Spill baby spill, slippery politics

2,000 feet down the swells that occur at the surface simply don't exist. For a submarine just a few hundred feet below the surface, every day is calm.

Sure, but the pipes are connected to the top, which does move, which is the whole problem really. I always assumed that they stopped pumping and detached the things from the pipe, but I don't really know how it works.

Cycloptichorn

Well the Roberts Court rather clearly acted in support of the Constitution's provision on political speech. I suspect the Democrats wish only to limit the free speech of those who oppose them.

It is interesting that the draft replacement legislation prepared by Senator Schumer (D NY) would restore limitations on the political activity of corporations, but impose no limits on like activity by labor unions and non profit political organizations like Moveon.org, Trial Lawyers organizations, environmental groups, etc. It is rather blatantly inconsistent and biased towards current supporters of the Democrat party. It has little chance of passage and I expect would be swiftly reversed by the Supreme Court if passed.

The truth is political contributions in cash and kind by labor unions dwarf those of corporations

Clearly your favored Democrats wish for government of, by and for Democrats.

Neither do i, that's why I thought I'd take the opportunity of the robot collision to ask about the whole structural thing and what the built in defenses are for hurricanes to protect the pipe structure.

Seems to me that not only do you have the vertical movement from the ocean swells, you also have a lot of horizontal movement as the rig rides the peaks and valleys of each of those swells in the prevailing winds.

Also, to add on to George OB's point, if the rig is not affected below the surface by wind actions on the surface of the ocean, do the strong and ever changing ocean currents below the surface have an effect on a wells structural stability?

Even if the rig does detach from the pipe, wouldn't the pipe still have to be attached to some kind of flotation device to keep it from falling over and sinking to the floor? Would it not have the same structural flexibility problem?

I don't know the precise details either. I suspect the platform at the surface is primarily supported by the bouyancy of bulbous structures on its submerged legs several hundred feet below the surface. That would render it very stable on the surface.

The motion of waves on the surface can be misleading to a casual observer. The movement of individual "packets" of water is, in fact, circular in the vertical plane: the wave, as it travels horizontally is, in fact composed of constantly changing "packets" of water as it travels horizontally. The amplitude of this stationary circular motion decreases rapidly with depth below the surface.

A ship travelling through rough seas pitches because the distribution of bouyanncy from bow to stern is altered by the waves. The quality of the ride depends heavily on the relationship between the wavelength of the waves, peak to peak, and the length of the ship, as well as the rotational inertia of the ship itself. On most rough days the destroyers (about 300 ft long) would have a very rough ride while the carrier (1, 150 feet) skimmed gently over the waves. However, in the central Pacific and the Indian oceans the very long ocean swells would give the big ships a rough time while the destroyers would gently rise and fall with the swells.

In an analogous way oil rigs escape the action of waves by deriving their bouyancy from the displacement of water well below the surface where the wave astion is very small.

The pipe is supported by the rig and its structure is in tension from top to bottom. That stabilizes it quite effectively. An empty pipe, or even one filled with relatively light petroleum, would be quite bouyant.

Large lateral displacements could indeed be a problem, as you suggest. However the rig is either anchored or stabilized by automated propulsion systems that keep it in position. It would be large angular displacements of the vertical pipe that could cause problems. However, even a very small angular displacement from the vertical would permit the rig ample lateral movement 2,00 feet above the ocean floor.

I think I found a bit of explanation in layperson's language here. It also has diagrams that help with the visualizing:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/offshore-drilling6.htm

It doesn't say what the method of the engineering is though, it just says what it does.

Yeah, right. The incompetents have been reviewed by their incompetent peers.

Non sequitur

What you are saying sounds perfectly reasonable to me. None of us know anything about these structures, however, and that is the problem. They boggle our minds.

How was this allowed to happen?

Foreign flagging of offshore rigs skirts U.S. safety rules
The Marshall Islands, not the U.S., had the main responsibility for safety inspections on the Deepwater Horizon.
June 14, 2010|By Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger, Tribune Washington Bureau
Reporting from Washington — The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean.

Someone was asleep at the wheel! I consider myself a leftie, so where were
we on this?

Taking part in the cheap oil jamboree I should imagine.

Speak for yourself.

the fact that conservatives know nothing can only be equated with the fact that liberals know nothing; both of which are contradicted by the fact many people know many things.

government and big business are synonymous. the corporations and our high up gov't officials are corrupt as all hell, they've been jerking eachother off forever now. they are one in the same entity in this argument.

government and big business are synonymous. the corporations and our high up gov't officials are corrupt as all hell, they've been jerking eachother off forever now. they are one in the same entity in this argument.

URL: http://able2know.org/topic/144397-30#post-4186886

Hello!

Election time again?

I agree with the tone of this statement, if not it's precision. Government and Business are not synonymous, but they are so entwined by corruption and exploitation of legal loopholes that they cannot react with independent volition.

This is a BIG problem in the US Governmental system. Unfortunately, I haven't a clue how to solve it. It's so entrenched at this point that I don't know if it can be dislodged.