The annoying thing is simply that BP seems to be doing one thing at a time. They should be building a new dome right now, so what if they don't need it. They can have it standing by for the next one. They should be commisioning giant oil sucking submarines which can run 5000 feet of pipe behind them which can go down to the leak and just suck directly on it. This 'one attempt at a time' approach is what is frustrating. Again however I'm sure it's the law stopping us demanding this, not Obama being overly nice.
Do you know how much that shit costs?! What if BP prepares that stuff but ends up not needing to use it? You bleeding heart Liberals can't force the private sector to throw away money they way you want the government to!
Top kill failed, junk shot failed. "But hey guys, we'll get it with the relief well! And we're going to put another BOP on it, even though we've shown ourselves to be incapable of getting structures on top of other structures at this depth!"
MKR on
0
Options
DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
So, we're looking at probably August for this spill to stop... Placing a blowout preventer on top of the current one has the potential to make the leak worse if it topples down onto the current BOP. That said, this is all because of levels of incompetencies on BP and Transocean's part.
Clinton got pillaged mostly for his, and his wifes, treatment of the military while they were in office. While a lot of the stuff was simply because he was a liberal, there were a couple snafu's that came off as disrespectful.
Clinton hate was lingering fallout from the late 1960's and early 1970's. There still were a lot of white men who were angry about the fact that the United States lost the War in Vietnam, and that a lot of those who protested against the War were doing well in life.
Clinton hate was evidence of poor mental health. The man was not evil. His policies were not extreme.
The Scribe on
0
Options
GoslingLooking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, ProbablyWatertown, WIRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
My mom just mentioned her idea.
Depth charges.
Seriously, depth charges. She thinks it would cause some sort of cave-in on the pipe. I think. She figures it at least couldn't make it much worse.
Please note that I in no way subscribe to this idea.
Gosling on
I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
"The next thing to do is to capture all of the flow or as much of the flow as we can," he said, adding BP "has a lot of confidence" in the LMRP cap, but couldn't guarantee success. "We believe the LMRP cap has the potential to capture the great majority of [the leaking oil]," if it works. Mr. Suttles declined to give a percentage probability that the new containment effort would succeed, noting that nothing like this had been attempted at 5,000 feet below the surface of the sea. BP had previously said it gave the now-failed top-kill procedure a 60%-70% chance of success.
really, a lot of confidence ... doesn't give me a lot of confidence ...
also I don't endorse the doomsayer blogs, but a lot of them have before-after pictures from various phases of the top-kill, showing mud shooting out of more and more holes torn into the BOP as the days went on ... and now, if you look at the current pictures, oil is shooting out of those instead
part of the LMRP cap process is removing these battered parts of the riser and replacing them with the cap, so it does make sense that the one will follow the other; no one is going to be able to make an accurate estimate about whether or not the top-kill was potentially more harmful than good, we just have to hope it wasn't and that the LMRP will succeed
Best America on
right you got it
0
Options
Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
also I don't endorse the doomsayer blogs, but a lot of them have before-after pictures from various phases of the top-kill, showing mud shooting out of more and more holes torn into the BOP as the days went on ... and now, if you look at the current pictures, oil is shooting out of those instead
part of the LMRP cap process is removing these battered parts of the riser and replacing them with the cap, so it does make sense that the one will follow the other; no one is going to be able to make an accurate estimate about whether or not the top-kill was potentially more harmful than good, we just have to hope it wasn't and that the LMRP will succeed
I remember listening on NPR and one of the concerns about top kill is that the mud flowing through those holes will erode the holes. Which is probably why they can't just pump mud down there till August.
I was just thinking that this isn't going to end well no matter what happens. Companies will stop drilling that far offshore or stop drilling altogether, the price of crude is gonna go sky-high and gas will go along with it, crippling the country and the people in it.
We don't get much oil from offshore drilling, much less deep sea drilling.
maybe, but oil prices are dictated by what oil demand and supply are expected to be in the future. Even if offshore drilling is only a minor part, the perceived threat of the loss of deep sea oil supplies will probably be plenty of excuse to drive up prices enough to offset BP's losses partially and make me hate driving a supercharged v6.
Seriously, depth charges. She thinks it would cause some sort of cave-in on the pipe. I think. She figures it at least couldn't make it much worse.
Please note that I in no way subscribe to this idea.
I definately recall reading that there is some kind of 'terminal option' where you can do something to the well with a large explosive which breaks the percolation ability of the oil pocket. If the oil pocket can't percolate (ie there is no long range path between points) then the oil pocket is effectively closed off forever and the local oil would dry up in hours. However I can't find the reference, clearly the reason they won't do this is because the oil down there is valued at tens of billions of dollars.
Here is something vaguely related, I believe the idea is that the nuclear explosion does so much damage to the local pocket that it just collapses on itself.
We don't get much oil from offshore drilling, much less deep sea drilling.
maybe, but oil prices are dictated by what oil demand and supply are expected to be in the future. Even if offshore drilling is only a minor part, the perceived threat of the loss of deep sea oil supplies will probably be plenty of excuse to drive up prices enough to offset BP's losses partially and make me hate driving a supercharged v6.
The ban on drilling won't last six months beyond the time when this well is sealed. The only hope is that at the very least drilling companies are forced to have proper redundancies in place, backup pipes, additional Blow out preventers, containment domes already prepped for deployment and tested.
tbloxham on
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
0
Options
BarcardiAll the WizardsUnder A Rock: AfganistanRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Has there been any sign of a criminal probe into this whole clusterfuck yet? So far all i hear is people pleading the 5th and telling the media that the time for that is later.
Seriously, depth charges. She thinks it would cause some sort of cave-in on the pipe. I think. She figures it at least couldn't make it much worse.
Please note that I in no way subscribe to this idea.
I think too many people remember seeing them blowing up oil wells in Kuwait, without actually knowing the reason/purpose.
There's also a strong sentiment in a lot of engineers that the well could be closed with a collar of high explosive charges.
Honestly it seems to me that what they should do is get their dome in place again but this time displace all the water out of it by filling it (absurd as this may seem) with oil. If the dome is already filled with oil, then you wont get mixing sealing up the system.
We just really need to get this under control. Even bringing it down an order of magnitude would be a beautiful thing. If the little sucking pipe is working a bit, then get more down there. If the mud top kill method stops the flow for one day, then keep DOING it. Anything which can stop the flow for even hours should be done.
We deploy self replicating self improving nanites into the well, they use the hydrocarbons as fuel for self-replication, quickly evolve beyond us and destroy the world swiftly and efficiently.
If the world's gotta end, gray goo scenario beats slow painful global warming + resource depletion -> WW3 any day
Has there been any sign of a criminal probe into this whole clusterfuck yet? So far all i hear is people pleading the 5th and telling the media that the time for that is later.
Honestly that is the right attitude. I don't care if the devil himself is the head of BP and deliberately sabotaged this well because he hates us, the time to think about that is after this gets sealed, nothing else matters until then.
Seriously, depth charges. She thinks it would cause some sort of cave-in on the pipe. I think. She figures it at least couldn't make it much worse.
Please note that I in no way subscribe to this idea.
I think too many people remember seeing them blowing up oil wells in Kuwait, without actually knowing the reason/purpose.
There's also a strong sentiment in a lot of engineers that the well could be closed with a collar of high explosive charges.
Honestly it seems to me that what they should do is get their dome in place again but this time displace all the water out of it by filling it (absurd as this may seem) with oil. If the dome is already filled with oil, then you wont get mixing sealing up the system.
We just really need to get this under control. Even bringing it down an order of magnitude would be a beautiful thing. If the little sucking pipe is working a bit, then get more down there. If the mud top kill method stops the flow for one day, then keep DOING it. Anything which can stop the flow for even hours should be done.
the mud is dangerous and may eventually rip open the casing.
Has there been any sign of a criminal probe into this whole clusterfuck yet? So far all i hear is people pleading the 5th and telling the media that the time for that is later.
Honestly that is the right attitude. I don't care if the devil himself is the head of BP and deliberately sabotaged this well because he hates us, the time to think about that is after this gets sealed, nothing else matters until then.
The last thing we need is already tight-lipped BP lawyering up and completely stopping any attempts to fix the crisis because they're preparing criminal defenses
Seriously, depth charges. She thinks it would cause some sort of cave-in on the pipe. I think. She figures it at least couldn't make it much worse.
Please note that I in no way subscribe to this idea.
I think too many people remember seeing them blowing up oil wells in Kuwait, without actually knowing the reason/purpose.
There's also a strong sentiment in a lot of engineers that the well could be closed with a collar of high explosive charges.
Honestly it seems to me that what they should do is get their dome in place again but this time displace all the water out of it by filling it (absurd as this may seem) with oil. If the dome is already filled with oil, then you wont get mixing sealing up the system.
We just really need to get this under control. Even bringing it down an order of magnitude would be a beautiful thing. If the little sucking pipe is working a bit, then get more down there. If the mud top kill method stops the flow for one day, then keep DOING it. Anything which can stop the flow for even hours should be done.
the mud is dangerous and may eventually rip open the casing.
But if that is the case then surely the oil will also eventually rip open the casing? Hell, there must be some kind of expanding foam we can pump down there which reacts with water to become solid. I think people are too focused on permanent solutions, even if we could just hold the well closed for 24 hour periods then it would change this from the apocalypse for the gulf to a simple disaster. Nature has been kind to us really, the oil is floating out at sea giving us maximum time to break it down and skim it rather than heading straight for sure. Any failings here are our own. This damn thing has been going on for nearly a month.
Seriously, depth charges. She thinks it would cause some sort of cave-in on the pipe. I think. She figures it at least couldn't make it much worse.
Please note that I in no way subscribe to this idea.
It could work, sure. It isn't like the reservoir is a few feet below the sea floor, it's over three miles below that. An explosion wouldn't reach through three miles of earth.
Has there been any sign of a criminal probe into this whole clusterfuck yet? So far all i hear is people pleading the 5th and telling the media that the time for that is later.
Honestly that is the right attitude. I don't care if the devil himself is the head of BP and deliberately sabotaged this well because he hates us, the time to think about that is after this gets sealed, nothing else matters until then.
The last thing we need is already tight-lipped BP lawyering up and completely stopping any attempts to fix the crisis because they're preparing criminal defenses
This whole thing just beggars belief. The sheer level of incompetence displayed throughout this entire disaster borders on malice. Can you imagine any other industry where a company could undertake an operation with potential risks including the fouling of the entire Gulf Coast with literally no foolproof safety methods in place? Compound that with no adequate clean-up plan and a piece of shit blowout preventer exhibiting multiple failures, and there had damn well better be some criminal charges.
I hate it when people suggest that now is not the time to press charges. What, are the lawyers too busy plugging the hole? There are plenty of people who need to be charged with criminal negligence here, at the very least. Once the well is closed we're going to hear "The time for pointing fingers has passed, now we need to move beyond this."
Has there been any sign of a criminal probe into this whole clusterfuck yet? So far all i hear is people pleading the 5th and telling the media that the time for that is later.
Honestly that is the right attitude. I don't care if the devil himself is the head of BP and deliberately sabotaged this well because he hates us, the time to think about that is after this gets sealed, nothing else matters until then.
The last thing we need is already tight-lipped BP lawyering up and completely stopping any attempts to fix the crisis because they're preparing criminal defenses
Again, BP is not a single individual. And even single individuals are capable of doing multiple things at once. And stopping all attempts to fix the crisis would in itself be illegal, I imagine, so it'd be an extremely petulant and irrational course of action.
Has there been any sign of a criminal probe into this whole clusterfuck yet? So far all i hear is people pleading the 5th and telling the media that the time for that is later.
Honestly that is the right attitude. I don't care if the devil himself is the head of BP and deliberately sabotaged this well because he hates us, the time to think about that is after this gets sealed, nothing else matters until then.
The last thing we need is already tight-lipped BP lawyering up and completely stopping any attempts to fix the crisis because they're preparing criminal defenses
Again, BP is not a single individual. And even single individuals are capable of doing multiple things at once. And stopping all attempts to fix the crisis would in itself be illegal, I imagine, so it'd be an extremely petulant and irrational course of action.
and it's not like they've really done anything constructive to stop the leak so far anyway
their "solutions" have been nothing but ineffective media-bait
Well they couldn't do any worse than 0 for 5, could they? Okay they probably could. Still.
The thing I don't get is why anyone has any faith left in BP to solve this problem. If there's one thing the last decade has made clear, it is that most corporations maintain the bare minimum level of competence and compliance necessary to avoid financial action, and those standards have only gone down. I'm not going to suggest that we throw open the floor to any and all ideas, but there is simply no reason that BP should continue to maintain control of this situation after demonstrating again and again that they have no regard for the truth and no clue how to proceed.
I can't offer solutions because I'm not a deep-water drilling expert. Apparently, neither is anyone at BP. From the moment it became clear that they had drilled this well without any failsafe in place, they should have been on the "least trusted" list for future solutions.
I really hate to be put into the position of defending BP, but what possible motive could they have for not stopping this if they knew a surefire way to do that?
I really hate to be put into the position of defending BP, but what possible motive could they have for not stopping this if they knew a surefire way to do that?
well, if the whole gulf is dead it won't be good for anything except drilling
so if you want to go the supervillain route, there's that
Well they couldn't do any worse than 0 for 5, could they? Okay they probably could. Still.
Who do you think you are to be sitting at home judging us and formulating ideas and making suggestions? Don't you know who we are? We're the Detroit Lions and and we won't stand for this insult!
Rachael Maddow did a short bit this past week on an oil spill in the Gulf 30 years ago. The exact same issue, the exact same result, the exact same responses, the exact same failures- every single time.
Top Hat? They called it "Operation Sombrero". Didn't work.
Top Kill? Didn't work.
Junk shot? Didn't work.
Only relief wells worked, and that took months to complete. Months. This well was 200 feet below the surface.
So BP has tried every single thing they could- all 30 year old solutions. No one, in all that time, has come up with anything better. At no time has the technology to stop a situation of this magnitude been developed.
This shit has happened before. This shit will happen again. As long as the oil companies are not held accountable for the catastrophic risks they get into, we will have another spill like this- and they won't know what the fuck to do about it.
Posts
Do you know how much that shit costs?! What if BP prepares that stuff but ends up not needing to use it? You bleeding heart Liberals can't force the private sector to throw away money they way you want the government to!
Please. If Bush was in the White House, the press would be hating on him big time.
Margaret Thatcher
Yeah, all I've got is a whole lot of at this point.
That was why Republicans hate him.
The media hates him because he loathes them for being superficial morons.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
3DSFF: 5026-4429-6577
Clinton hate was lingering fallout from the late 1960's and early 1970's. There still were a lot of white men who were angry about the fact that the United States lost the War in Vietnam, and that a lot of those who protested against the War were doing well in life.
Clinton hate was evidence of poor mental health. The man was not evil. His policies were not extreme.
Depth charges.
Seriously, depth charges. She thinks it would cause some sort of cave-in on the pipe. I think. She figures it at least couldn't make it much worse.
Please note that I in no way subscribe to this idea.
really, a lot of confidence ... doesn't give me a lot of confidence ...
part of the LMRP cap process is removing these battered parts of the riser and replacing them with the cap, so it does make sense that the one will follow the other; no one is going to be able to make an accurate estimate about whether or not the top-kill was potentially more harmful than good, we just have to hope it wasn't and that the LMRP will succeed
I remember listening on NPR and one of the concerns about top kill is that the mud flowing through those holes will erode the holes. Which is probably why they can't just pump mud down there till August.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
maybe, but oil prices are dictated by what oil demand and supply are expected to be in the future. Even if offshore drilling is only a minor part, the perceived threat of the loss of deep sea oil supplies will probably be plenty of excuse to drive up prices enough to offset BP's losses partially and make me hate driving a supercharged v6.
I definately recall reading that there is some kind of 'terminal option' where you can do something to the well with a large explosive which breaks the percolation ability of the oil pocket. If the oil pocket can't percolate (ie there is no long range path between points) then the oil pocket is effectively closed off forever and the local oil would dry up in hours. However I can't find the reference, clearly the reason they won't do this is because the oil down there is valued at tens of billions of dollars.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0513/Why-don-t-we-just-drop-a-nuclear-bomb-on-the-Gulf-oil-spill
Here is something vaguely related, I believe the idea is that the nuclear explosion does so much damage to the local pocket that it just collapses on itself.
I think too many people remember seeing them blowing up oil wells in Kuwait, without actually knowing the reason/purpose.
The ban on drilling won't last six months beyond the time when this well is sealed. The only hope is that at the very least drilling companies are forced to have proper redundancies in place, backup pipes, additional Blow out preventers, containment domes already prepped for deployment and tested.
There's also a strong sentiment in a lot of engineers that the well could be closed with a collar of high explosive charges.
Honestly it seems to me that what they should do is get their dome in place again but this time displace all the water out of it by filling it (absurd as this may seem) with oil. If the dome is already filled with oil, then you wont get mixing sealing up the system.
We just really need to get this under control. Even bringing it down an order of magnitude would be a beautiful thing. If the little sucking pipe is working a bit, then get more down there. If the mud top kill method stops the flow for one day, then keep DOING it. Anything which can stop the flow for even hours should be done.
We deploy self replicating self improving nanites into the well, they use the hydrocarbons as fuel for self-replication, quickly evolve beyond us and destroy the world swiftly and efficiently.
If the world's gotta end, gray goo scenario beats slow painful global warming + resource depletion -> WW3 any day
Honestly that is the right attitude. I don't care if the devil himself is the head of BP and deliberately sabotaged this well because he hates us, the time to think about that is after this gets sealed, nothing else matters until then.
The last thing we need is already tight-lipped BP lawyering up and completely stopping any attempts to fix the crisis because they're preparing criminal defenses
But if that is the case then surely the oil will also eventually rip open the casing? Hell, there must be some kind of expanding foam we can pump down there which reacts with water to become solid. I think people are too focused on permanent solutions, even if we could just hold the well closed for 24 hour periods then it would change this from the apocalypse for the gulf to a simple disaster. Nature has been kind to us really, the oil is floating out at sea giving us maximum time to break it down and skim it rather than heading straight for sure. Any failings here are our own. This damn thing has been going on for nearly a month.
It could work, sure. It isn't like the reservoir is a few feet below the sea floor, it's over three miles below that. An explosion wouldn't reach through three miles of earth.
You assume the latter isn't already happening.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
I hate it when people suggest that now is not the time to press charges. What, are the lawyers too busy plugging the hole? There are plenty of people who need to be charged with criminal negligence here, at the very least. Once the well is closed we're going to hear "The time for pointing fingers has passed, now we need to move beyond this."
Also for some reason every time I hear about a new plan to plug the well this clip keeps playing in my head:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU2y6ztlMAQ
Again, BP is not a single individual. And even single individuals are capable of doing multiple things at once. And stopping all attempts to fix the crisis would in itself be illegal, I imagine, so it'd be an extremely petulant and irrational course of action.
and it's not like they've really done anything constructive to stop the leak so far anyway
their "solutions" have been nothing but ineffective media-bait
The thing I don't get is why anyone has any faith left in BP to solve this problem. If there's one thing the last decade has made clear, it is that most corporations maintain the bare minimum level of competence and compliance necessary to avoid financial action, and those standards have only gone down. I'm not going to suggest that we throw open the floor to any and all ideas, but there is simply no reason that BP should continue to maintain control of this situation after demonstrating again and again that they have no regard for the truth and no clue how to proceed.
I can't offer solutions because I'm not a deep-water drilling expert. Apparently, neither is anyone at BP. From the moment it became clear that they had drilled this well without any failsafe in place, they should have been on the "least trusted" list for future solutions.
well, if the whole gulf is dead it won't be good for anything except drilling
so if you want to go the supervillain route, there's that
Who do you think you are to be sitting at home judging us and formulating ideas and making suggestions? Don't you know who we are? We're the Detroit Lions and and we won't stand for this insult!
Top Hat? They called it "Operation Sombrero". Didn't work.
Top Kill? Didn't work.
Junk shot? Didn't work.
Only relief wells worked, and that took months to complete. Months. This well was 200 feet below the surface.
So BP has tried every single thing they could- all 30 year old solutions. No one, in all that time, has come up with anything better. At no time has the technology to stop a situation of this magnitude been developed.
This shit has happened before. This shit will happen again. As long as the oil companies are not held accountable for the catastrophic risks they get into, we will have another spill like this- and they won't know what the fuck to do about it.