Stupid question... Can't they just put a big plug on the leak?

If there is a leak in something, isn't the logical course of action to PLUG IT UP? Why the hell have they wasted 4 weeks scratching their heads, trying to divert or caputre the spewing oil, when any idiot can see it needs a big plug?

Is it really that difficult to make a big concrete pad, and drop it slowly with some kind of steering mechanism so it lands right on top of the leak?

Am I missing something?

Cause it wouldn't work.

Even the "super" absorbency won't work, unfortunately

:(

... Godzilla Gum would damn sure work.

inserted into the hole and be expected to stay there.
It must be capable of countering the outgoing pressure...

Think of water spurting out at high pressure from a huge firehose. It could not be stopped by merely putting a "plug" into it.

we can send a man to the moon, but we can't make a plug big enough? hogwash. it's all about the math... figure out how big and heavy it needs to be and make one. supposedly there was supposed to be a safety valve on there that could handle the pressure. If a safety valve can be designed, so can a plug. whatever it takes... figure out how big it needs to be and go for it. I could easily see a design that allows the pressure to be diverted around the plub as its lowered down until the last minute, and then PLOP!

Screw it in place (somehow) until tightens then set the pipe in a cement sarcophagus.

You going to design a 5 mile long plug and then some how get it into place and then somehow apply enough force to overcome the oil being forced out at high pressure?

The only way to close the well is either
a) top kill - forcing mud into well under extreme pressure
b) relief well -forcing mud into well under extreme pressure

essentially they both do the same thing. Fluids (including oil) move in the opposite direction of the higher pressure.

If pressure of mud is higher than oil then it will flow down the hole. If it isn't it will flow up.

The advantage of (a) is that it is faster, disadvantage is it might not work. Oil is under a lot of pressure.
The advantage of (b) is that it will work (eventually), disadvantage is it will take another 70 days.

I am downloading your remarks to my Hard Drive, so when the neighbors and I are bitching, I can access your comments.

I do know this: when Rolling Stone magazine sent a reporter to cover the Valdez spill in Alaska, the reporter included several paragraphs about how quick and effective the response to the spill would have been had it occurred in Scotland, of all places. Better technology, more government insistence on quick response.

Don't know if even the Scots would have been befuddled by this gusher though.

His fat head alone is probably big enough.

Add a few "drill baby drill" whackjobs and the top brass of BP and Halliburton if there are still gaps? Hey, just letting the ol' imagination run wild here...

That's part of the reason why it's gushing out at such a high rate. I also read it's a 21" pipe. That's a lot of force that the plug has to withstand.

Following is a calc from the Oil Drum:

18,360' x 0.052 x 13.7 ppg = 13,000 psi reservoir pressure.
5,067' x 0.052 x 8.5 ppg = 2,240 psi hydrostatic pressure of seawater at wellhead
Differential of 10,760 psi

But I think this has an error.

The pressure in the deposit is water + rock = 13.00 kpsi + 2.24 kpsi = 15.24 kpsi static MSL.

The pressure differential at the BOP is (water + rock) - water = 13 kpsi static seabed

You also have the pressure of natural gas inside the well. The organic material decayed into methane gas (expanding) that gas expansion adds even more reservoirs pressure.

Actually pressure will depending on a number of factors including geography, and geographical history (over time the pocket could have been compressed, or reduced due to geological activity).

Pressure could be 20,000 to 100,000 psi.

A) The unit volume of a gas is a function of pressure (and temperature). In other words, the unit volume is in equilibrium with the pressure and temperature.

B) If the pressure in the reservoir exceeded the pressure exerted by the overburden, forces would not be in equilibrium. The volume of the reservoir would increase, raising the ground (sea floor), thus reducing pressure to equilibrium with the overburden.

You have a bunch of methane dissolved into the oil, deep in the earth under insanely high pressures.

Now that a well is drilled, that pressure causes the oil to shoot out of the well, and as it leaves the well, the oil comes under less pressure, so the methane bubbles out of it like CO2 out of soda.

Only it's a shitload of methane out of a shitload of oil under a shitload of pressure.

sure seems to me that BPs priority is to salvage as many barrels as possible - and to avoid future delays in drilling.

oil, they would have done this already.

I believe the incredible outgoing pressure is the problem.

sure hope we learn some lessons from this. I have my doubts, but can still hope.

The heat from curing concrete melting the methane into gas is what caused the problem in the first place.

Once they divert the bulk of the pressure into the new well, they can plug the old one.

I still say that explosive forming of the pipe is a good solution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive_forming

The risk is that the explosives, if done incorrectly, could shear the pipe instead of pinching it shut.

It's called top kill.

The plan is to tap into the blowout preventer, inject a lot of drilling mud into the well under high pressure, to try to overwhelm the oil and stop the gusher, then cap it off with cement.

It might not work - that oil is coming out under tremendous pressure, so stopping it is like trying to screw a cap onto a firehose gushing at full force. They'll have to inject the mud into the BP under extremely high pressures.

Let's just hope they don't blow up the BP with the top-kill attempt - if that happens, we're boned.

'BP on Sunday will attempt to plug the ruptured oil well. In the "top kill" procedure, a large amount of heavy "mud" -- a fluid used as a lubricant and counterweight in drilling operations -- will be inserted into the well bore. If that succeeds, the well will be cemented shut, officials said.'

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/20/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T1

their capture of the oil..God forbid they should sacrifice some income in order to stop the leak.

Let's see if this works..

Top kill involves pumping drilling mud into the blowout preventer to snuff the gusher.

There's a huge amount of pressure from the gusher going through the BP, and now they're going to add to the pressure by pumping in the drilling mud, and they'll have to use a huge amount of pressure if they want to get enough mud into the BP and the well to do the job.

If they overdo it, they could blow up the BP, which would be Bad. At that point, the only thing that could possibly stop the gusher will be the relief well, which won't be finished until August.

Surely you cannot think that the cost of drilling one well is greater than their financial liability for this ongoing disaster. That's absurd.

The financial liability has already gone too far. They don't have the money to fix everything. BP will go bankrupt leaving everyone scrambling for scraps.

So at this point, since we know they have not tried to plug the well, they must just figure they are going to stuff it in our faces: "No big deal" BP claims.

They are going down and all they can do is extend the misery and give a big fuck you to the environmentalist. They do hate us, you know?

Never going to happen.

Of course with the way you invest, you will probably have to renege.

The whole sensible and civilized world hates BP with a passion. BP will never recover. When the truth is finally known, BP will be code for the worst, up there with the word nazi. And rightly so.

The whole world should hate Shell more for the human rights violations and billions of tons of oil dumped in the Niger Delta.

People still buy Exxon & Shell oil. Addicts are very predictable.

Hell BP could come on the air and say "FUCK OFF AMERICA" drop the price of gasoline $0.20 as BP stations and they likely would sell out of gasoline.

The whole sensible and civilized world hates BP with a passion. BP will never recover. When the truth is finally known, BP will be code for the worst, up there with the word nazi. And rightly so.
Your brain must be a really cool place to live. Like I said we still buy Exxon & Shell oil. What BP has done in the Gulf is nothing compared to what Shell has done (and continued to do in Niger).

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$25 billion a year in cashflow. $60 billion in the bank right now. $250 billion in total assets.

1) I never said they would drop the price $0.20. They don't need to. People will buy BP gas a full price. Still the markup on gasoline is substantially more than $0.20 a gallon. As long as oil remains above $60 a barrel they could substantially drop the price of gasoline and still be cashflow positive. Of course they wont, it would reduce profits and there is no need to. Addicts need their oil.

2) Hypothetically and this is a massive stretch if a boycott was powerful enough BP could simply spin off their retail operation. Seen any Saudi or Canadian gas stations. Both sells tons of oil to refineries which becomes gasoline. Both countries make lots of money on oil without a retail operation. Once again I doubt they will need to but it would be a way to become an "invisible" player.

3) I am no longer a BP shareholder. It was a trade nothing more. I did sell a put option with a $44 strike so I might be a BP shareholder again in the future is some on puts it to me.

This has happened in the US, dude. Not in far off Alaska. Not in Africa.

Right here. There will be more suffering from this than from any other 'mistake'.

And all of us gas users are gonna pay for it, so get out your wallet.

You don't grok the scale of this. The cash BP has is gonna just be the starting point for the expenses. The good news is the redistribution of $$ wealth from BP to the gulf coast states may just buck up the economy.

85 billion in cash? Gonna get me some of that. This environmentalist has been damaged.

Exxon paid half billion for Valdez. However for sake of argument even $85 billion one time charge wouldn't bankrupt BP. Hell even $200 billion in liabilities wouldn't bankrupt BP assuming govt allowed BP to structure the repayment over say 10 years.

Of course BP is also insured so they won't "lose" 100% of any settlement. Estimate on the impact to insurers is $3.2 billion so BP has sizeable insurance protection.

Now a payout that larger (largest in global history) would tank the stock 95% but it wouldn't bankrupt the company. Not even close. Try reading their financial to get an idea of how solid the company is.

Hell if they had to they could always spin off some assets. Sell their solar arm (worth about $30 billion) to a competitor. Sell some international leases to other major petrochemical companies.

There simply is no scenario in which BP goes bankrupt.

GM too. Oh... wait.....GM went bankrupt. The conventional wisdom said that would never happen. Say bye to BP.

Hell, BP's lawyer fees will be probably be 20 billion alone.

ETA:

63,000,000 Gallons so far.

That's at 50,000 barrels a day x 30 days x 42 gallons per barrel.

A fine of $1,000 per gallon (or cost to clean up each gallon)= 63,000,000,000

That's a fair amount of moola.

BP is going down.

"GM too. Oh... wait.....GM went bankrupt. The conventional wisdom said that would never happen. Say bye to BP."
No the conventional wisdom was the GM was nearly worthless for about 5 years before it went Bankrupt. It is also likely would have still limped along (despite having a broken business model) for another half dozen years had the credit crisis not shut off financing for vehicles.

GM bond spreads starting blowing out in 2002. Not much but sure signs that things were not rosy at worlds largest auto maker. For nearly a decade GM debt to assets ratio slowly rose. Cashflow became erratic, and the company lost money in 27 of the last 40 qtrs of its existence. Not exactly signs that GM was going to survive.

At the time of the bankruptcy GM had $260 billion in debt/liabilities and only $80 billion in assets. For a comparable situation to happen to BP they would need to be saddled with nearly $600 billion worth on new liabilities. Not $60 or $160 but $600 billion.

If you think our courts and our Congress will fine a multi-national corporation with $600 billion in fines/liabilities you are dreaming. Have sweet dreams though. Even the tobacco settlement was merely $206 billion and that was the result of killing millions of people.

BP is too Big to Fail?

You are the dreamer if you believe that.

Same reason Exxon, Chevron, Hess, Shell haven't failed.

Addicts need their oil and BP has oil they need. Addicts will continue to pay hand over first for black gold.

Even if Americans cared (which they don't) oil is sold on the global market. You honestly think China will have any reservations with meeting their energy needs by using BP oil? Really?

BP won't fail. BP stock may continue to decline. BP may be unprofitable for a couple years. BP may ending paying the largest settlement in global history (current record right now is tobacco master settlement @ $208 billion). BP isn't going to fail.

Not as long as the world is addicted to oil. If BP made a luxury or a trivial product then maybe.

You are just replacing your wish (BP fails) with the global reality (the world is HIGHLY addicted to oil).

And that is if Obama continues to cozy up to BP.
If Obama ever does the right thing and puts BP in its place, I win stars forever.

But if Obama allows BP to control everything, you win. But... you lose.

I understand BP is colossal. That BP has its fingers in everybody's pie.
That BP is said to be too big to fail.

Put your stock in justice. While its gears grind slowly, they grind very fine. And justice will be served, and it will be BP's head served on a platter.


If justice wins, there will be less damage allowed to remain upon this one little blue ball spinning in the deep black nothing of space.

What do want to put stock in?

:rofl:

But if he stays cozy with BP he is making big mistakes.
Big mistake politically, and on the environmental stage.

I think he knows politics well enough and will make a course change very soon.

But I don't think he understands environmental policy very well.
If he did, we wouldn't be waiting on him to act, he'd a done did it.

and i'm not sure why they are using fluid/mud instead of concrete... but hopefully there's some reason. i just don't think these assholes have any idea what they're doing.

It's not what we think of as mud; if I'm correct it's also called drilling fluid. It's a manmade substance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drilling_fluid

Concrete when forming produces heat and the heat can detonate natural gas hydrate. This is likely what caused the original incident.

So the idea is to force drilling mud (denser than oil or water) into the well. If pressure the mud can be forced into well is HIGHER than pressure of oil coming out the oil will move DOWN the well.

Once oil/natural gas is pushed far enough down the well, concrete can be forced in and allowed to harden.

The big question is still well seems to be under incredible pressure. Can they force drilling mud into well via the relief valve on BOP at higher pressure than oil is being forced out. If not then it is impossible to close the well this way.

of course, Don Blankenship. The hot gas alone might counter the flow.

That dome they put on the bottom.

They could set the thing on top of the pipe and crush the pipe crimping the flow.

They could even use it like a hammer -- raise it up and drop it down until the pipe is crushed.

It is sitting right there ready to go.

The question is not if they can stop it from flowing.
The question is: Why haven't they?

BTW: here is a link to an animation of the spread of oil
http://ocg6.marine.usf.edu/~zheng/research/Oilspill/index.html

access to the oil

They are still thinking of profits first.

Surely you cannot think that the cost of drilling one well is greater than their financial liability for this ongoing disaster.

or so it would seem. They must see profit$ in the way they are doing things now, otherwise they would have tried this weeks ago.

have been ever since this happened...and for years before that.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8375880&mesg_id=8375918

now try it a mile under water and nonstop

being down that deep and having to use robots to manipulate tools/etc it dictates a lot of what is possible and what is not.

...everybody has one.

BP has about a million. Of both. Why anybody would want to be like BP is beyond me.

They're often full of shit.

Haven't you figured that out yet? What is taking you so long?
Ordinarily you seem so smart. But now?

Oh, am guessing you think I am a back seat driver, eh? That I should just STFU?

was I unclear?

Me too.

My observation, however, stands. It's not an opinion. It's a fact. Everything changes when you try it a mile under water just like everything changes when you try it 70 miles in space.

We've heard that excuse a million times already. "It's too deep"

Can't you come up with a new one?

which was WHY I opposed deep water drilling to begin with but the Congress went along with it any way and here we are.

but they didn't.

So now BP and the government have to try to pull solutions out of their asses. That's where we are today.

They knew they couldn't stop it right away but they had to look like they were trying.

What we need to do is properly motivate them by throwing the CEO's of the 3 companies involved in jail and leaving them there until the well is shut off and the oil is cleaned up.

All the oil pipe needs is the biggest condom the world has ever seen! Some more modest folks like to call them balloons....

Make him useful for something.

I do expect cooler, saner heads to prevail over juvenile boys whose first testosterone laden solution is to blow shit up, considering all the unexploded ordnance dumped there, but should you get your way whatever comes your way will have been richly deserved. :eyes:

Sometims life imitates art. FAR too often in my time on this planet. :evilgrin:

CRACK IN THE WORLD!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHtZ6Ixeqvs

Do you NOT realize that the chemicals which have ALREADY BEEN DUMPED, TOTALLY UNTESTED UNDER THESE CONDITIONS are the equivalent? Have you not yet seen the bait washing up dead on the shores? Can you spell F-O-O-D C-H-A-I-N? As if it were not damaged enough, would you now like to make it RADIOACTIVE???

The Lousiana coast has been in deep shit for DECADES.

Losing Louisiana:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQcPOQXc9vE

I don't condone the use of weaponry, but in a case like this where you have to choose between a massive extinction level event and collapse of the ecological chain verses using a nuke to seal it -- it's reasonable. Also, check on google for past instances of nuclear bombs being used for these very purposes.

Here's one article: http://www.viewzone2.com/oilnuke.html

Is the nuke option for real?

Unfortunately, it is. And it would not be the first time this was done.

Back in 1963, a poorly drilled natural gas well in the Soviet Union exploded and caught fire. The result was what was described as a blow torch about 120 meters high that had the sound of 100 jets and was so hot that it was almost impossible to approach. It continued to blow for three years and showed no signs of slowing. The flow was calculted at 12-million cubic centimeters of gas per day! Soviet scientists eventually drilled towards the area of the leak at an angle and inserted a nuclear bomb which detonated and fused the leak. (Images of the above gas leak have been censored and are hard to find.)

While that leak was successfully capped, others, like the one in Turkmenistan, called "The Door in Hell" have not been stopped and continue to burn after almost 40 years . Billions of cubic cenimeters of natural gas have been burned up and countless tons of CO2 have been put in the atmosphere. It was decided that either every possible solution was already tried, and failed, or that other solutions were far too dangerous and might make the situation worse.

If all other options to mitigate and seal the leak fails, this could very well be an option.

The oil field is very deep. About 6 miles deep.

A small nuclear device about 10kt wouldn't have enough energy to crack rock 6 miles deep. Maybe a km tops. It would create a pressure wall that would squeeze the well shut like squishing a straw between your hands.

Small demolition nuclear devices have variable yields from 100 tons to 10 kt (10,000 tons of TNT equivalent). I am sure scientists could do calculations of the minimum effective yield.

Lastly to reduce surrounding effect the design would be to drill a shallow shaft (say maybe 500 m deep) parallel to the well, emplace the device, and detonate it there.

Should only be used as a last resort but if the relief wells fails any environmental damage from a deeply buried nuclear device would be minimal compared to months or years of the oil well dumping into the Gulf.

maybe a little bigger...

Always.

:hide:

Good luck with that...

The oil is gushing out with such force that capping it directly is impossible.

They're going to try a "top kill" next - using the blowout preventer to inject drilling mud directly into the well head at insanely high pressure, to try to overwhelm the oil pressure, put a big column of heavy mud on top of the oil and down into the well, then cap it all off with cement.

It'll either stop the leak or make it worse...

But it sure would have been nice for someone to have thought this out ahead of time.

...and the regulators who let them get away with this shit.

Even if that doesn't plug this leak, it could help prevent the next one.