Engineers at BP are continuing their subsea efforts to curb the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico after the Transocean Deepwater Horizon drilling rig tragically exploded last month.
A containment dome that was deployed last week has now been parked away from the spill area on the sea bed, after efforts to place it over the main leak point were suspended at the weekend as a build up of hydrates prevented a successful placement of the dome.
A second, smaller containment dome is now being readied to lower over the point of the main leak. The small dome will be connected by drill pipe and riser lines to a drill ship on the surface to collect and treat the oil. It is designed to mitigate the formation of large volumes of hydrates which hampered the earlier containment effort.
Work on a relief well, which began on Sunday May 2, continues. It is expected to take some three months to complete.
Meanwhile, more than 275 vessels are being used to collect and disperse the oil that has reached the surface of the sea, including skimmers, tugs, barges and recovery vessels.
So far, the cost of the operation is estimated at around $350m.
The cost of the operation is an incredible blow to our ecosystem ….our environment as a whole has suffered terribly and the oil from this gamble gone atrociously wrong will never be completely dispersed or cleaned.
When I first heard about offshore drilling I wondered how the technology could avoid a disaster such as we now have. I guess my concerns were real: the drillers had no working plan. If something can go wrong it will, and did. Where is the science here?
We need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels for domestic and industrial use.
This venture was clearly high risk equipment and personnel and the stakes were equally high.
I would like to know why the Blow Out Valve on the sea bed did not operate automatically to prevent this disaster.
Engineers can learn from these failures and improve future designs.
Explosives have been used in the past to seal fractured wells, has this option even been considered?
The explosion has caused this. But now no body is asking why and how.
A few years before a rig off the coast of Brazil went down due to an explosion which was investigated in detail.
Slackness in offshore operations Safety is the villain.
Now is a good time to replace these off shore oil rigs with off shore WIND MILLS.
Why don’t they just take that 100 ton behemoth of a cap and crush the pipe closed with it? The pipe appears to be sideways in the underwater videos – just crush it closed and be done with it!
For the attention of BP:
With the worst oil spill in US history entering already its 6th week, and after several futile attempts to stop it, the “Top Kill” should be your last attempt. If it failed for whatever reason, then try this simple technique immediately without any further delay before the oil slick reaches New York coasts! This nightmare MUST end!
CAPPING BP WILD WELL USING THERMITE MOLTEN IRON BOMB:
A sure way to cap this wild well is by using a “Thermite Iron Bomb” consisting of a thermite charge (a mixture of aluminum powder and iron III oxide powder) filling the inside of a suitably shaped iron block, conical or bell shaped, weighing several tons and big enough to engulf the top of the blowout preventer.
Lower the Thermite Iron Bomb into the water by a chain exactly onto the blowout preventer and detonate the thermite inside the iron block.
The thermite inside the iron block will burn fast at very high temperature causing the iron block, which weighs several tons, to melt and flow down to cover the top of the blowout preventer, instantly plugging and killing the wild beast – or perhaps BP doesn’t want to kill it?!
N.B
I’ve already sent an outline of this technique two weeks ago, complete with drawings, to many US officials including President Obama, the Coast Guard, MMS, etc, in addition to BP, but no one seems to care… a call in the wilderness. I’m Egyptian Engineer living in Egypt, but I really care for the environment and for the US of which I’m not a citizen – US officials and citizens are supposed to care for the US more than me! Or am I mistaken?!
hodieb-khalifa@windowslive.com
002-0163427827 (Egypt)
(More details and drawings are available upon request)