Spill baby spill, slippery politics

@H2O MAN,

H2O MAN wrote:

Obama has been accepting large donations from Bp for about 20 years now...

Your single minded Obama fascination is tiring.

@rosborne979,

Your "head in the sand" approach to life is saddening.

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So now the plan is to drop a big box over the broken pipe. Sounds fishy to me, but I wish them luck.

At over a mile down in the freezing cold, pitch black, high pressure ocean, this must be just a little bit difficult.

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@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

So now the plan is to drop a big box over the broken pipe. Sounds fishy to me, but I wish them luck.

It sounds like Al Gore's lock box.

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@rosborne979,

my understanding is that it is not just a box that would be dropped over the spillsite but a sort of " upside down" funnnel .
the oil gushing out would be " syphoned off " and placed into oil-tankers and barges for transportation to refineries .

while this is going on , a permament solution would still have to be found to deal with this enourmous leak .
it seems just a measure designed to buy time .

the " upside down" funnel :

http://www.independent.ie/multimedia/archive/00570/N015202127309129023_570262t.jpg

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@hamburgboy,

I just hope that they designed it to withstand the ocean pressures of the deep. Otherwise, it could just crumple like aluminum foil. <sigh>

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@Always Eleven to him,

Why? Unless there are air spaces in the concrete, there shouldn't be anything to compress.

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@Always Eleven to him,

i guess we'll find out once it hits the ocean floor .

... or might it be pushed away by the gushing oil ???

stand by ...

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@hamburgboy,

That was my though on first hearing of it. It sounded like they were going to drop a sealed dome over the leak, and hope it didn't get blown off. I was very skeptical. The inverted funnel part should connect to plumbing moving the oil to a tanker. If done right, there would be no increase of pressure under the dome, or whatever it is.

I've no idea if it will work, but since it looks non-mechanical and doesn't appear to have anything in it subject to collapse, I can't see the depth as a cause for failure.

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@roger,

Im not sure of the total design but my question was
"If they fill this "Dome" with crude , will the whole thing become bouyant?

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What caused the drill rig/platform to explode in the first place? Does anyone know yet?

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Aerial images of the oil spill

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I am more than a little concerned about the dynamics of this thing. Will it travel straight down? Does it need to be anchored? What if it tips over? Would the crews be able to right it?

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@plainoldme,

pom ,
look at the pix just up a bit .
it's supposed to sink into the oceanfloor ( 20-30 -40 feet ??? ) and to be supported by the " flaps " you can see - don't know if it has ever been done before .

i believe the first oof three traps/funnels has by now ben sunk ?

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@hamburgboy,

box is expected to be in place sunday - interesting pix and story :

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/05/07/2010-05-07_gulf_oil_spill_100ton_box_positioned_over_undersea_leak_in_effort_to_cap_spill.html

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/05/08/alg_oil_tanker.jpg

" the super outhouse "

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@rosborne979,

One story is that they encountered a very high pressure zone at an unexpectedly shallow depth. Blame the geologist if that's the case. The other story is that pressure was released around the well casing due to a poor cementing job, or bad cement. The two are not mutually exclusive.

If they are blaming the blow out preventer, as they seem to be, that does seem to exclude the cement theories. BOPs can't control anything outside the casing.

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@roger,

roger wrote:

One story is that they encountered a very high pressure zone at an unexpectedly shallow depth. Blame the geologist if that's the case. The other story is that pressure was released around the well casing due to a poor cementing job, or bad cement. The two are not mutually exclusive.

If they are blaming the blow out preventer, as they seem to be, that does seem to exclude the cement theories. BOPs can't control anything outside the casing.

I'm sure Halliburton is praying that they don't end up blaming the cement...

Cycloptichorn

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Im not sure of the total design but my question was
"If they fill this "Dome" with crude , will the whole thing become bouyant?

I don't know, but allowing for relative densities of water outside, and crude + natural gas inside doesn't sound like rocket science.

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@roger,

whoever was the logging outfit. they should have known if a pressure zone was encountered

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@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

I'm sure Halliburton is praying that they don't end up blaming the cement...

they had just poured the cement a few hours before the blow-out, it was always a prime suspect. It could have either been bad material or it was not poured properly, if this be the cause.

1 Reply

Spill baby spill, slippery politics

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