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The Mad as Hell at BP Oil Thread

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pixelsmith said:
the only thing that can save us now is a new energy bill! save us barry! save us!
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I've really lost all sense of humor where the oil spill is concerned. This is death and destruction on entirely new scale and we are just seeing the tip of it now. This transcends political pissing contests.
 
trainedobserver said:
I've really lost all sense of humor where the oil spill is concerned. This is death and destruction on entirely new scale and we are just seeing the tip of it now. This transcends political pissing contests.
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and now you have experienced the problem, then the reaction and you will probably accept any solution offered...

this is an effective paradigm utilized for centuries.
 
RonCollins said:
I like the idea. Extreme situations call for extreme measures.
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I agree. Nuke the sucker. It can be done with an extremely high degree of safely. But with Obama's record of turning away international help using proven technologies and his distaste for nukes, it will never happen - even if the waters of the Gulf were completely displaced by dead dinos.
 
davide said:
I agree. Nuke the sucker. It can be done with an extremely high degree of safely.
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You have ~5000 feet of water and a ~30,000 feet deep well (isn't that correct?) under that tapping into the highest pressures ever encountered. Who knows how far down the well shaft has been damaged now? 1000s of feet? How far below that do you have to go to pull off an effective explosive compression of the shaft? If they started on it this afternoon it would be months before they are ready to take the shot. I would drill the relief wells while simultaneously drilling a placement shaft for the nuke. If the relief wells fail I'd pull the trigger on the nuke post haste. But anyway you look at this its months of this thing running wild yet. Until they shut the flow down the cleanup efforts are similar to having people trying to stop Niagara falls with mops and buckets. It's nuts.
 
Look my ideas would work its just that the suits will not think outside the box to fix this and I also feel they are not trying to deal with this quick enough. Sure relief wells are likley to work but they take to much time - holding there hands up and saying 'this is the solution' buys them time to get ready to quit with a huge payoff. I want to see more effort in trying to stop it now, clever ways to mitigate the environmental damage - BP harnessing a global response.

I want the nuke thing to work but to emulate the russian solution looks daunting, that aside there should at least be teams starting to prepare the site now.

What the American people need and deserve is a whole raft of actions and the BP media people should be providing updates so that they feel that their plight is taken very seriously.

Please those on this thread - I want this situation cleared and I take it very seriously, I am just frustrated at the lack of creative rapid solutions being submitted or even tried by BP. I am also frustrated at the percieved acceptence from those charged with clearing the mess that we are only left with solutions that will take months to implement.

Anyway here is a small ray of hope for my thinking go go gooo team grey matter.

http://www.aschoonerofscience.com/?p=1373
 
Look my ideas would work its just that the suits
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How does containment work when there is no one "hole" to contain but rather a large area of the sea floor where the gases and oil are boiling up from the perforated substrata? It's not just a broken well head anymore. It's a broken well shaft that is leaking out into the substrata and spreading out and coming up in several different places. And remember all of this is happening under 5000 feet of water! The problem is boggling the minds of everyone involved because they never prepared for this and the technology to work effectively on a large scale under 5000 feet of water doesn't exist.

You would think if there are extraterrestrials or cryptoterrestrials hiding out in the oceans or under the earth they'd be sitting up and taking notice of this wouldn't you? If they are so concerned about nuclear weapons that we are scared to death to use, why aren't they worried about us punching holes in the earth under the ocean and ruining the earth that way? Any UFO reports around oil rigs?
 
trainedobserver said:
How does containment work when there is no one "hole" to contain but rather a large area of the sea floor ?
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Bigger funnels and or increase frequency - I want to see more effort for containment so that month long solutions have their environmental impact lessened.

It maybe new territory but we are sometimes at are best when new frontiers present themselves. i believe we can do this.




You would think if there are extraterrestrials or cryptoterrestrials hiding out in the oceans or under the earth they'd be sitting up and taking notice of this wouldn't you? If they are so concerned about nuclear weapons that we are scared to death to use, why aren't they worried about us punching holes in the earth under the ocean and ruining the earth that way? Any UFO reports around oil rigs?
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It should have got their attention if they were out there. Or maybe they are hiding evenmore because they are frightened that they are being flushed out.


Its a shame but maybe there aren't any :(
 
1stEarthBattalion said:
Bigger funnels and or increase frequency - I want to see more effort for containment so that month long solutions have their environmental impact lessened.
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I really do feel like the magnitude of the problem is escaping us and I think that is entirely understandable. It appears to be beyond containment at this point and each minute of the day the flow remains unabated it becomes even more uncontainable. To say this has become a problem of "Biblical proportions" is not a mischaracterization.

If your kitchen faucet suddenly springs a leak and floods your kitchen how effective will it be to try to mop up the mess before you turn off the water? While trying to minimize the impact on wildlife and their habitat in the coastal regions is a good thing it is ultimately a futile effort until the flow of oil is stopped. A better analogy might be trying to mop up the street with a q-tip before you turn the fire hydrant off.

I'm not aware of any technology that would make constructing giant funnels (miles in diameter and thousands of feet long?) from crude oil (plastic I guess?) and placing them 5000 feet under the sea to divert the oil and gas into ships (how many? 1000s of ships?) or what have you. I applaud you for giving it some serious thought but lets face it. There is an off-the-shelf solution available that has been proven to work in the past although it has never been done under 5000 feet of water that should be given some serious consideration.

Personally, I don't think they are going to nuke it. I think it will just continue to flow until the oceans of the world are red muck and the atmosphere is no longer breathable. But I've been accused of being overly pessimistic. Go figure.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that the relief wells will work. After that we can use hair-ball booms, hay, giant sponges, toxic chemicals, vacuum cleaners, and every other means available to clean up the literal ocean of crude we'll be faced with.
 
trainedobserver said:
I really do feel like the magnitude of the problem is escaping us and I think that is entirely understandable. It appears to be beyond containment at this point and each minute of the day the flow remains unabated it becomes even more uncontainable. To say this has become a problem of "Biblical proportions" is not a mischaracterization.

If your kitchen faucet suddenly springs a leak and floods your kitchen how effective will it be to try to mop up the mess before you turn off the water? While trying to minimize the impact on wildlife and their habitat in the coastal regions is a good thing it is ultimately a futile effort until the flow of oil is stopped. A better analogy might be trying to mop up the street with a q-tip before you turn the fire hydrant off.

I'm not aware of any technology that would make constructing giant funnels (miles in diameter and thousands of feet long?) from crude oil (plastic I guess?) and placing them 5000 feet under the sea to divert the oil and gas into ships (how many? 1000s of ships?) or what have you. I applaud you for giving it some serious thought but lets face it. There is an off-the-shelf solution available that has been proven to work in the past although it has never been done under 5000 feet of water that should be given some serious consideration.

Personally, I don't think they are going to nuke it. I think it will just continue to flow until the oceans of the world are red muck and the atmosphere is no longer breathable. But I've been accused of being overly pessimistic. Go figure.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that the relief wells will work. After that we can use hair-ball booms, hay, giant sponges, toxic chemicals, vacuum cleaners, and every other means available to clean up the literal ocean of crude we'll be faced with.
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Yes, this oil spill is ugly and something needs to be done soon. But did anyone know there are over 600 sources of natural oil leaks in the gulf alone? And every day for about 400 million years natural oil has leaked under the ocean around the city of Santa Barbara, California. This is not to diminish the spill in the gulf, it is to bring a little context to the situation.
 
Holiday makers tired of waiting apply their own solution.


Still like my plastic huge tube idea - pressure would not cause major problems and we could build the pipe to go to cavities that need filling up - think big guys like when we laid the first trans atlantic cable or all the materials being used to build the largest bridges or buildings. Are engineers are amazing.

Maybe this guy can help (and he does not need to change his name for the hollywood movie that should have charlton heston in it) http://www.jmeagle.com/

But the nuke idea needs to be prepared as well - maybe they could test it on one of those natural gushes in an easier location to prove the concept.
 
It seems as though BP may have finally sealed the top of the well with a custom-fitted containment cap. However, the relief well is still needed to kill the well just above the reservoir.
 
DAMAGE CONTROL ALERT***** BP/Feds/News try magical "OIL IS VANISHING QUICKLY" talking point!!!!

The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected, a piece of good news that raises tricky new questions about how fast the government should scale back its response to the Deepwater Horizon d...isaster.

The immense patches of surface oil that covered thousands of square miles of the gulf after the April 20 oil rig explosion are largely gone, though there continue to be sightings of tar balls and emulsified oil here and there.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38<WBR></WBR>439191/ns/us_news-the_new_york<WBR></WBR>_times/
 
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