What About This Oil Spilling

OMG, yes! I think that would work. It's one of those "Why didn't I think of that??!!" ideas.

Getting "the thing down there" frozen solid would provide time to think. And the cryogenic framework, the means to "turn on the crygenic," the pump, etc could be put together in an evening, given some beer and chips.

I am not sure about the numbers required to freeze the salt water or how the frame would stay in place before the amount of ice weighted enough to hold it in place, against 2,000 psi.

You are on the right track, to cap and stop the oil flow while we think. I have suggested capping the leak with a module of sufficient weight that would be lowered from a barge. I have since thought of a simpler way other than a solid mass of concert that would cap the leak.

Fill sand bags the type commonly used for flooded ares, where the sand bags are then contained in a large cargo net, enough bags to weight 5,000 thousand pounds or so, then lower the net down over the leak. This process could repeated as required, I first thought of pumping sand from the sea floor but the 2.000 psi would blow it away before it would settle thick enough to hold the leak. Where the cargo net and the bags would be packed solid enough to resist the out flow of the leak. The other advantage of trying this approach, there is no massive hardware that would obstruct other ideas it it did not work.

Roy H.

yes i like your idea with sandbags - ones with cement powder in them as well as aggregate chloride resisting cement if an outlet pipe or two was stuck in there also this would be good

I think the idea has merit. There is a device that freezes pipe so that plumbing can be isolated and worked on. I just don't have details but could google to see if I can find the info as it is similar. Some modification may be required with use of LN. I don't know if high flowing water will freeze but we do know methane ice is building up in the dome they currently placed over the gulf well. So your LN may aid in making an ice plug . My knowledge and experience using LN is very limited. I would also suggest you post your question in Netmakers thread. There are a few experts with good knowledge of oil wells on that thread hashing ideas. At least you may get some pro/con feedback.

Here is one device I just googled.

Welcome to CR4

I considered this the other day, but rejected it because

• Ice floats
• Energy is required to keep it frozen, so the refrigeration equipment would have to go down with it.

I would consider that you could use the ice to form a concrete shell, and use the ice to float it out to the site, and then cut away enough ice for a controlled descent to the seabed.. but it is all tricky.

keep working at it, solve the problems associated with it, and you might have something.

Chris

i remember reading about russian ships that sent down an ln line to the sea floor to freeze an anchor point when they wanted to pull out they sent down some electrical heat and pulled out i know ice floats but i don't think it would take much added weight to give neutral bouyancy ice also sticks really well to metals i wasn't thinking so much about plugging the pipe but getting this semi-spherical skeleton of steel frame and aluminum pipe stabbed into the sea floor on top of the leak then flow liquid nitrogen thru the aluminum pipe and freeze a solid wall of ice around and over the leak while paying attention to the goings on inside the dome and likely pumping some sea water and oil out or letting it flow out to create a negative pressure inside the dome to help keep it in place aren't there mobile fish processing barges that have huge reefers on board to freeze all those fish? this proposed freezing web will likely have to a numberof layers thick to keep up with all that heat coming out of the pipe

If you think of freezing the well, you'll need to freeze what is in the pipe. The oil and methane. And they come with an enormous heat content. To go cryogenic, you'll need to use e.g. liquid nitrogen. It would be technically possible to pump it in a pipe that deep, but down there is already more than 150 bar pressure I wonder how the nitrogen can leave the pipe? A long expansion chamber should be around the pipe and this should be brought to vacuum (means another pipe to the surface - return - and a pump that I don't know the existence of) The velocity and volume of the oil is that big that I cannot recall a unit that can supply the cold. And a big Armada of liquid nitrogen vessels will be needed. To name only a few obstacles. When you freeze a water pipe, you slow down the output first, or the same problem occurs. This is a very impractical approach

i hear what your saying and agree that this method will be impractical unless it is scaled down to the smallest physical proportions that are large enough to do the job plus a little extra i don't like reading or seeing wildlife wiped out because of this sort of thing or peoples livelihoods impaired either and i think some new approaches have to be worked out