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Old 06-09-2010, 11:20 AM   #180
glatt
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Arlington, VA
Posts: 27,717
Heat shrink tubing. You get some fat-ass tubing and slip it over the whole mess, then you shoot hot water at it until it shrinks and seals everything up.

No? Tubing is too weak? How about bolting a second blowout preventer on top of the first one, and then closing the valves on it?

No? Methane ice will clog it up right away? Um. how about making a machine that will clamp securely onto the first blowout preventer and then will use hydraulic pistons to jam a plug right into the end of the pipe? Kind of like an old fashioned beer bottle stopper on a hinge, except with hydraulic pistons or screws on the sides to force it shut.

Basically, I don't know jack about how much pressure you are fighting and how the ice forms, but there are lots of different random ideas I could come up with.

How about a giant angioplasty balloon that you can stick into the pipe and then clamp it in place and start to inflate it with heavy mud or something?
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