BP Robot Seriously Hampers Oil Spill Containment 264
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes
"A high-tech effort by BP to slow the oil gushing from its ruptured well head led to a large accident yesterday that forced the company to remove a vital containment cap for 10 hours. Robots, known as remote operated vehicles, were performing multiple operations at the disaster site when one bumped into the 'top hat' cap and damaged one of the vents that removes excess fluid, according to the US Coast Guard. The robots weigh around four tons, and are controlled from vessels on the surface using advanced IT systems with both manual and automated functions. BP removed the cap for nearly 10 hours ... in order to assess it after a discharge of liquids was noted from a key valve. The cap's removal left the oil gushing out of the wellhead, largely uninterrupted. Admiral Thad Allen, US National Incident Commander for the response, told the media that part of the problem was the number of robots conducting simultaneous operations at an immense depth. A dozen robots are circulating the wellhead."
Another factor that may hinder containment even more is the increasing potential for tropical storms in that area of the Gulf.
Re:Brilliant (Score:5, Insightful)
I hear a lot of people saying that. I hear very few people offering suggestions of companies who already have this sort of equipment ready. Any suggestions?
Re:BP engineers are morons... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hm. 1+ mile underwater welding. That sounds ... um, rather difficult.
They had a hard enough time dropping a giant cap and not having it pop off due to the pressure...
Re:BP engineers are morons... (Score:5, Insightful)
Very few things are easy when you're 5000 feet below sea level and dealing with pressures of 2k psi.
Re:Brilliant (Score:1, Insightful)
Aquaman and Voltron.
Re:Brilliant (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad robot... (Score:5, Insightful)
This reminds me of all the accidents caused by SUVs. With nary a mention of the driver.
How about Bad Robot Driver!!
How many hours was that guy on shift without a rest? How long ago did he have soup? Coffee?
Re:BP engineers are morons... (Score:5, Insightful)
You have two problems at work here: you have to do this under a shitton of water, and you are trying to cap a pipe with a shitton of pressure behind it. If it were as simple as "simply clamping/bolting a cap on it", then I suspect it would be done by now.
Or hey, maybe I'm wrong and you should be busy sending your resume to BP right away instead of posting on slashdot. ;)
Re:Brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, Navy has a LOT of undersea oil exploration experience. Right!
The best experts are already on the job, except for the ones BP wants to hire, with spill cleanup expertise from the mideast, being kept at bay by the US Government.
Re:Kindra Arnesen's speech (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me know how that works out.
What's the big deal? (Score:1, Insightful)
So what... When they removed the cap 100,000 barrels a day leaking instead of 75,000? (assuming they are still capturing around 25,000/day)
What difference does that make?! It was still leaking like crazy even with the cap in place.
I don't see what the big deal is other than the robot smashing some stuff. It made absolutely minuscule difference in the amount of cleanup that's going to need to be done.
Re:Kindra Arnesen's speech (Score:3, Insightful)
If BP is seized it will quit laying golden eggs. BP isn't human, so damaging the shareholder value does _nothing_ against the employees who screwed up.
Paper entities don't feel pain, people do. Find and punish the malefactors to deter future screwups and to SAVE BP, whose stock is held by many US and other pension funds.
Accidents happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad robot... (Score:1, Insightful)
And who is controlling the robot? This is just a blame game, the robot didn't do anything.
Undre Pressure (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is pressure. There isn't a pumpjack on the sea floor using suction to draw the petroleum out of the well. It is coming out by itself, and under very high pressure.
You could weld a valve onto the top, but if you try to close it, the pressure will seek relief elsewhere. If you get really, really lucky, it just blows out the weld and rejects the valve. Much more likely, however, it would split the pipe under the sea floor where we don't have access. The only hope of capturing anything is if the breech remains above the surface.
One day in July or August BP will suddenly get shit under control and the leak will stop over night. That will be the day the two relief wells come online and provide means to reduce the well pressure. BP started drilling these relief wells in April, and they take a few months to come online. Everything else is window dressing.
Re:Funnel Time (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kindra Arnesen's speech (Score:3, Insightful)
Find and punish the malefactors to deter future screwups
That's never going to happen [chron.com] even if anyone were serious about it. Making BP's investors pay is a whole lot easier than getting those responsible to pay.
Re:BP engineers are morons... (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time one of their fixes fails, and I'm tempted to say things like "those guys are idiots!", people like you come along to demonstrate what true idiocy looks like.
Thanks for puttin' it in perspective.
ROFLMAO (Score:2, Insightful)
We will all die!
Re:Large pipe? (Score:3, Insightful)
BP stockholder eh?
Re:Kindra Arnesen's speech (Score:5, Insightful)
If BP is seized it will quit laying golden eggs.
I don't think people are too happy with the "golden eggs" that BP is laying.
so damaging the shareholder value does _nothing_ against the employees who screwed up.
The first problem is identifying who actually screwed up. Was it some worker who made a mistake and hit the wrong button or something? Or was it his manager who asked him to bypass some safety measure? Or perhaps the manager's manager who asked for unrealistic metrics while looking the other way on ethical violations? Or was it the manager's manager's manager who knew all this was going on and just didn't do anything?
How do you assign blame, and how do you prove it? Once you've figured that out, how do you punish them? Do you throw them in jail? I'm not opposed to it, but it doesn't help clean up the oil spill. You could fine them billions of dollars, but I don't think the individual employees have that money.
And here's the thing: when you get down to it, the shareholders invested in a company that was behaving unethically. It's the shareholder's investment that allows BP to function this way. When CEOs act unethically, they do it in the name of serving the shareholders. Don't the shareholders bear some responsibility? Isn't part of the problem that the "owners" of the company failed to ensure that their company was "doing the right thing?" I'm not sure that we should be seeking to punish shareholders, but I also don't see why they should take a pass.
As I see it, we have a systemic responsibility/blame problem. We love to blame people, but our system is explicitly set up to limit liability of anyone with wealth or power so that entrepreneurs won't be too risk-averse to build new business ventures. However, I think we've gone too far. The problems of the last decade have not been because people are not risk-averse enough.
People aren't investing their money, they're gambling it. Corporations cut corners and endanger lives to save a few bucks, creating situations where serious accidents become likely. When accidents occur, we let them off the hook. We say, "we shouldn't punish these corporations, because that will just hurt share holders!" and so not only do we not punish them, but we bail them out. I bet if we do go looking for an individual to blame, we'll get fed some low-level middle-management-type who was just passing along orders. Nothing will happen. Nothing will change.
Robot? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:im beginning to suspect (Score:1, Insightful)
BP is complete fail...like this is going to be something that will be forever flaunted in the face of any politician brassy enough to imply a self regulated industry as innocuous as even a q-tip packager is a sane idea.
Not really. Remember Union Carbide, in Bhopal? Yet still those in the pocket of the big industries will always shout about their self-regulation.
AC
Re:OK (Score:3, Insightful)
Robots use artificial intelligence to asses a situation and act accordingly.
OTOH, the machines probably have a number of robots on them. Keep in mind that a crude thermostat is a robot. It's "artificial intelligence" (as you put it) being a simple control system with a set point. A robot is any machine that autonomously does a job that involves getting input, no matter how limited, from an environment and acting (no matter how dumb or limited). Personally, I'd include teleoperated machines as robots simply because the characteristic of "autonomy" simply isn't that useful. Even humans, which are generally considered autonomous are routinely told what to do and they follow those instructions. Wikipedia, the ultimate and definitive source of human knowledge, punts on the issue [wikipedia.org]:
There is conflict about whether the term can be applied to remotely operated devices, as the most common usage implies, or solely to devices which are controlled by their software without human intervention.
A casual glance through the proffered definitions indicates that you are both right and wrong (at least, if you drop the more aggressive technological claims, namely, must have AI and ability to assess), depending solely on whether the subject chooses to agree with you or not.
Re:Kindra Arnesen's speech (Score:3, Insightful)
Was it some worker who made a mistake and hit the wrong button or something?
No, it's not possible that criminal blame lies in that direction. Gross negligence, in the case where the worker put himself in a position where he was bound to make such a mistake, maybe, but if it's a genuine worker mistake, then any criminal blame, if such exists, lies with those who created a situation where a single worker mistake can undermine the whole operation with such severe consequences.
Congress needs to b&tchslap this robot (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:im beginning to suspect (Score:2, Insightful)
Is that the best you can come up with? "Engineers" ? As if BP go out of their way to employ dumbshits because they are cheap? Before you go crapping about "engineers" in a derogatory fashion I invite you to google just what some of the "engineers" have come up with in the past, like the Thunderhorse platform. You know that one that's the largest of it's kind in the world. The one which cost $5 billion to make.
But clearly there's no engineers at BP, clearly you're smarter than all of them.
In reality though you're just another internet "genius" who thinks they know better.
Just for the record, why not go ahead and apply for one of the "engineering" positions at BP. Then maybe you'll have a fucking clue at just how hyper competitive positions at that company are, and while you're at it go plug the fucking leak yourself, though I bet you wouldn't even know the air pressure at sea level let alone know what the pressure is at the sea bed without looking it up.
Yes this post is troll because frankly you deserve it.
Re:im beginning to suspect (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is the when government regulation does prevent a disaster from happening it becomes a non-event and no one pays any attention to it. It's easy for government to get the blame when things don't go well but they seldom get much credit when thing do go well.
Re:Brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they won't. They'll ask and receive bailouts, use those bailouts to pay bonuses to the CEO, "sell" all the assets to a "new" corporation and finally let the "old" one go bankrupt while the directors move to the "new" one.
Personal responsibility is for peasants, not for plutocrats.