How to stop the oil?

[UniformYankee]

I've read a lot of blogs and forums - about the status of the oil spill. And some are advocating use of explosives. Given the depth and pressures involved it would not seem like it would take much explosive to pitch off the flow - yet BP has stated they do not envision using this option.

It seems like a good question would be why?

The cost of drilling another production well into this same reservoir would seem to be far less than the cost of the environmental impact and clean up? What is missing here? Why are we not seeing a cost benefit comparison between the path of quickly shutting down the flow versus the currently adopted path of trying other approaches?

[UniformYankee]

So this site estimates the cost of drilling a deep water well to be about $100M ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_well

Whereas this site estimates the cost of the cleanup to now be around $1B ...

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2010/05/24/daily54.html

Hence the economic case to shut off the oil even if the existing well is destroyed would still seem to be overwhelming. What is missing here?

[NefariousKoel]

Send Al Gore out with his massive gas guzzling mansion-boat and sink it over the hole.

Problem solved.

[wworld7]

ORIGINAL: NefariousKoel

Send Al Gore out with his massive gas guzzling mansion-boat and sink it over the hole.

Problem solved.

Won't the internet go down with the boat?

[Bamilus]

lol @ the above two posters.

Manbearpig is very real. EXCELSIOR!

EDIT: On a serious note, however, I think there is little that can be done. We really just have to wait it out and continue to clean up. It's a tragedy but we can definitely overcome this and clean up.

[MajFrankBurns]

I was thinking about it today why not use explosives to explode the ground around it toward the opening. Sort of like an implosion? I'm sure the physics majors could determine how far down they would need to place the charges to make the earth fill in the hole and how much pressure it would produce to keep it shut down without leaking through?

[rhondabrwn]

Why not blow off that two story blowout preventer and then drop a 100 ton (or larger) concrete block on top of the wellhead? [:D]
I wonder if the genius brain trust scientists they have down there aren't overlooking something that simple because it isn't complex enough to be worthy of their consideration?

Also in the too stupidly simplistic category... if we have these huge pools of spilled oil stretching for miles at a 1000 feet or more below the surface... why can't a robotic vehicle(s) position a suction hose and start harvesting it into a SuperTanker positioned over the formation? A 500 foot thick formation would seem much more suitable to this than skimming off surface oil as they have been trying to do.

And... where is the "drill, baby drill" crowd when we need their wisdom to resolve this crisis?

Ah, does it really matter? I have a geologist friend (and former Chevron executive) assure me that all of the damage will take care of itself in 50 years or so... oil is a natural product that will bio-degrade faster than the water bottles we throw away. As he put it, "accidents happen in this business" (hey, think I heard that from a Senatorial candidate from Kentucky as well). He doesn't seem real concerned actually.

Actually, I think the Gulf Coast is totally screwed and it won't be stopped till August when the oil starts creeping around to the East Coast beaches as well. The good news is that then we can resume full scale off-shore drilling because there is no more damage possible. The oil covered beaches will make great natural parking lots as well for the new office parks that can be built on the site of all those now worthless beach homes. Gotta look at the economic prospects for all this.

Yea... this is bitterly tongue in cheek so don't take me seriously. [:@]

[Gil R.]

I say we stuff a virgin down the pipe.

[Aurelian]

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html

[rhondabrwn]

I recommend stuffing some politicians and bureaucrats down the pipe - beginning with the corrupt idiots in the office of Minerals and Whatever that should have done their jobs and verified that the drilling project had the required operational safeguards in place (with working batteries on the blowout preventer among many other things).

[rhondabrwn]

Major Frank may have an idea there...

How about a couple of tactical nukes placed on opposite sides of the well after drilling a couple of holes a few hundred feet deep to contain them. The simultaneous explosions would collapse the bore hole through massive compression.

I guess a massive amount of conventional explosives might have a similar effect.

I think Bruce Willis has the expertise to pull this one off [:D]

[Doggie]

It's still flowing because it hasn't done enough damage yet. Environmentalists want a catastrophe to support their agenda of prohibiting energy production by any American corporation and leaving the Gulf oil reserves to the Mexicans, Cubans, Russians, and Communist Chinese, who are also drilling oil wells off the United States coast with the blessings of American liberals.

The Obama administration must approve any efforts to minimize the damage, and they aren't doing it

For context, nazi U-boats sank hundreds of ships, including oil tankers, within sight of the American coast during world war II and nobody cleaned it up. There was no environmental disaster, and the wrecks of those ships as well as the U-boats themselves are now artificial reefs teeming with marine wildlife.

Oil in huge quantanties makes a mess for a few months but it will eventually evaporate on it's own.

[Southernland]

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[Q.M]

ORIGINAL: Southern_land

.

Is that a dot of oil?

[Q.M]

Seriously though.  Cant they at least funnel the oil to the surface and contain it there in a vast boom?  They could at least process it under capture that way.

They can take their time and formulate a comprehensive fix then instead of trying to fix two things at once.

[rhondabrwn]

ORIGINAL: Doggie

It's still flowing because it hasn't done enough damage yet. Environmentalists want a catastrophe to support their agenda of prohibiting energy production by any American corporation and leaving the Gulf oil reserves to the Mexicans, Cubans, Russians, and Communist Chinese, who are also drilling oil wells off the United States coast with the blessings of American liberals.

The Obama administration must approve any efforts to minimize the damage, and they aren't doing it

For context, nazi U-boats sank hundreds of ships, including oil tankers, within sight of the American coast during world war II and nobody cleaned it up. There was no environmental disaster, and the wrecks of those ships as well as the U-boats themselves are now artificial reefs teeming with marine wildlife.

Oil in huge quantanties makes a mess for a few months but it will eventually evaporate on it's own.

I was going to say something sarcastic, but thought better of it. [:)] Seriously though... you think this problem will go away on it's own in a few months? God, I hope you're right, but I saw a news report last week that described the major ongoing pollution remaining from the Exxon Valdez disaster and that was decades ago (and a lot less oil). My Geologist friend said 50 years for a natural recovery. That's a lot of idle fishing boats and empty beaches and depressed coastal economies for a lot of years.

And I do think your accusations that environmentalists are somehow delaying a solution in order to maximize the damage to score political points is ridiculous. I think their point that off-shore drilling is inherently dangerous and needs strong and viable regulation to stop further drilling until we can be guaranteed that adequate safety precautions are in place has already been made in a dramatic fashion. They don't need to make things worse... BP is doing quite well in that regard.

I'll concede that the Obama administration has mishandled this politically when they could have scored big political points by doing some fast posturing and futile gestures (mobilize the National Guard to stand on the beaches with shovels and plastic bags?), but what can they really do? The oil companies are the only entity with the personnel, expertise, and equipment to deal with this. Maybe one lesson to be learned is that the Federal Government may need to invest billions in stockpiling equipment, developing deep water submersibles, maintaining thousands of specialists on the federal payroll waiting for the next blowout. Is this expansion of big government be something you would support? Otherwise, we will remain totally dependent on the oil industry to clean up their own messes. We do need to raise their liability limits considerably over the $75 million dollar cap put into after the Exxon Valdez disaster. Of course, there will be massive civil suits against BP, but look at what happened in Alaska. The litigation took over a decade and the final judgements were significantly reduced on appeal. I'm sure most of the Gulf Coast citizens that are losing their livelihoods will never recover adequately from BP. They will be stalled in the courts and outmatched by BP Attorneys and in the end will get little or nothing.

The Hurricane season forcast is dismal, calling for a massive number of storms this season. The first Tropical Storm or Hurricane is going to blow that oil all over the Gulf Coast and dredging a few sand berms isn't going to protect anything other than allowing politicians to take credit for doing something... anything in this situation.

I would hope that we could all forget the politics and conspiracy theories and accept the reality that this is a disaster that we were not prepared for and that we'd better give serious thought as to how much off-shore drilling will be allowed, how it will be regulated, and whether deep water projects should even be allowed at all until it can be demonstrated that we have the technology to prevent blowouts at these extreme depths.

And remember... off-shore oil from our coasts is sold on the world markets. There is no guarantee that "American oil" has to come to American refineries. It is my understanding that most Alaskan oil goes to Japan. It is also my understanding that we will never be able to produce enough oil to affect the world price of oil so dreams that "Drill, Baby Drill" will bring us cheap gasoline at the pump are just that... dreams. We need to reduce our dependence on oil significantly - that can have an effect.

[Jevhaddah]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

I say we stuff a virgin down the pipe.

I wish yoo Good Luck in finding one before August [:D]

I found a wee linky to 12 worst Oil spills for those that are interested.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl ... story.html

Cheers

Jev

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Q.M

Seriously though.  Cant they at least funnel the oil to the surface and contain it there in a vast boom?  They could at least process it under capture that way.

They can take their time and formulate a comprehensive fix then instead of trying to fix two things at once.

http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/oilspill/

Do they make one that big?

[Erik Rutins]

You guys should all know better - no politics and I'm afraid there's no way to discuss this current event without bringing politics into it. Thread locked.