Gulf coast oil spill

[squirell nutkin]

Originally Posted by lookout123

I know, I know. It seems like a failproof plan that's why I emailed it to them. all I got back was some bureaucratic gobbeldygook form letter with a handwritten "don't you think we already tried that, dumbass?!?" on the bottom.

There was also the voicemail from Obama wanting to schedule my asskicking, but I just deleted that.

No man is a prophet in his own country.

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by squirell nutkin

I actually have an idea that many people think is sound. The only problem is I don't know what the interior of the well shaft is made of and its diameter. I actually have a serious possible solution but its efficacy rests on my assumptions, which may be wrong, about the material and dimensions of an oil well. And what is the pressure of the oil coming out of the pipe?
pm me the info

The inside of the well shaft is made of black licorice. The diameter is about like a small pizza.

Actually I'm not involved with that project in any way - they just sent out an e-mail to the whole company and it said that we should pass along any suggestions that we receive. I'd definitely like to hear what you're thinking, sn.

[ZenGum]

I have heard from unreliable sources that one possible technique is to detonate a nuclear bomb several hundred meters below the sea floor within a few hundred meters of the well. The shock and blast should crumple the pipe and re-fuse the rock, sealing the leak. Allegedly the soviets did this once, but on land. I haven't done any research of my own to check this. Aint gonna happen.

[classicman]

WASHINGTON — Actor Kevin Costner told Congress on Wednesday that he has a solution to ocean oil spills: a machine that separates oil from water.

Costner said he has spent more than $20 million for the patent and development of the machines since 1993 because he was inspired by the Exxon-Valdez oil spill in 1989.

Costner said he had a hard time initially getting anyone interested in buying the device and that tests performed for the Coast Guard, private companies and other government agencies drew no response.

“My enthusiasm for the machine was met with apathy,” said Costner.
That has recently changed.
The machines — marketed by Ocean Therapy Solutions — are like vacuum cleaners that suck up the oily water and separate the pollutants through a centrifuge.

BP recently put in an order for 32 of the machines to help clean up the Gulf of Mexico, according to Ocean Therapy Solutions CEO John Houghtaling, who said the 32 machines could process 6 million gallons of water a day.

Costner said “that as long as the oil industry profits from the sea, they have an obligation to protect it.” The actor told the House panel that the cleaning devices “should be on every ship transporting oil, they should be on every derrick, they should be in every harbor.”

He stressed the economic importance of having effective cleaning processes, noting that the oil spill that began April 20 has led to a moratorium on offshore drilling and put many workers in the oil industry on the Gulf Coast out of work.

He said he hopes that a device like his might persuade the government to lift the temporary ban.

“There's 33 platforms that are shut down,” said Costner. “We can put Americans back to work and bring into the 21st century the technology of oil spill recovery.”

After the hearing, Pat Smith, COO of Ocean Therapy Solutions, said recent tests have shown that the machines can separate the water and the oil with 99.9 percent efficiency.

Link
I know the Gulf is just a teeny bit larger than 6mil gallons, but it doesn't need to do the whole gulf just the polluted part which admittedly is growing every moment. If these could help... get 'em going.

[Happy Monkey]

This shows the scale.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

This shows the scale.

Awesome link.

So to make some wild assumptions based on the chart: Since the bottom of the well is 18,000 feet deep, and water pressure at 18,000 feet deep is roughly 500 ATM, we can assume that the oil pressure coming up out of the well is at 500 ATM. (I'm assuming that rock weighs the same as water here. Although clearly it weighs more.)

The water pressure at the blowout preventer is 150 ATM, so the pressure difference between the leaking oil and the water at the bottom of the ocean is 350 ATM. Or more likely more than that.

So how do you contain 350 ATM? A scuba tank is pressurized at 204 ATM, so if you can visualize the thickness of a scuba tank wall, if you doubled that, it ought to be strong enough. I'd quadrupole that, just to be on the safe side. So that's how strong whatever you are using has to be. But how to you cut off the stream from a fire hose nozzel?

[tw]

Originally Posted by gvidas

The actual rate of flow should be measured at that point. A lot of errors (both of management and design) could have been prevented if the volume and speed of oil had been known.

It always was known. But if you knew how large that flow is, you might get angry. It is called spin. The exact same technique used so that we "knew Saddam had WMDs."

A Navy skimmer has just arrived for Gulf duty. How many gallons does it skim before returning to port? 1200 gallon. How large is the flow out of that wellhead? About 1 to 3 million gallons per day. See why they fear you might see numbers?

Silly is to worry about a solution. In late August, the first relief well might intercept the leaking well. Might. At one miles below the surface and another 15,000 feet underground, it must hit a pipe that is maybe 4 inches in diameter. And hope the drill head does not break off. If the drill head breaks off, they must start all over again drilling another well. Until then, this oil will continue leaking. Live with reality. Flow will continue all summer. There is no other viable solution.

People who don't wait to be told are already asking who will be purchasing the remains of BP. It should be obvious. BP as a viable company is done. We got the government regulation they paid for. This is what you must now live with. Deal with that reality.

The numbers are known. Those numbers are well above the 5000 barrels per day that BP spin was preaching. If you think numbers are unknown, then BP spin has you right where they wanted you. Learn from history: Saddam’s WMDs. Use the exact same thinking process to see through the spin.


Zengum - the USSR used a tactical nuclear weapons on an Arctic Ocean oil well - back when nobody was looking. If was their last and only option. They got lucky. It worked.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by tw

It always was known. But if you knew how large that flow is, you might get angry. It is called spin.

Also, the fine is based on flow.

[classicman]

The fine should basically be to hand over the keys to this business.
Apparently the emergency fund that the coast guard is using to finance the cleanup is almost maxed out. Not the fund itself, but the amount they can tap into. BP needs to be doing the paying N.O.W! Why is the Gov't financing this for them?

Is the pressure there determined only by the depth?

A Navy skimmer has just arrived for Gulf duty.

Only about a month+ late...

[glatt]

I'm reading a book right now about setting prices and going through price negotiations, and the theories promoted in that book are being used in this situation where they are estimating oil flow from this leak. BP and others aren't trying to agree on a price like you would with a sale, but they are trying to arrive at a number. One of the main points of the book is the idea of an "anchor" number. Once one party sets an anchor, all number floated after that anchor tend to be pulled toward that anchor number.

BP threw a number out there early on that was very low. They won the race to set the anchor point. So now everyone who has seen or heard that number, whether they realize it or not, is thinking about that original (low) BP number. Any future numbers are going to be compared to the low number and even if they are actually accurate they will be viewed as being unreasonably high. The burden of proof will be on the new numbers coming out to prove that they aren't unreasonable.

[classicman]

Interesting theory glatt... how is the fact that the flow increased substantially because of an effort to contain it?

Dr Ira Leifer , a researcher in the Marine Science Institute at the University of California who is a member of the technical group, said that the oil company’s operation to cut the leaking pipe and cap it with a new containment device last week may have increased the surge of oil not by 20 per cent, as BP and the White House had warned may happen, but several times over.

“In the data I’ve seen, there’s nothing inconsistent with BP’s worst case scenario,” he added in comments to McClatchy newspapers, stating that the previous 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day estimate had simply been the “lower bound” estimate.

BP’s “top kill” effort two weeks ago to stem the flow by firing mud and junk into the well appeared to have stepped up the rate of the leak, Dr Leifer said.

Additionally ...

The company’s 2009 response plan setting out what it would do in the event of a leak in the Gulf of Mexico was seriously flawed, it emerged today, and showed a lack of understanding for the environment in which it was drilling.

One of the wildlife experts it listed in the plan as a potential adviser died in 2005. Under the heading “sensitive biological resources,” the 528-page document lists marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals — none of which are found anywhere close to the Gulf.

The names and phone numbers of several marine life specialists to which it would turn for help are out of date, and marine mammal assistance services that it names are in fact no longer in service.

Yet the document was approved by the federal government last year, prior to the Deepwater Horizon rig starting drilling on the Macondo well, despite vastly underestimating the potential impact that an accident might yield, even based on a leak ten times worse than the current spill.

Link
Grrrr!

[squirell nutkin]

Great graphic HM. After seeing it may I say that the idea of the floating oil rig attached to a fragile pipe is perhaps one of the stupidest ideas/catastrophes waiting to happen that I've ever seen.

[squirell nutkin]

Originally Posted by glatt

But how to you cut off the stream from a fire hose nozzel?

There are a number of plumbing tricks to cap water gushing from pipes, whether they would scale up is another question.

One device is a valve with a barbed fitting that slips over a pipe while the valve is open. once it is in place the valve is closed. The greater the pressure the deeper the barb grabs.



Another technique is to cut threads around the outside of the pipe, screw an open valve on and then close the valve. Like shutting off a hose with a nozzle:


There are a couple more possibilities.

[Pie]

[tw]

Originally Posted by squirell nutkin

There are a number of plumbing tricks to cap water gushing from pipes, whether they would scale up is another question.

Which was not easily done even on the surface where everything is easy.

A company in Western PA could not cap a gushing methane gas well for half a day - on the surface where everything is easy.

Appreciate what has happened. Deep sea drilling used to be a few hundred feet of water. A 2008 record is 8000 feet (by Deepwater Horizon). We are tapping reservoirs that we really do not understand. 5000 and 18,000 feet under the ocean, then another 10,000 or 20,000 feet into the earth. These pressures are not the trivial stuff seen in western PA. We really do not know how massive these pressures could spike to - the kick. Did you read every number like it was necessary to have a hard-on? You must.

A BlowOut Preventer designed to standards for oil wells 10 and 15 years ago may no longer be sufficient for 'kicks' that occur 18,000 feet below a mile of ocean. That kick that destroyed Deepwater Horizon may mean we are no longer using strong enough technology. We have little experience at these depths. (Brazilians at 18,000 to the bottom should pay attention.)

BP is famous for taking short cuts. Why was BP pushing so fast to get this well done? Because BP shortcuts on a previous well caused the drill head to break off. Therefore Deepwater Horizon had to abandon two weeks of drilling and start all over again. So BP wanted to "make up for lost time". Time that was lost because BP was pushing for short cuts - caused Deepwater Horizon to drill too fast.

We have little idea if current technologies are strong enough for fluids and gases this deep - under such higher pressures. And we know BP did nothing - no experiments - built no emergency response tools - tested nothing - for failures at this depth.

What do we know? This entire failure is directly traceable to the attitudes, direction, philosophy, and demands imposed from the highest levels of BP management. BP was driven first and foremost by profit - not the product. Same pressures that killed so many workers in a BP TX refinery. Same pressures that stopped routine maintenance on the Alaska pipeline resulting in multiple failures.

BP had no knowledge of what to do. Exxon had to teach BP where to put dispersants. A cap that BP said they had instead took three weeks to design and build. Because no caps existed. And then failed due to basic thermodynamic principles that would have been learned had BP tested this equipment years ago - as BP claimed.

Trying to recommend a solution is a fool's errand. It really mocks the intelligence of people who are desperately trying to solve this - despite BP management.

This well will be leaking all summer. Even today, new numbers are leaking out for the real size of this flow. Once the company is honest, then we will learn it was always between 1 million and 3 million gallons every day.

But I could be wrong now. I also said "Mission Accomplished" was more like $400 billion (when the popular opinion spin by propaganda experts said it would be $2billion). The actual cost was closer to $1trillion. Is this leak greater than 3 million gallons per day? (Navy skimmer boats recover a massive 1200 gallons in each load.)

Now let's add another fact that nobody is discussing. What is a dispersant? A chemical that connects each molecule of water to a molecule of oil. It does nothing to eliminate that oil. Puts it at various depths in the ocean. Simply makes an oil slick appear smaller. Dispersants are promoted by propaganda as a solution - which it is not. The oil is still there. Just spread out more.