Gulf Oil Spill... Good News?

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Maniac Craniac, May 16, 2010.

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  1. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    AP News | AccessNorthGa.com

    I, for one, am relieved that SOMETHING is starting to work. This looks like a huge first step in containing the disaster.
     
  2. ProfTim

    ProfTim Member

    I am also glad that they are finally getting somewhere with the solution to resolve the problem. Let's pray that they find a permanent fix and manage to mitigate some of that oil floating in the gulf before a hurricane or tropical storm forms in the gulf.
     
  3. b4cz28

    b4cz28 Active Member

    That's what I was thinking, lets get it fixed before a hurricane hits the area where the rig was.
     
  4. caram

    caram member

    Hey guys, seemed the link is not working... yet I really want to know the update of this news... hope someone would post concerning it..
     
  5. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    Hello. I tried the link and it is still working fine for me. It is constantly updating with new information on the story. Here's another you can try: Current Issues
     
  6. Denver

    Denver Member

  7. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    The worst oil spill to date in the Gulf of Mexoco was in 1979 when Ixtoc 1 suffered a blowout. The gulf was only 160-ft deep at that well and it took ten months to stop that spill. So what if it proves impossible to stop the current BP oil spill - it hardly bears thinking about but it is a possibility that no one seems to want to discuss.

    As an engineer I've been frustrated by lack of detail available in the media - for eample TV keeps showing the leak but no indication of size is pesented.

    At last I found some details and they are on the BP website. This picture (not to scale is my guess) shows how they plan to drill the two cut-off wells. I note that it looks like they are using the same type blowout-preventor (but probably no otheres are available).
    http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/images/Horizon_Overall_Current_Status_large.jpg
    And this site has details of other aspects of the spill:
    Simultaneous Operations Overview | Gulf of Mexico response | BP
     
  8. b4cz28

    b4cz28 Active Member

    I was just reading a report by the AP on how they are keeping the media in the dark and will not let the press gain acess to the worst areas. SO we have no idea how hard it is really hitting the coast.
     
  9. Ike

    Ike New Member

    Gulf oil is still gushing. I am surprised that oil companies did not invest enough money on disaster management. It appears that their R&D focuses only on profit-making.
     
  10. rickyjo

    rickyjo New Member

    My understanding is that many middle eastern countries that are not as preventative as we are have a good many clean-up techniques that work quite well. I also have been told that this kind of thing is somewhat commonplace (perhaps not quite to this scale) in many countries. One term that has been thrown around is "not invented here syndrome".

    I also find the lack of information frustrating. One article pointed out that straw sucks up oil and leaves clean water. Such a low tech idea, surely we could compact that and make it usable in this context.

    I'm not one to jump on angry bandwagons (well...it depends), but this is starting to seem like incompetence to even one so ignorant on the matter as I. Who is responsible? That I don't know.
     
  11. rickyjo

    rickyjo New Member

    As for a hurricane, has anybody analyzed what a hurricane would do?
     
  12. b4cz28

    b4cz28 Active Member

    What gets me is that every scientist in the world has said to C4 the well closed, but BP won't do it because they would lose the well, I'm not sure if the Prez can make them do it but he needs to. I think they have been lying to use from the start on this one. Its doing more damage then they have let on.
     
  13. badproduce

    badproduce New Member

    Sorry guys,I know quite a bit about wild well or blowout control.Using explosives is only used to "snuff" a fire,which isn't the problem here.The only thing explosives would do is destroy the bop,the well pipe casing,or if deep enough fracture the well formation more(this used to be called torpedo shooting).Any of these 3 things leads to a bigger blowout and not containment.

    I wish Larry Flak was still alive.
     
  14. b4cz28

    b4cz28 Active Member

    I watched a whole show on this the other night, they were saying that it would pinch the pipe closed. That was from the head of the Army Engineers.
     
  15. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    It's been two weeks since Ian wrote that, and the undersea gusher is still flowing just as strong or even stronger. It looks like it probably will flow for several more months, until the relief wells are finished. If for some reason they don't work, then this could go on indefinitely.

    What's bothering me is that at least as the media is presenting things, nobody seems to be treating this disaster as an enginerring problem.

    Instead, the press and at times the government both seem to approaching this as an attorney would. Something went wrong. Therefore somebody's to blame, somebody's guilty. So the question that's incessantly being asked is, who should the accusatory finger point at? BP? Obama? Everything's turned political and adversarial.

    Unfortunately, that kind of disfunctional response isn't going to stop the oil from flowing or remediate the environmental damage to the Gulf coast. It's just going to slow things down by forcing everyone, from government officials to BP manegement, into hunkered-down protect-your-ass mode.

    The time to start worrying about liability is in the months to come, when the flow is stopped and when the massive costs are being added up.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 12, 2010
  16. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    Well said, Amen! 2 quick points

    1) Someone else brought up the point that we haven't heard anything about the cleanup effort. Does this mean it isn't happening, or is the media ignoring it?

    2) Recently (I think yesterday), a new estimate was released saying that the well could be spilling out double than what was originally estimated.... wow...
     
  17. badproduce

    badproduce New Member

    And how much well control experience does he have?Explosives have been used
    down the wellbore for years to increase flow(torpedo shooting).If you use a greater amount you raise the risk of destroying the casing and causing an underground blowout,then the already drilling relief wells may have to be stopped,re-planned,and started all over again causing an even greater delay.
     
  18. badproduce

    badproduce New Member

    What I want to know why is if they have the machines/equipment/robots and new bops,why didn't they just remove old bop,install new stack,and close it that way then permenently seal it off using the relief wells?

    Yes for a short period the flow will be completely open and going,but then you close the new bop stack(a new one with more than just one bop on it,in case 1 fails),BP doesn't look too bad,then cleanup starts and we can try to get back to a normal life?

    Of course though,big business usually doesn't think too straight.
     

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