate it manually

 

Was it sweated on?

A common plumbing mistake is to not wrap the ball valve in a water soaked rag when sweating it onto a pipe. There is usually a nylon seal inside the stem, and if you get too carried away with the torch, you will cook the stem seal

Note that older 50/50 solder was much easier to work with than the new stuff. Even using MAPP gas and heating the literal hell out of the joint, I tend to have a hard time sweating with the new lead-free solder

If you chose to remove the valve, and it is the kind that is sweated on, use extreme care when sweating on the new valve to avoid a repeat of the incident. I've sometimes put a bunch of ice cubes in a small bucket of water to ensure the rag is VERY cold when I wrap the ball valve

That is why I much prefer working with PEX now. Not really an option with the hot water heat, although PEX is used for it, you will need transitions and that is a PITA too.

Good luck!

 

60 Minutes had a 20+ minute piece on the disaster earlier tonight and talked to one of the survivors who was the chief electronics technician on the rig. He jumped 10 stories into water. It was quite insightful.

Blowout: The Deepwater Horizon Disaster - 60 Minutes - CBS News - I haven't read this stuff or compared the videos there to what was aired on TV.

It looks like someone put the 60 Minutes piece on Youtube. Watch them before they get yanked.

 

I'm sure I missed this somewhere, and I may be out of order but I have been wondering the past few days about the reported quantities of oil and gas BP and all the other estimators are saying is being dumped into the Gulf. I hope someone will lead me straight on this - BP was extracting the oil and gas from this well (long?) before and just before the platform blew up - surely they knew (know) down to the quart how much oil and gas this well is producing. So why all the guessing as to how much is coming out of this leak?

 

I know little about oil drilling and oil rig operations until this incident, but here's a quote from the above piece which was also from the story I watched.

Clearly, there's nothing regulating that now and the blowout preventer obviously failed and was likely damaged four weeks before explosion.

 

Wow - the 60 minutes videos are great. It's amazing how many things went wrong before the explosion without getting fixed.

Classic case of pushing too hard, too fast and cutting corners.

 

The segment on Williams was hair-raising. Wow. Do we know what happened to "Andrea"? Did she jump too? Was she rescued?

 

I have a feeling that she (and the captain perhaps) were two of the 11 that did not make it...