Gulf Oil Leak Plugged? 611
RobHart writes "The LA Times is reporting that the Gulf oil leak appears to have been plugged by the 'top kill.' 'Thad Allen, who is coordinating the government response, says the well still has low pressure, but cement will be used to cap the well permanently as soon as the pressure hits zero.'"
glad to see this (Score:4, Funny)
I'm glad to see that this solution seems to be working well. The aftermath, however, is going to be a freakin' political circus. I'm simultaneously excited and dreading it.
Re:glad to see this (Score:5, Informative)
I'm looking forward to seeing BP get raked over the coals. Bastards. The way they attempted to cover up how bad the spill is is really disgusting. See http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/26/the-missing-oil-spill-photos.html
Re:glad to see this (Score:5, Interesting)
This is BP's Rules, Not Ours [mediabistro.com]
Well there you go.. BP runs the American government..
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just saw this quote:
"You want a witch hunt? Start by looking in a mirror."
*sigh* So true... This blame game has grown so very tiresome.
Re:glad to see this (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because we don't properly acknowledge that there's enough blame to go around ten times over. We let the guilty spin the issue into one of someone else being technically more guilty in some sub area.
If we properly assigned blame, even just enough to bar them from ever participating in politics again, to every politician who took bribes or let themselves be influenced to go against the will of their constituents we'd end up with better politicians. They're out there somewhere, hidden behind the hordes of sell-outs. Instead we get suckered into trying to decide if the republicans or the democrats are more guilty and forget to punish the individuals we caught breaking the law.
Similarly for "the corporations". Punish any attempt to influence a politician or law enforcement officer (or EPA investigator, etc) as you would bribery. Seize all assets related to the transaction and punish the offender for perjury.
If we actually enforced our existing laws so many people are guilty (of real crimes - that you and I would be punished for) that almost our entire governing and financial sector would be gone.
I wish we'd stop letting them misdirect us.
BP will not confirm (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Dude, they're the ones responsible for the spill. Environmental agencies are referring to the oil slick as the "black screen of death".
Not so fast there... (Score:5, Informative)
We can only pray that once they cap this, it sticks till they can get the relief well fully drilled.
Re:Not so fast there... (Score:4, Funny)
TrisexualPuppy, pray tell us what your young girlfriends say about this.
Also, some pictures would be appreciated.
Re:Not so fast there... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:glad to see this (Score:5, Funny)
With Apple, a slick shiny black surface is a feature, not a problem.
Re:glad to see this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:glad to see this (Score:5, Insightful)
"Real" engineering is not like your geek job. When the rig blew, people died, and others needed immediate rescue to survive - and BP was there for that. There were several in-place preventive measures as part of the disaster prevention plan, but they failed - largely due to poor management culture endemic to BP, where warnings from the guys on the rig were ignored. BP certainly deserves blame for that. The same cultural problem led to the gas pipeline blowout, if you remember that.
Efforts to plug the well started immediately, and as there's no way to know what will work, several parallel efforts were all started. Lots of silly /.ers who seem to think this is like fixing a down server are asking questions like "why didn't they drill the relief well first, since that's the only permanent fix". They did start the effort to drill the relief well immediately; it will be done in August IIRC. This isn't a down server - real engineering work is required here, real heavy equipment must be designed, built, shipped to a port, loaded, and shipped out to the middle of the gulf at 15 knots.
The "top kill" effort was started as soon as the problem was understood - it just takes time to do stuff like this.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In order to do that they would have had to cut through the riser and well casing and then opened up the BOP (Blow-out-preventer) to full bore to gain access; before we assumed that the BOP had at least partially choked off the well casing or the pipes had crimps from being bent. Opening up to full-bore could easily have made the leak 10 times worst for no guarantee of success. Doing the top kill meant they only had to hook into the choke & kill port on the BOP, using it for its designed purpose and pum
Re:glad to see this (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because there's only 1 pipe into which the straw can be inserted.
Re:glad to see this (Score:4, Funny)
Because there's only 1 pipe into which the straw can be inserted.
... Giggity?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm glad you're on the other side.
Re:Conspiracy Theories (Score:5, Funny)
Holy run-on sentence Batman!
Periods are a renewable resource. Feel free to use them.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why do I get the impression this isn't the first time you've said that...
Brother, if only you knew.
Too early (Score:5, Informative)
This is just step one of the top kill. It's just plugged with mud, which is still streaming out of the hole. Don't start celebrating until they actually top it with concrete.
I've got to wonder, if this does work is BP going to go ahead with their "relief well".
Re:Too early (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
currently, the cnn.com alt view is what shows the top of the BOP view.
LoB
Re:Too early (Score:5, Insightful)
Hindsight can be a cast-iron bitch sometimes.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking of generals... Was Red Adair's company (International Well Control, IIRC) ever called in on this? I mean, they have extensive experience plugging holes not only on land, but have assisted with deep sea blow-outs too, like the Ekofisk Bravo blow-out that was larger in scale, but capped after just a week.
Re:Too early (Score:5, Funny)
I would have enjoyed watching that one blow up in their faces.
Re:Too early (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too early (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm just eternally grateful for these BP heroes that have worked so many sleepless nights since this began in order to wrestle this thing under control. No one has ever had to deal with something like this before and by using their ingenuity and ability to adapt and innovate, they were able to accomplish a herculean feat. Yes, I'm being facetious.
I'm sure a lot of BP personnel (and yes, a lot of non-BP personnel) have indeed worked many sleepless nights since this began in order to wrestle this thing under control. And you are right that no one has ever had to deal with something like this before and by using their ingenuity and ability to adapt and innovate, they were able to accomplish a herculean feat.
So despite everything I think all these people have more than earned a massive THANK YOU and WELL DONE. I even think that they deserve to be called heroes. (Especially because the people that did all this probably had nothing to do with causing the disaster in the first place.)
Re:Too early (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Too early (Score:4, Informative)
The Ixtoc well was 3.6km long, but it was only drilled in water 50m deep. Deepwater Horizon was working a well 1,500m deep when it blew. I think there is a huge difference between working at 50m deep in water vs 1,500m deep.
Re:Too early (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Too early (Score:5, Insightful)
Because there was a chance that it could make the situation worse. They were trying things first that if they went wrong would not make the problem worse.
I guess I'm a little more cynical than this. I assumed they were trying things that would cost them the least money first.
In theory, those are the same. Factor in the potential cost of failure alongside the cost of the procedure itself. The top kill probably costs less than many of the other methods (a 93-ton, four-story-tall concrete dome can't be cheap), until you factor in the risk and cost of failure (top kill can make more oil leak, which in turn makes future attempts more expensive).
Re:Too early (Score:5, Informative)
They were working on this from the start, as well as the "top hat" that will probably not be needed now. They had at least 3 different methods working in parallel. This one took this long because it was unbelievably complicated and had never been tried at anything even close to this depth. This (the actual stoppage) is an amazing success for the many 100's of skilled engineers that have been working around the clock on it for weeks. (Mostly not BP people BTW)
Re:Too early (Score:4, Informative)
It may come as a surprise to many /. geeks, but despite drilling involving a series of tubes, the ocean is not the internet. If you want to get many tons of material to a deep-sea location, a ship has to do that, at 15 knots or so. If you want to get an new engineering design out there, you have to first figure out what is needed (meaning the design process is fairly far along), those parts need to get to an appropriate port, a ship must get to that port, and be loaded, and then move from there to where the problem is. All at the speed of real-world heavy material shipping. Not metaphorical shipping, but the kind with actual ships.
This isn't like putting a new version of your web site up, folks.
Re:Too early (Score:5, Interesting)
My understanding was that there was a chance it might make things worse. If the mud didn't actually slow the leak, but was pushed out as fast as it was applied, there was the fear it might further damage the already broken valve. So, rather than a partially open valve somewhat checking the flow of oil, you'd have a fully open pipe.
Re:Too early (Score:5, Informative)
"They had immediately started construction of a second well to collect oil from the same reserve."
Um, I have not seen any evidence of this. Do you mean the relief wells? Those are a bit of a misnomer - the name implies that it relieves the pressure forcing the leak by sucking out oil, but apparently a "relief well" is actually the standard way of injecting kill mud deep into a well (as opposed to a "top kill" which is apparently less likely to work.).
Not sure if they'll continue the relief well to ensure that the current well is 100% dead by getting kill mud deeper down into the well.
Re:Too early (Score:4, Informative)
Speculation:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-cavnar/bp-top-kill-today-finally_b_590178.html [huffingtonpost.com]
In short, the guy thinks that maybe they waited because they didn't think it would work until the pressure in the well had reduced some.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it takes a long time to prepare. They did start preparing this right away. It was only ready now.
And relief wells don't collect oil from the same reserve. They intersect the original well and fill it up with mud from the bottom.
Re:Too early (Score:5, Insightful)
guess which one took the longest
I'll take "What is BP had to get permission from the feds" for $500 Alex.
Re:relief well ... bet on it (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, because the relief well doesn't have anything to do with, you know, being a relief well.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of the relief well is to relieve pressure on the main well and then seal it safely.
Do you realize what kind of political fallout BP would receive if they were actually wasting time trying to salvage the well?
Re:relief well ... bet on it (Score:5, Informative)
Though the name's confusing, a "relief well" isn't a separate well into the original reservoir that can be put into production. It's a well that's drilled at at an angle, calculated to intercept the bore of the original well somewhere in the rock above the reservoir. If it intercepts it, pressure gets diverted up through the new well, which is presumably under control, and then a bunch of heavy mud is pumped in to plug it up.
Re:relief well ... bet on it (Score:4, Informative)
The relief well does not divert the pressure. They can use it to inject mud (which has a density much higher than oil or seawater) into the original bore. As the mud fills the well, the higher density will increase the pressure until it matches the outward pressure of the reservoir.
So 8,000 vertical feet of seawater/oil is not enough to stop the leak, but 8,000 vertical feet of drilling mud that has a much higher density can do the job.
in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:5, Funny)
to control the flow of nonsense over the failed well, contractors will first pump T5000 cement into his mouth under pressure, then fit ankle weights, and send him to inspect the work personally in the Gulf.
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:5, Insightful)
So you hold the CEO personally responsible for this mishap? If that's the case, then I don't think anyone gets to complain about how much money CEOs make.
I mean, if I were the head of BP and every decision that was made pointed directly at me, then I'd for sure want a bajillion dollars a year.
That's a lot of pressure to be under.
I mean, what if that BP truck driver falls asleep at the wheel and kills a family of 4? That's on me, right?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what Officers and Directors indemnification insurance is for.....
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:4, Informative)
Officers and Directors indemnification insurance is for shareholder derivative suits and has nothing to do with tort liability.
Officers and directors would to covered by the corporation's general liability policy, the same as every other employee.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's pretty unfair. Do you think he's an undersea oil well engineer with the resources of the company the size of BP?
Easy has nothing to do with it. They weren't prepared and got publicly caught with their pants down and little intention of pulling them back up anytime soon. If they can't fix it 5000' maybe they shouldn't be drilling at 5000'.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well if they can't drill it at 5000', maybe you shouldn't be driving your car?
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:4, Insightful)
So you don't use plastic products either? You don't use goods that are transported on trucks that consume oil? You never walk over asphalt roads?
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:5, Funny)
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is almost impossible to have your hands "clean of oil". Food production and transportation uses lots of fossil fuels. Especially meat.
But it is possible, as a society, for us to decide we don't want offshore drilling. In fact, I suspect that if oil companies were made to pay fair damages to everyone affected by accidents, and pay real penalties to governments (Federal, a handful of states, and possibly countries like Mexico and Cuba) for ecological damages, they would not find offshore drilling worth the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If they can't fix it 5000' maybe they shouldn't be drilling at 5000'.
True. So let them drill in shallower waters. Oh wait...that might ruin someone's "view".
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget the billions they have pledged in funding for research into handling this better in the future.
I find it so strange people keep claiming BP is running from the bill when BP has done all it can to limit the problem, both now and in the future. People seem to forget that BP is one of the biggest energy companies in the world (3rd I think) and are drilling all over the planet, if they fail to handle this spill or try to run away from it they will lose contracts around the world.
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:4, Informative)
First of all, that's now that the grandparent is saying at all. The GP is talking about what the CEO is saying, not the decisions made that caused this disaster. (And he's joking, at that. That much should have been obvious.)
So really, you're off on a tangent to grind your own ax, here.
There's a big difference between blaming someone and actually holding them to accounts. If the BP CEO is willing to pay for the cleanup and potentially go to prison for any malfeasance, then sure, he deserves the massive salary. However, past experience shows that this never actually happens and that the CEOs get a huge salary and take none of the real consequences. It's more likely the little guys with the low salaries who get canned, fined, or jailed.
Either way, I doubt that the GP can do anything against the CEO of BP, so again, you're sort of off on a tangent of your own making here.
Depends (Score:5, Insightful)
if you had a policy which ignored industry and federal and state and local standards on driver hours per week or hours per day, and it was reasonable to conclude that your policy played a role in the driver falling asleep, then yes.
If, on the other hand, you had a policy which reinforced (or even outdid) the safety procedures, and despite quality employee and contractor screening, despite training, despite good policy, something bad still happened (individual negligence or simply bad luck), then no.
In short, management's role is reducing the likelihood of major disasters. Did they do their job? I don't know the answer, but I suspect that the next few years will include a number of investigations to figure that out.
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:5, Insightful)
Not responsible for the mishap, responsible for the inadequate response. Keeping officials away and not trying to solve the leak *period*, but trying to solve the leak by extracting the oil.
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually - that's almost exactly it. Right there. If it is shown that this resulted from systemic faults or negligence on the part of BP management, and is something that results from decisions of the "Very High Up" - i.e. safety shortcuts, speed at the expense of safe(er) procedures, known faults with safety equipment and/or a culture of "get it done fast".
Things that management knew about, condoned, encouraged or "looked the other way", then I believe we should hold the CEO and entire personally responsible. That is (one of the many things) that is wrong with corporate culture in the world now. All the profits and percs of a "human" and none of the responsibility. I think if the CEO and board of corporations were held personally responsible then we'd see a lot less screwing of the public. I'm all for that and the "corporate death penalty".
If you were the CEO of said trucking company, and encouraged or looked the other way when your drivers were falsifying log books, driving extra hours, and ignoring the safety concerns of your maintenance contractor, and your tired driver plowed into a shopping mall with a tanker truck of propane because he was tired, then yes I DO hold you responsible. If that's not the case, and the guy was just an idiot or had too many tacos at lunch and got distracted, then no.
I generally consider myself to lean libertarian - but what we have now in the US is too many cases of privatizing profits and socializing losses/screwups - and that to me is the worst of all worlds.
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, what if that BP truck driver falls asleep at the wheel and kills a family of 4? That's on me, right?
Yes, it would be, but only if your negligent business decision made the event happen; like demanding an exceedingly long work day, crazy shift work, or revolving door employment.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So you hold the CEO personally responsible for this mishap? If that's the case, then I don't think anyone gets to complain about how much money CEOs make.
Well, uh, yes? Fact: CEO's make about a bajillion dollars a year, give or take a few million. The job is so cushy that they can run a company into the ground in 6 months, and still retire in luxury after getting fired. Right now, the risk is exclusively carried by worker bees who actually do stuff - they're the ones who get hauled in front of a jury when something goes wrong, regardless of what idiotic policies were put into place by the CEO.
I mean, what if that BP truck driver falls asleep at the wheel and kills a family of 4? That's on me, right?
If you put in a policy that mandates overtime, no break on overnig
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, right now, CEOs are both highly overpaid and free of responsibility. Which one would you prefer they relinquish?
With great power comes great responsibility... this is the rule I want enforced.
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:5, Interesting)
You can argue that a new CEO won't want the same fate, so will enforce higher safety standards, but CEOs are judged by the money made for the shareholders, not by their safety record. If a CEO gets replaced over safety for political reasons, but made a crap-ton of money as CEO, you can bet they're not going to end up in a soup kitchen..
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not inclined to tar and feather the CEO when something goes wrong. But when something goes catastrophically wrong, and takes months to come to a resolution, and is due to poor safety or operational prudence, then yes, SOMEONE needs to be held responsible
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of the numbers I have seen sort of add together to the total cleanup cost and other liabilities to at least be in the range of $10 billion. They can pay that off in 6 months.
(I'm assuming several billion dollars of cleanup costs, and then also several billion for fisherman, and another several billion for the tourist industry)
They could probably afford to pay $50 billion (but I don't really see how the liabilities will get that high).
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:5, Funny)
Typical. There's a flippin' crisis going on in the Gulf and the CEO is out getting fitted for his new fancy concrete shoes. What's next? Some exotic underwater hotel where he can sleep with the fishes? That is, if there are any fish left.
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:5, Insightful)
Ixtoc and BP disaster comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
An interesting comparison between the 1979 Ixtoc oil disaster and the BP disaster. Note that indeed Transocean and Sedco merged in 1999.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=127_1274931222 [liveleak.com]
Re:Ixtoc and BP disaster comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
Rachael Maddow had a blurb on this yesterday. It showed how similar techniques (including "top kill") were used in attempt to plug the leak, then the leak was finally killed by another well drilled, with a devastating impact on the environment, about six months after the fact.
What lessons can we learn from this? First and foremost, this drives the point home that one of the first priorities is that oil should be relegated to plastic making, and not an energy source.
Nuclear technology may not be perfect, and the biggest problem with it is that it isn't goof-proof. If a group of drunk contractors pass out on the job when putting together a solar cell array, it likely won't affect much other than the head of the guy the cell array fell on. Nuclear plants need to be engineered to be as moron resistant as possible, because both Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were caused by "cockpit errors". Hopefully Gen III and Gen IV reactors will go a long way to address this.
This is not to say that other energy sources are not relevant, but until fusion gets able to be used on a production basis (as in multi-gigawatt reactors), the only real solution for dense areas without access to large amount of real estate is nuclear breeder reactors.
Of course, there are other ways to help with energy. I've seen some research on generators which turn water into hydrogen and pass the stuff down a pipeline to an electricity generation station nearby a metropolitan area where it is burned. This minimizes energy loss over long distances as opposed to power lines.
In any case, this BP disaster just further reinforces the point of getting off of oil and onto other energy sources.
pebble bed reactors (Score:4, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor [wikipedia.org]
recent tech from germany, many generations technologically removed form the 1960s era tech all of our china syndrome fears are based on
air cooled, passive safety system. there is no failure that can cause an accident, because anything and everything can fail and nothing bad will happen: you can just walk away from a pebble bed reactor, they are foolproof
the only issue is terrorism (not as in bombing the plant, but as in stealing fissile material and placing it in times square), so you need a really good inventory security apparatus
nuclear+electric cars is obviously the solution to our environmental, energy, and geopolitical problems
Little Dutch Boy (Score:3, Funny)
Why didn't they just call the Little Dutch Boy?
Re:Little Dutch Boy (Score:5, Funny)
He's somewhere in Amsterdam's red light district, sticking his finger in dykes.
Re:Little Dutch Boy (Score:4, Interesting)
Why didn't they call Aquaman? This is probably the only time where his superpower would actually be useful.
Victory for Obama! (Score:5, Insightful)
well it's $6.60 all ready... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well here in the UK petrol/gasoline is 1.20 GBP / litre, there are 3.79 litres to 1 US gallon = 4.55 GBP / gallon, x 1.45 (pounds to dollars) and we're at $6.60 /US gallon in my local gas station, so I don't see $8 / gallon so far off, that's only about another 18% rise.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It might do, at that.
The current price for unleaded gasoline in Germany is about 1.40 euros per liter [aaireland.ie], and it was up to 1.57 euros in the summer of 2008. That makes the current price about $6.60 US per gallon, and the peak just over $9 per gallon.
Because of these horrendous fuel prices, the German people suffer terribly. They are forced to drive tiny, ugly, uncomfortable econoboxes with weak, underp
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I like the quote from yesterday's /. thread... it went something like:
We just had extremely unlucky timing with Louisiana disaster response.
If Obama had been president during Katrina, he would have done everything possible to save those people.
If Bush had been president during the Deep Horizon spill, he would have done everything possible to save that oil.
Props to the originator
Well, it was good while it lasted (Score:4, Funny)
Sometimes we need to toughen up those pansy-ass dolphins, birds, and turtles. If we hadn't cuddled them for so long they wouldn't be going extinct. Adversity breeds strength.
And the same goes for you, Pandas. You're next! Oh, you'll be mating up a storm when we finish.
Engineers/Geologists on the Status of Top Kill (Score:5, Informative)
latest "live" thread with great insights in the comments: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6515 [theoildrum.com]
Relevant links to top kill procedure (scroll to comments in each, they're very good.)
Deepwater Oil Spill - Permissions and Concerns about Top Kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6513 [theoildrum.com]
Deep Water Spill - Waiting for Top Kill (more updated tech) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6509 [theoildrum.com]
The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill - the Top Kill Attempt (the technical aspect of what just happened) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6505 [theoildrum.com]
The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill, barriers, flow rates, and top kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6501 [theoildrum.com]
Hope you find this informative...
Not so bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Now it's plugged with mud. With the flow much reduced, concrete can be put in.
One hurricane season and the mess will be gone. 8 to 14 hurricanes [rigzone.com] are expected in the Atlantic region by the end of the year.
Relief wells will be drilled; after all, there's definitely oil down there. The reservoir will be pumped out.
Everybody will be a lot more serious about blowout preventers.
More equipment for dealing with such problems will be on standby in some Gulf port for decades to come.
No big deal.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Relief wells can't be used to get oil. The relief wells are used to "bottom kill" the well, which is still necessary - "top kill" is just a band-aid. The last step in said "bottom kill" is to pump concrete into the relief well, and it's really, really hard to pump oil out through concrete.
That being said, we can be pretty sure that a new production well will be drilled somewhere nearby.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Gulf is very different from Prince William Sound. There was another large blowing in the Gulf in 1989 - the IXTOC I released 3 million barrels of oil over 8 months. About 10 times more than the BP spill.
Environmental assessments showed it took about 3 years for sea life to fully recover. My guess is it will be faster this time because of the much smaller quantities of oil and the heavy use of dispersants to break up the oil which makes biodegradation much faster.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
From a recent CSM article here: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0513/Exxon-Valdez-cleanup-holds-lessons-for-Gulf-oil-spill
Two decades after the Exxon Valdez supertanker ran aground and ripped open its cargo tanks, the spill still marks Alaska's environment. Pockets of fresh crude are buried in beaches scattered around Prince William Sound and segments outside it, in isolated spots along more than 1,200 miles of coastline that received oil in 1989.
The discovery confounded earlier predictions that remnant c
Re:Not so bad (Score:5, Informative)
"Fun" way to clean up the spill (Score:3, Interesting)
The US needs to basically say "If you have the needed stuff and can give us a plan you get to keep any oil you recover" and then cut the spill area into grid squares and say okay you say you can clean XK gallons so you can use these grid squares and you have these squares ect.
BP of course can buy the oil from the various folks at whatever price or maybe have their own folks scooping up oil.
Well they are FIRING some of them... (Score:5, Interesting)
The person at the top of this mess in the US gov (the director of mineral resources) got invited to resign (and did). Im sure that a few of the others are going to follow her example.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Regulators don't work - the companies just buy them off directly or indirectly.
The only thing that works is accountability.
Of course, they'll buy off the prosecuters too.
Maybe the best thing we can do in cases like this is publish the home address of the individuals responsible and let nature take it's course.
Re:about time (Score:5, Funny)
Re:about time (Score:5, Insightful)
There is an insane amount of engineering that had to go into this. Getting it wrong would have been an even bigger disaster.
For some excellent discussions on all of this, head over to http://theoildrum.com/ [theoildrum.com]
Re:about time (Score:4, Informative)
They had to fabricate all kinds of gear that had never been made before. This was a herculean effort by 100's of the most skilled deepwater engineers in the world, and they actually did it in record time. This was not a small task, it would normally take months to pull something like this off.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Could you explain to me if they could quickly and easily shut down the well what is the point of having the leak continue until another well is ready? That's a lot of oil being wasted in the ocean (evaporation, treated, burned, ect.) and a lot of expense in both PR and 'faking' other solutions.
Your telling me somehow that month long PR nightmare turning into congressional committees to investigate and fine the company so that they can-- what did you propose? -- Extract the oil from sea water for profit??
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow do you have no idea what you're talking about.
1) Relief wells can't be used to tap the oil. The last step in plugging the gusher with a relief well is to pump concrete into the relief well. It's surprisingly difficult to pump oil through concrete. And assuming top-kill actually worked, they still need to do a "bottom-kill", or risk the well blowing out again.
2) Relief wells aren't anywhere near ready yet. They're only about 1/2 way done.
Feel free to keep railing against multinational corps, but plea
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Because the pipe didn't break off at the BOP; it fell over sideways.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
That is essentailly what they tried the first few times. Apparently there are problems due to the pressure/temperature at this depth.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
You are describing the containment dome, which was tried and failed.
It failed because of the high pressure and low temperature. Methane from the well was forming Methane Clathrates [wikipedia.org], which would plug up the hole.
The "Top hat" fix was going to use a dome into which they pumped hot methanol to keep the pipe clear, but it seemed less likely to work than the current approach.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
To be fair to you, perhaps you've never been out in open water and don't understand just how big something like the gulf is. You're not just looking at filtering 20 million gallons of oil, you're looking at filtering 20 million gallons of oil and billions of gallons of water.