BP Oil Leak: Ready, Set...Brainstorm!

Nicely done, sir. Nicely done.

There’s a website to submit ideas. You’ll get a quick response

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/546759/

It is one thing to make some design sketches with good old Tucker during the IDSA conference effected by the 2003 blackout in NY, but for my taste this oil spill is a little too sad and way over our heads to turn it into a sketching game.

Besides, I am sure that Kevin Costner and Sean Penn are on their way already.

Maybe the problem with the current ideas (or at least the ones I’ve seen) is how to fix the pipe so we can continue piping the oil out safely. How about just sealing it permanently, probably an easier solution. If Dubai can build islands, I’m sure there’s a similar solution right there??

The problem isn’t a lack of ideas, the problem is that some things just can’t be fixed easily or quickly. There are lots of conceivable ways of blocking off the top of the well pipe, but if the well pipe is not sound upstream of that point, then none of those flow stopping approaches are viable. They will all exacerbate a much worse problem. It’s like plugging up a garden hose that has pinhole leaks all along its length. You just moved the problem somewhere where it’s impossible to manage. We haven’t been told that, but the fact that they have completely given up on any top kill flow stopping approach is telling.

The only real solution then is to block off the flow lower down in the pipe, which is what the relief well is going to do. In the meantime, the only thing to do is try to capture as much of the oil as possible as it comes out, which they are doing a reasonable job of.

I think they should also probably knock it off with the dispersants. It seems a lot easier to collect or burn surface oil than plumes of oil heading off to points unknown. But I’m not an expert, and there are probably factors involved I know nothing about.

Just read a report that the oil mixture is up to 40% methane, a usual oil well is no more than 5%. This adds some complexity to the situation, and also has the capability of creating oxygen depleted dead zones in the water. All that sea life and eco-system will be affected by this.

The Dubai islands are really peninsulas in shallow water made from dredged up silt. A matter of moving earth from one spot to another relatively close by. We’ve been doing stuff like this for years. Here in Chicago, most of the land east of Michigan Ave was swamp until they filled it all in, and that was over 100 years ago. The blown well is a bit more complicated a mile under water and 50 miles from shore.

I just read this thing that Scott Bennett was referring to. If the worst case comes to fruition, 8 mil barrels per day & the 2.5 bil barrel well means thing goes on for 10 more months. It’s hard to believe our leaders will sit around that long watching the apocalypse unfold. You would think we would see some drastic action.

seems to me that they are doing the relief wells, which will intersect the broken pipe lower down, but that will take a few months, so the design challenge is to stop the flow or conatin the flow considering that the pipe is broken. Like the giant tube in sketch 2… if the spill cound be managed in a mile wide circle instead of letting it drift all over, that would be a big help while we wait for the end of August when the relief wells are done…

There is too much pressure to make a seal to secure the oil methane water mixture.

I assume the above comment applies to the wedge/cap/ seal technique from the first sketch.
I don’t think I’ve heard why the second idea wouldn’t work yet. why not?

It’s not fundamentally different than what they’ve done already with the containment cap, which is just a pipe running down to the top of the well.

As to why the vinyl tube concept specifically wouldn’t work- think ocean currents. It would get blown away immediately. There would also likely be problems with hydrates forming and turning the whole tube into a big buoyant, slushy mess, which is what foiled their first containment effort. You can’t let the oil and methane mix with seawater down there if you want to get it out.

Sorry to get all engineery on you. I think there’s this expectation that we should just be trying a bunch of stuff until we find something that works. But if you were in charge, would you really propose removing the fairly effective containment cap that’s currently in place in order to try some alternative untested containment idea? I wouldn’t.

Personally i think what they are doing is pretty good, of course a natural disaster of this scale is never good! The fact is what they are doing at these depths is an engineering feat in its own, as mentioned before the pressures involved are crazy with only artificial lights and ROV’s to do the work, and not to forget the force at which the oil is escaping from the well.

semantics of course, but a “natural disaster” is an earthquake, or a hurricane, this is a man-made catastrophe.

My solution? Forget Kevin Costner, we need Michael J Fox.

There is one Brit on this earth with the sucking power to clean up this BP mess.

James Dyson.
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Actually, there were about 12 Brits today that had the sucking power to clean up the BP mess:

If there’s that much methane, can’t they somehow light an underwater fire (like with those underwater welding torches) and just burn the stuff at the source of the leak as it comes out continuously until the well is dry? Not ideal, but better than contaminating the entire ocean…

OR, what about sending down some sort of un-inflated giant balloon. Position it over the pipe, seal it around it, and let it fill up with oil. When it gets full enough to reach the surface, pop a hole in it that is connected to tankers and have it continuously pump out to waiting tankers? Sorta like the giant tube, but without having to worry about getting it down there and the pressure issue. As the oil fills it will be equalized in pressure with the surrounding water (no air inside) so less issues of pressure differential.

R

Suck it up. Scott can do it.
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i like the underwater flame idea and giant bubble idea… they are both striving to be out of the box. They are both moving past “capping the well”. Keep going

If I can weigh in on this for a moment, and redirect the discussion back to the original topic…

I think Scott Henderson’s Collapsing Tube Containment might well work.

Think under-water “eductor”, or air-lift, that we’ve all seen on many exploration/archeology television programs …a tube, held by a scuba diver sucks up debris, and gold doubloons, by virtue of compressed air injected at the open end … and with thanks to Mr. Bernoulli, the air expands causing a suction which lifts the material to the surface. It will even work with pumped sea water, instead of air.

In this case, the oil is already lighter than the sea water so it is trying to “surface” on it’s own. And since it is hot, it is expanding as it rises; +1. The pressure of the surrounding sea water, at any depth, is countered by the sea water/oil emulsion and prevents the “tube” from collapsing. And we inject a bit of compressed air at the bottom to help things along (the lift tube doesn’t even need to be sealed at the bottom).

Another very REAL problem is … who, and how, does one contact the “proper” authority to implement any idea?

BP officials? The Obama administration? American oil companies? Jon Stewart…

Considering the scale of this nightmare, it may have created a new “industry” that will have plenty of work for decades to come.