Challenge to Stop the BP Gulf Oil Spill

Capture a large percentage of the oil in a fabric sphere. Just like a water balloon. A 100' diameter sphere can hold almost 4 million gallons. Let the fabric be resistant to oil transmission. Fill one, follow it with bouys, but let it drift. Adjust the bouancy so that the shere is below the water surface. Provide a pressure relief flap to let expanding gas escape. track it and suck the oil out at resonable depths and at the conveience of available support. Fill one, then fill another. 100' too big? Use a 50' diameter balloon to hold almost half a million gallons.

I give this idea freely to anyone with a big ship as long as it is called "BillyBallz".

Sorry, friend! I already have patented the idea. See post # 37 at This location

Sorry, your Patent was denied due to insufficient definition. ;~)

Indel and Chris288g,

Several of the above discussions/postings andon the other thread for the use of sound; has been actually reviewed by BP but they do not understand the principle let alone the concepts or they do not want too, "Ostrich in the sand mentality".

What they have considered, submitted by me on April 25th, and after much prodding and pressure from several congress people is this:

Build a 250 ft diameter inverted flexible funnel secured to the sea bottom via 1" steel hawsers and weights attached to the fabricated steel ring of the funnel...around 50 ft above the BOP.

The funnel is 150 ft tall and is secured to a 20 ft diameter steel chimney section 40 ft tall at the top.

Attached to this steel chimney section is a continuous flexible tube all the way to the surface, where it bells out to around 100 ft diameter and attached to a large inflated rubber ring (10 ft daimeter tubing ring).

All attached to a series of huge river barges (100 ft long 15 ft wide and 22 ft deep) via a series of steel hawsers runing down the flexible chimney walls and the funnel for added strength.....sketch drawings have been sent and reviewed.

The leaking oil is then captured in the funnel and allowed to rise up and into the chimney...is captured and held by the flex tubing/funnel.

Take off nozzles 12" to 24" diameter can be placed at underwater points to capture either just the gas or a combination of all coming up. Attached to the surface area woruld be a whole series of suction pipes to remove anything coming up and transfer to tankers. A water spray would be applied over the whole area to suppress the gas from igniting etc in the take off ring area and the surrounding ocean

These tankers would then take the water/oil/gas to a terminal for separation, which they do now anyway.

The material proposed for the Flexible funnel and Chimney is made by Chemfab of very high strength fabric and coated in TEFLON....Denver and Riyadh airport roofs and the Millenium Dome in the UK are made of this material...is extrmely tough and can take upto 950 Lb/In tensile pressure and works down below -30C.

The funnel would not see any real pressure applied other than some wave forces and bumping around if the water to Oil ratio changed the flow density.

Professor Eric Adams of MIT had mentioned a similar idea in his interview last week in the Huffington Post...he has reviewd the sketches submitted and agreed would work and should have been done weeks ago; Professor Ian MacDonald of Fl state U also sees this a a good method...just need BP to build and not delay any further.

Anyone have any other ideas?..The Linkedin and Innocentive.com group are getting good ideas as well.

Also need away to capture the oil now in the ocean....Supertankers? .....and in the Wetlands-Marshes.

Geoff NH

Chris, maybe modify your drawing to the concept above...good concept and first response on the other thread?

They have a cap to monetary liability that they already know will exceed the cost. They want to recover their investment...the leak goes on. Stick a bilge plug in the thing already.

The Federal Goverment just gave them permission to try top kill...who's at fault if it turns bad?

Simonsd,

your commnets are valid and make a certain amount of sense. But consider this aspect, if no one ever challenges the establishmnet or questions authority then we will see more of George Orewells 1984 on our lives.

You like me hail form the UK. Look around at big brother camera's, government interference with civil servants obstructions, an out of touch political system...voted in by the people.

CR4 may not always seem an appropriate forum sometimes, except the thread on Haiti and use of shipping containers has caught the attention of many agencies, so we have an effect. Even the UN is now after 6 years of studiying emergency shelters ideas at great expense giving there use credence.

So perserverance is in order as some one somewhere will see that no only CR4 but Linkedin and Innocentive.com are viable sources for solutions. These communities have a varied range of profesional disciplines answering requests for solutions, eg, can anyone give any idea of the long term effects of Corexit on the Marine/wildlife in the Gulf area..is banned in the UK where BP is HQ'd

Your point is well taken that some political ranting by politicians will take place along with the paid lobbyists. But again let them!....if T"Boone" Pickens was to chair the meeting then let them try and force there will on the best minds who could attend...such luminaries as Porfessors Eric Adams of MIT, Ian MacDonald of the U of Fl State, companies like Saint-Gobain Corp, AB Technologies, B&P centrifuges, Eimco etc.

These people and companies could not be ignored for there ideas, technology and all within CR4, Linkedin and Innocentive.com communities....if so then god help us all going forward.

Just remember BP was involved in a Norwegian Sea deep water spill test in 1997 and TransOcean before its name change had a similar failure in the Gulf in 1979 in only 200 feet of water....tried same techiniques as today, when will any one learn or remember from past tests/errors/disasters.

So we must keep trying to put ideas together, yes some will be off the wall. But that's what the thread is for BRIAN STORMING..others will moderate and good solutions arrived at.

One guest asked about the "TOP KILL"...go to the live feed (which by the way is some times being loop feed by BP...not fully live). So after nearly 24 hours as of 2:30 PM EST this afernoon BP say they will know if it is working. Well from all the video so far and from some associates of mine in the industry...seems more mud etc is coming out than staying in and there are now several more fissures appearing away from the BOP (not always viewable except at the energy departments feed in DC and they become "dark" every now and then?).

By perservering we can have an affect on decisions. Maybe the other thread should be joined with this one by a link.....Chris288g can we get Garthh to see if he can do this?

I think sometimes we just need to SIMPLIFY things and take them for what they are! No caped crusaders! Just stick something in the darn hole! I can thing of many things...save the mud, everyones slinging too much of it as it is!

Hi Geoff,

I think we all realize there is no easy fix here. I'm slowly studying that Triz methodology that Garthh pointed us to (elsewhere) for speeding inventions.

A great deal of that is to narrow the field of search to the set of solutions that correspond to the clarified design parameters. here is a preliminary setup

INPUT PARAMETERS

• 18000 foot well to active oil reservoir
• multiple leaks from failed equipment/pipe
• fractured rock formation
• 5000 feet under water (2200 psi)
• high (unknown?) wellbore pressure
• nitrates (ice) form upon depressurization
• casing and bop's in place, but partially blocked.
• wreckage/equipment surrounding well
• deep mud surrounding well (LS)
• thousands of barrels per day leakage (volume unknown)
• casing, pipe, concrete, packers remain in wellbore.

SOLUTION SET

Geological Solutions
(any solution which fosters an adjustment to the intervening 18000 feet of rock, thereby stopping the flow of oil)
(ie. explosives)

New Equipment Mechanical Solutions
(any solution where new equipment is designed manufactured, and installed, and can successfully stop or cleanly divert the oil flow)
(ie. caps, tubes, suction pumping at source, etc)

Existing Equipment Solutions
(any solution where existing equipment is used, repaired, or activated, to effectively stop or cleanly divert the flow of oil)
(ie. top kill, packers, concrete filled drillpipe, etc)

New Equipment Non-Mechanical Solutions
(any solution where non-mechanical methods are used to stop or cleanly divert the flow of oil)
(ie. stopping oil flow with sound)

Oil Negation Solutions
(any solution where the effects of oil entering the environment is negated in some respect)
(ie. dispersants, detergents)

Strategic Containment Solutions
(any solution where the effects of oil entering the environment is prevented from acting upon that environment by physical barriers)
(ie. oil booms)

If I've missed anything.... jump in.

ps. Geoff, it would appear that some are misreading your intentions with this thread. Perhaps some clarification. I know you are an excellent organizer, (and friend) and are trying to move this issue to a higher level of organization, if possible, and to once again, ensure that engineering voices from CR4 are being heard by decision makers. I applaud that, but I don't think everyone perceives this the same way. I'm a drafter and inventor, but not a political bone in my body... so I appreciate when people like you to take note of my ideas and present them to others who can do something helpful with them. I'm usually pretty humble about my ideas, and if I've put them on the internet, they are public domain automatically.

Could a pipe of smaller diameter than the well casing be inserted into the casing? If such a pipe had "dogs" or "cams" on the outside that as the pipe tried to pull out the cams would bind against the sidewalls of the existing casing?

If this could be done, having side pipes on the inserted pipe to stabilize it over the casing with trip valves to shut these off once the new pipe was inserted, Then a shutoff valve or piping to divert flow to the surface could be used to capture the majority of the oil...Some would still leak by between the new "cammed" insert and the existing well casing but if say the casing was 36 inches and the insert was 34 inches (sizes are my guess but you get the idea of scale here.) This would cut the area of escaping oil and gas to about 10 percent of the original casing. I can't find any specifics on the well casing or I might suggest -if pipe is sticking up high enough - attaching a split flange below the leak and welding it on roboticly and then sliding a flanged section with valve over the well and bolting it to the new flange then closing the valve...I just don't have enough information to make a good judgment on these things. Thanks for what you are trying to accomplish.

If no casing exists then longer dogs to dig into the sidewalls of the ocean bedrock and deeper insertion would be required...same idea though.

seems like a larger hole in the first thing they put down there, the dome stucture, would allow the gas crystals to float up and allow the oil to come to the surface for collection. maybe a rod down the center of the collection pipe could be used in the original dome to move the crystals out of the way to allow the oil to get up the tube.

other wise the flexible tube of a very large diameter, that has been posted in cr4, would seem to be doable, however it may take a very long time to fabricate.

good luck everbody......

The methane forms the hydrate as it comes up out of the earth - should plug up most anything shortly in the event the temperature/pressure is right for it. Also remember this is happening one mile down - not exactly like cleaning the sink drain.

Is it possible that a decisive leader, could have implemented the removal of the casing to surface pipe entirely, and without hesitation, there by reinstalling it...reduced the now unsurmountable, unimaginable leak we have on our hands? Anyone have a formula for that? Is it possible we could have sacrificed little to save a lot? We used to look ahead, now we only look behind. If our brain with 2 hemispheres is capable of only thinking of two things at once, one thought being political, and the other finger pointing/liability, who's thinking about the spill? If everyone agrees..then there is only one brain doing the thinking...

Unfortunately there is no Red Adair of plugging leaks in the ocean floor it seems. Several groups do fantastic at fires - No big companies but small groups that step in and take over. One big problem with leaks like in the Gulf is the immense cost of the equipment involved - robotic subs of the size they have - the pumping equipment etc.

No, just my point! Everyone looks back,that is recall from experience. Every time you remember an event it changes, because of new experiences. The memory is different every time you recall it, the new information reacts with the initial memory. THERE is nothing like this in my memory. There is no information relative to this situation, period. It demands forward thinking and decisiveness. Someone needs to take charge, and implement a solution based on their gut. The right thing to do, we all depend on it. I am not an environmentalist, I am a conservative. The difference is , an environmentalist wants to protect it so no one can use it, a conservationist wants to protect it so everyone can use it.

The original funnel was a good idea. It is just missing some heat!

Supply limited oxygen down at the leak and burn some of the gas as it rises through the funnel. The limited oxygen supply will control the combustion. The increase in temperature produced should be enough to prevent freezing.

Wrench,

if you read my posting above this is exactly what has been proposed a large inverted funnel-Chimney..... all made of the same TEFLON coated fabricate material supplied by ChemFab for the Denver and Riyadh airports and the Millneium Dome in the UK.

Was sent to BP and TransOcean on April 25th...they never responded till yesterday, they are now panicking after all this time...could have had it built and in place.

ChemFab can and has the production capability to make all material in 8 days based on a 24/7 production run to make a fully finished funnel-chimney.

So is more than doable as reviewed by a peer group including several Professors from MIT, U of Fl state. ...along with a few other solutions. Now they are looking to get something built.

Geoff NH

Thinking some more about my previous post. How about an auger in the pipe at the top of the dome structure to mechanically lift the gas crystals to be lifted up to a lower pressure- higher temperature area in the pipe. Would that stop the blockage in the pipe.??? Of coarse that would require another drill rig to be placed over the well to provide the rotation equipment for the auger.....?????

What is the chemical reaction with the "hydrates" and the gas-oil in the well that is causing the plugging of the original dome system? Just trying to understand why the dome structure did not work. It seems that physics wise, it should have worked......

Are there not enough posts about the oil spill?

From all the threads this smells like the most opportune one. What is the issue?

Do you need to show how you can make the difference?

Where is your idea?

You didn't even do your home work well and read everything or made a list of possible solutions.

I am posting here and have not one good answer, but that is because I work here to help this forum contribute and does something for the people.

And when I do not know what to answer, I simply read and do not contaminate.

There is already far too much confusion and chaos. 20.000 application forms for "the solutions" make it even impossible to spend time for the decision makers to even read them.

Evaluation is totally out of the picture.

You are 37 days too late. I have read some good posts here and have supported these. You can go 2 directions, and I call yours Backwards. Of course you have the right to disagree, but your intro does not convince me.

@cherryvan - İt is apparent that many of the posters have not maintained a close watch on what has or is happening on site. There are blogs out there (http://bittooth.blogspot.com/) that are the view from someones eye that understands what is happening. Many of the posts here are like you receive from the office when you are in the field with a problem!

Finally! Yes backwards!

Maybe what happened in the first try to cap and funnel oil up is a clue to what might work. Use some refrigeration or supercooling system with liquid Nitrogen to stop it before a quickdrying cement cap. If the pipe could be super cooled before they cut it (like plumbers freeze pipes) might help what they are planning on doing now. Maybe none of this is practical 1 mile down but it is already pretty cold down there which might help.

A second thought is to insert an expanding device which you would start to open up before the pressure would do the rest and take over locking it in the hole by expanding it further. Probably simpler said than done!

I have dial-up (dish too expensive here) so I haven't had time to find all postings on this so these may have been suggested elsewhere.

Thanks for allowing me to post!

"A second thought is to insert an expanding device which you would start to open up before the pressure would do the rest and take over locking it in the hole by expanding it further. Probably simpler said than done!"

I'd been thinking on similar lines. Plumbers now often use push-fit pipe connectors: these employ a combination of O-rings for sealing, and backwards-facing metal teeth which "grab" and hold the pipe. The point is that the greater the water pressure, the harder the teeth grip the pipe. Surely BP could adapt this idea.