Top Kill has failed according to BP

[saveliberty]

Largest oil spill in the Gulf:

The 2-mile-deep exploratory well, Ixtoc I, blew out on June 3, 1979 in the Bay of Campeche off Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico. By the time the well was brought under control in March, 1980, an estimated 140 million gallons of oil had spilled into the bay. The Ixtoc I spill is currently #2 on the all-time list of largest oil spills of all time.

IncidentNews: 10 Famous Spills

Note duration and size of the spill. Largest estimate to-date for our spill: 29 million barrels.

Apparently blowing up the well is a bad idea, because it allows the oil to be outside the casing. At this point we are trying to get control of the casing and stop the flow. Blowing up the pipe just adds another step to the process and makes thing more out of control.

Relief wells will eventually work. It will be August until that is done. Containing the oil floating around is a priority for now. That will require multiple tankers equiped with pumps to suck up the oil.

great. who is going to do it and who is paying the bill?

then after the oil is sucked up, how do we even evaluate the environmental damage when we go to hang the bill on bp?

The same people that always pay, the consumer and taxpayer. Getting a bit ahead of yourself on the other questions. Part of my point in mentioning the BIGGER spill in the Gulf was it did recover.

 

[tommywho70x]

Largest oil spill in the Gulf:

The 2-mile-deep exploratory well, Ixtoc I, blew out on June 3, 1979 in the Bay of Campeche off Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico. By the time the well was brought under control in March, 1980, an estimated 140 million gallons of oil had spilled into the bay. The Ixtoc I spill is currently #2 on the all-time list of largest oil spills of all time.

IncidentNews: 10 Famous Spills

Note duration and size of the spill. Largest estimate to-date for our spill: 29 million barrels.

Apparently blowing up the well is a bad idea, because it allows the oil to be outside the casing. At this point we are trying to get control of the casing and stop the flow. Blowing up the pipe just adds another step to the process and makes thing more out of control.

Relief wells will eventually work. It will be August until that is done. Containing the oil floating around is a priority for now. That will require multiple tankers equiped with pumps to suck up the oil.

great. who is going to do it and who is paying the bill?

then after the oil is sucked up, how do we even evaluate the environmental damage when we go to hang the bill on bp?

The same people that always pay, the consumer and taxpayer. Getting a bit ahead of yourself on the other questions. Part of my point in mentioning the BIGGER spill in the Gulf was it did recover.

i knew that would be your answer --- i just didn't want to be the one the righties would accuse of whining about it. or would the lefties be the ones to dis the whiners? they confuse me about shit like that.

i haven't had the time lately to really go past the surface of the reporting, so i don't know how much bigger the campeche spill was. how do they compare at this point?

 

[oreo]

I thought Obama said he's been in charge "since day one"?

Have you anything other that idiocy to post? We have just succeeded in destroying one of the richest ecologys on this planet. One that has supplied this nation with the majority of it's seafood.

The US Government has no resources at all to deal with this kind of disaster. Indeed, the only people that do are the oil companies. All our President can do is try to ramp up the efforts to deal with the oil as it makes landfall. And keep the pressure on BP to cap that well.

When the well is capped, then we can address whether offshore drilling should be allowed at all. And how much of the damages can be paid by a new tax on all oil coming into the US. For BP is not going to by able to cover this.

Well -WHO puts us in DEEP water where we can't do something about an oil leak? THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. With enviromentalists in politicians back pockets--we can't drill on LAND--where we can fix it easily. ANWAR we can't drill--the midwest we can't drill--shallow areas on all seaboards--we can't drill.

So really whose fault is this? NONE other than the Federal Government's.

 

[HUGGY]

I thought Obama said he's been in charge "since day one"?

Have you anything other that idiocy to post? We have just succeeded in destroying one of the richest ecologys on this planet. One that has supplied this nation with the majority of it's seafood.

The US Government has no resources at all to deal with this kind of disaster. Indeed, the only people that do are the oil companies. All our President can do is try to ramp up the efforts to deal with the oil as it makes landfall. And keep the pressure on BP to cap that well.

When the well is capped, then we can address whether offshore drilling should be allowed at all. And how much of the damages can be paid by a new tax on all oil coming into the US. For BP is not going to by able to cover this.

Well -WHO puts us in DEEP water where we can't do something about an oil leak? THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. With enviromentalists in politicians back pockets--we can't drill on LAND--where we can fix it easily. ANWAR we can't drill--the midwest we can't drill--shallow areas on all seaboards--we can't drill.

So really whose fault is this? NONE other than the Federal Government's.

Good point. If it was totally up to BP we would have no say. It is not and we can apply preasure to have the gov do what we want. It takes time to turn big things and change courses. This drill deep in the ocean can be controlled but it has to be us wanting it so. We have to want it bad enough to offset the billions in advertising and payoffs the BPs in the world are willing to spend. We all created the monster with our need for gasoline and the other petro products. It is in fact the price we really pay..but are in denial of.

 

[Flopper]

Cost estimates to date for BP's efforts to contain the spill are close to $1B. They have thousands of people working around the clock to try to resolve the problem. It's insulting to the engineers whose lives are actually at risk to insinuate that they are not "doing something". If anyone has an incentive to resolve this nightmare, it's the BP personnel.

From what I have read, I think the BP engineers are doing all they know how to do. But is the government doing all it can do. There is a world of resources available. There is a huge cleanup job to be done and it's getting bigger by the day. We need more oil skimmers collecting oil, we need to be training and equipping thousands of people to cleanup the beaches. We should assume that the flow is not going to be fixed by the next BP experiment or for that matter the relief well which will take several months .

 

[PatekPhilippe]

I knew that the worstless top kill wouldn't work, but what do you think about the chances of this other thing they are going to try in a few days working?

BP has already lowered the expectation by saying that "most" of the oil could be captured from the next procedure they try.

My questions is if they can pump all that mud and crud into the pipe, why can't they pump concrete into the pipe? Which is doing more environmental harm, oil or concrete?

I haven't seen a whole bunch of explanation on why this must be so hard to do, but one of the many reasons it must be hard is the sheer pressure down there. I don't know what the PSI at 5000 feet down is, but the oil is spewing out against that preassure.

The weight of concrete, I think, stays the same at depth and the force of that spew would just blow it away.

It's a good thing we have the Big 0 in the White House. He knows how to make the seas recede so, when he does that, the experts will be able to work on this with no water in the way. Like every other problem, it's the last thing he thinks of before he goes to sleep and the first thing he thinks of when he awakens.

Another problem solved.

1 atmosphere(ATM) = 14.7 psi. = 33ft of depth in the ocean
5000 divided by 33 ft times 14.7 = 2227 psi...So this pressure plus the discharge pressure of the well plus the freezing temperatures must be overcome in order for the hole to be plugged at depth. It's little wonder it failed. This will turn out to be the single greatest environmental disaster in human history...maybe even eclipsing Chernobyl...unless something is done very soon. This also doesn't bode well for the future of BP ..... nor the Obama presidency....he has, after all, claimed full responsibility and said he's, meaning the government, been in charge of this from day one.

 

[Sinatra]

Cost estimates to date for BP's efforts to contain the spill are close to $1B. They have thousands of people working around the clock to try to resolve the problem. It's insulting to the engineers whose lives are actually at risk to insinuate that they are not "doing something". If anyone has an incentive to resolve this nightmare, it's the BP personnel.

From what I have read, I think the BP engineers are doing all they know how to do. But is the government doing all it can do. There is a world of resources available. There is a huge cleanup job to be done and it's getting bigger by the day. We need more oil skimmers collecting oil, we need to be training and equipping thousands of people to cleanup the beaches. We should assume that the flow is not going to be fixed by the next BP experiment or for that matter the relief well which will take several months .

____

And that is where the Obama administration has totally failed.

 

[Flopper]

here's my stupid question of the day: do we have the ability to send live divers that deep yet?

it seems a lot of the failures have an element of robotic control to them.

suit a crew up and set them on it.

Set them on it? You think that sitting on the leak will plug it up?

That sounds like an Obama Plan to Plug the Hole.

that's not quite what i had in mind.

my point is that human hands are going to do a better job than robots and my question is whether hard hat diving technology has advanced to where we can even send people that deep.

If that were possible this would probably be fixed but at 5000 feet the pressure is about 2,300psi. Most subs crush at about 2,400 feet. 5000 feet is near a mile below the surface. In order to pump mud or whatever down that far, you have to have a pump that will over come the pressure at that depth plus the pressure of the oil coming out of the pipe. In other words, you need one hell a pump.

 

[PatekPhilippe]

How many threads do we need on this topic?

 

[Flopper]

Now, it is was up to me and considering the depth, the amount of water, the current, I might set off a small nuclear explosion. The radiation would be spread though the water and disperse and it would probably seal the well long enough to put a meaningful cap in place.

Of course, that's just my idea. The amount of radiation, the size of the explosion, they can be calculated. Beside, there is so much contamination now, what's a little more compared to lots more?

But I don't know, I'm not a physicist. Just a regular guy looking at the possibilities of something I admit I know very little about.

To seal the leak? Why can't they do that with regular explosives?

Unless they could get the explosive all the way down the pipe, it would probably shatter the pipe then we would have a bigger problem.

 

[Flopper]

It's over a mile deep. The pressure from the water combined with the force of the escaping oil has got to be incredibly dangerous.

I know, let's send in Bill Clinton. He's the Obama Admin's Fixer Guy these days.

it is, but if they have pressure suits that can protect astronauts from the near vacuum of space, something similar might work at that depth. i've been away from that technology for almost 30 years now so i really have no idea how deep they are able to go nowadays.

I know for a fact that the pressure at sea level is 14.7 pounds per square inch. If you go into space, the pressure drops to zero. That means 14 pounds per square inch pushing OUT from your body.

At 5000 feet below sea level, I imagine pressure to be at least a couple of thousand pounds a square inch. Now go down a couple of miles more and the pressure must be unimaginable.

I once read that the US has two subs that can go that deep (5000 ft below SL).

The pressure increase 14.7psi ever 32 feet. So at 5000 feet it should be just under 2300psi. That is a lot of pressure. Most subs won't stand up under that pressure much less a diving suit.

 

[Flopper]

Cost estimates to date for BP's efforts to contain the spill are close to $1B. They have thousands of people working around the clock to try to resolve the problem. It's insulting to the engineers whose lives are actually at risk to insinuate that they are not "doing something". If anyone has an incentive to resolve this nightmare, it's the BP personnel.

From what I have read, I think the BP engineers are doing all they know how to do. But is the government doing all it can do. There is a world of resources available. There is a huge cleanup job to be done and it's getting bigger by the day. We need more oil skimmers collecting oil, we need to be training and equipping thousands of people to cleanup the beaches. We should assume that the flow is not going to be fixed by the next BP experiment or for that matter the relief well which will take several months .

____

And that is where the Obama administration has totally failed.

I don't think we know what they are doing. They should be keeping the public informed instead of just assuring the public that they are on top of the situation. This is something I would expect out the Bush administration.

 

[PatekPhilippe]

The problems working at 5000 ft depths is one of pressure and temperature....when I was stationed at NCSC Panama City FL in the early 1980's we were conducting experiments and trials of the JIM suit for military applications. The rated depth was 2000ft. However suits failed at 1000ft. because of defective materials and seals.

Here is a link with the latest info on ADS suits which at this point would be inadequate for the depth of this current disaster.
ADS Suits

 

[PatekPhilippe]

I have a question...what is getting humans down there going to do to stop the flow of oil...at this point it would seem that a large dome type of structure would be more feasable until another drilling platform can be put in place....
Who owns the GLOMAR Explorer now? Maybe that ship could do something.

 

[JBeukema]

It didn't work in 200n feet of water, why would we expect it to work in a mile?

We're waiting for the relief well, as we have been all along

 

[strollingbones]

the drilling on relief wells should have started immediately....


the coast lines are lost. obama aint done mal and aint gonna do mal

 

[PatekPhilippe]

Absolutely CORRECT bones!!!! The government should have immediately commandered the USNS GLOMAR Explorer from it's current job in Indonesia and sent it the the Gulf of Mexico!!!!!!!!! I even sent emails to the White House mentioning this.

 

[Douger]

Lets call it a " war on oil leakage"
Then it's guaranteed to be a perfect failure.

 

[Devin]

RIP. -------------- NOW WHAT?

======

 

[Devin]

.
.
.
.

.
.