Engineers Build Giant Dome to Contain US Oil Spill

Would you design this as a modular hemispherical chamber or are there other designs more practical. 5000 ft would be a lot of water pressure, but I have no doubts it could be done. And are there not manned subs capable of these depths?

I assume the dome will be constructed fully on the beach then floated out on a barge and sunk slowly over the top of the well with the aid of a large crane. The pump hoses would be established before sinking so pumping could be carried out straight away. water pressure would not be a problems there would not be any cavity's to cause a problem and it should be heavy enough to counteract the flotation of the volume of oil if it was full.

KISS at its best. The engineer who came up with this should receive a medal. At least he should have free clean seafood for the rest of his life. Only took me 5 seconds to visualize and 3 minutes to cool my skepticism. This should work and not only there. They should be made compulsive for all oil platforms. Filling up will just become even more expensive.

Who's counting, Ky.

Why do otherwise intelligent folks wait until a disaster in order do the right thing? Why don't the giants of the petroleum industry get together & create the machinery that would counteract these nasty blowouts? ...Create/build an arsenal of booms, netting, tanks, 'domes', suction units, etc.& keep it all handy at central storage locations. This would be financed on the sliding scale by members of the commercial oil/gas production community. The fact is that any spill by any company will reflect negatively on all other companies no matter what their (safety) record. So what's up? Carlos

I personally think that the companies involved are doing a fine job with minimal government and tree hugging hand wringing. I see a fine example of partisanship, something the whole world needs to practice in all endeavors.

I visualized an umbilical like pipeline attached to the broken casing as I lie awaiting sleep last night. Seems like another sensible tool to develop for the arsenal.

If they'd use a large "ballooon" they should have already had it in place.