Help Stop the Oil Spill with Real Ideas!

One problem is that the tensile strength of steel drops off markedly above 650°F. As the near-molten pipe closes, the oil pressure is likely to blow the whole end off, leaving a wide-open pipe rather than the somewhat constricted mess they have now.

If you spend a few minutes studying the undersea videos, you'll see that the oil/gas pressure is clearly greater than the sea pressure, else it wouldn't come out. So, if you soften the steel enough that the lower sea pressure can crush it, you will have had to go past the point where the higher gas/oil pressure would blow the whole thing open. You'd have to add some extra crush pressure.

I'm also perplexed with this idea of using golf balls. Surely at that depth there density is higher than they would be in the typical water trap....

Now I know the 'mud' that is used is quite dense but if the idea is to bury the leak, then it seems you would have to lay down large piece layers of high density material first and pile smaller pieces of the high density material as the flow began to be affected. Not to different from building a road. Tons of rock or steel would need to be guided to that incredible depth. I'm wondering if a mile of construction type trash chute could be linked together with buoyancy compensators every hundred feet or so. I would imagine sea currents would make it hard to hold it in place.

What about a series of tubes around a large sea anchor chain?

Are there any barges designed to dump tons of rock into the sea?

If these ideas are out there, I'm not hearing about them.

Long ago (I think it was during the Harding administration, but?) I lived near the foot of a hydroelectric dam. The riverbed was limestone, so every so often, the dam would start to leak out underneath. They would try dumping all manner of stone in there; it would slow the leaks, but not seal them. Sooner or later, they'd put in a cofferdam and pour concrete (similar to drilling mud in sealing effect); that would fix it.

there are several ideas I've posted... not necessarily workable.. but you can't say they haven't been put out.

I still think a mile of drill pipe segments, each filled with concrete and hardened.. then dropped down the wellbore would basically stop most of it... but I'm told that mud would be more effective.

I think that DVMDSC's proposal has a great deal of merit.

right?

Chris

To stop the oil spill a funnel has to be build and lowered over the oil well.The oil will go up due to difference in gravity.The funnel does not need to be strong , because the inside and outside pressure is the same.Then the oil can be pumped up and out, and this will give time to find a permanent solution.

Benni

Was tried, I fear. The methane hydrates that form when the NG hits seawater are solid, and clogged essentially an attempt at your solution. It's galling that the most likely quick fix, the top kill, is trying mightily to get back to the condition they were in when the BP wheel demanded that the mud be withdrawn before the last plug was set and cured. The stem and casing WERE full of mud, and the well under control when some BP cowboy ordered a speedup. MMS has its chance, but didn't. I wonder if we will ever see the individuals involved own up to their monumental stupidity.

I'm not sure why this wouldn't work if the funnel dimensions take in to account the "clogging" force vs. the point at which the crude will also break apart from itself. Seems like the key is how large an opening at the "top" of the inverted funnel is. What am I missing here?

P.S. - What I'm envisioning is a large diameter at the top of said funnel which would in effect become a tank for containing the oil, which could then be pumped out of this containment area. As long as the pumping out rate is greater or equal to the rate of flow from the wellhead there should be no oil escaping the "neck" of the funnel.

What about pumping some air in the funnel and burning some of that gas. This controlled burn could keep the funnel warm enough to prevent freezing of the gas and allow it to work properly.

i previously posted an idea about freezing a wall of seawater and the oil that is dispersed in the sea water around a leak coming out of the sea floor after thinking about this in these last few weeks i still think it is a workable idea a semispherical shape at the top, tapering out and down to a wider foot to penetrate the sea floor with low profile augers that conduct liquid nitrogen within them to freeze into the sea floor to locate and lock down this apparatus. next liquid nitrogen flows thru aluminum tubes that are wound around the dome the cooling is made to start from the already frozen sea floor and contunue up to completely close the dome. up until the last remaining unclosed part of the dome is not frozen shut yet water and oil are still able to vent. now the pipe at the top of the dome is connected to the surface and the oil and gas are making their way there i would think a nuclear or not submarine would be of assistance here in relation to the cryogenic processes right down there on the sea floor

Hi all,

May I throw in my idea? (again) (listed previously)

A simple metal circular hinged clamp to be lowered over the pipe,
(open) and a tank of air created to hold the clamp closed. (giant tongs)
(maybe with hydraulic backup) Please see my simple sketch below.

Simple, cheap, and effective in materials, labour, transportation.
Easily duplicated, cost effective, make standby units... off the shelf.
Please consider this BP, - with all other earth/wild life despoilers!

BP please note: royalties would be appreciated for this poor engineer.

Maybe not the best pic/idea in the world, but cheap and workable?

jt.

For the op -
what does it matter what you do, as long as you blow it up!

I have been following this thread for quite some time hoping that someone would come up with a good solution but time is passing and nothing seems to work. Although I know nothing about oil wells I was somehow involved in the extinction of the famous 600 wells which were blown up in Kuwait after the first gulf war. I would like to express my opinion which makes sense from a logical point of view and may give a lead to a better idea.

Comment on the freezing process proposed:

With the pressure coming out of the tube it will be virtually impossible the freeze the water (or oil). You will have to stop the flow , even for a few seconds, but it has to stop if not you get nowhere even with liquid nitrogen.

Comment on heating the tube to close it:

I agree with Tornado that you should not heat the . If you have sufficient tube o work on, you can however squeeze the tube with a good hydraulic clamp at different intervals reducing the flow progressively until it is minimized or closed. I don't know the alloy of the tube but if it has too much carbon it may break instead of squeezing.

I did not understand why the bell system did not work, probably I missed something.

Clogging the tube with mud. You have to centre the tube (right now impossible) and inject the mud at a higher pressure than the gushing oil, I have my serious doubts they can do this at that dept under the seal level.

Throwing gravel of whatever to suffocate the well will not work. They have tried to do this in Kawait and really messed it all up because the oil gust spreads around and makes it more difficult to close the flow.

I would work on the idea of Jt for the clamping device. However to proceed we need to have a clear cut on the tube (which I presume is not so) to do this you should use a shear (like the ones they use in the Junk yards) or make a hydraulic device like the tool used for cutting tubes from the circumference. Once you have a clear cut on this tube "A" you should drop down another tube B from the supporting ship with a Jt clamp fixed on to the end. This tube should be connected to a pump with a capacity of at least 20% more than the flow rate of the well. Lowering the tube B you should be pumping water until you reach the mouth of the tube "A". Having a negative pressure inside the tube B it should be easy (relatively easy) to centre the other tube A. Now if you can close Jt's clamp you can even close the well cut if you cannot you will be pumping oil (and water) into a container ship and not into the sea. Reducing the flow of the pump you could eventually pump only oil.

This would be a temporary solution to avoid polluting the environment. When they get to the main stream with the other two wells they are boring, they can then pump mud and block the well for good.

It's a pity that we are capable of destroying nature (our home ) and not capable or repairing the damage we create.

Get the Regulators, lawyers, sensationalist, competitors and government out of the way and off of the companies communication lines. They have the technical know how to deal with the JOB. The owner of the well does not want it to leak. They need to be able to focus on stopping it.

They have the ability to make the well - they have the ability to stop it.

Every dollar and minute taken from that company will result in higher cost of oil and more imported oil for the USA.

If you drive a car, use power you are equally responsible for that leak. Same applies to the clean up and protection. EPA stopped someone from installing a tempoary dam to stop oil from entering an estuary where it is much harder to clean and causes more damage. REGULATE THE REGULATORS. Let free enterprise and technology work.

If you use a bicycle for transportation and drums for communication then you have a right to attack and confuse the Party responsible (a sub contractor for BP).

if a rig could be placed back over the well they have stingers that can be centered in the hole opening. drilling down to reopen the hole if the drill string were the size they used be for the blow out once down in side the tip can be blown off are blow holes in side of drill pipe start pumping. the hard part is lineing up the stinger and the whip in the drill string. every thing is there already they have the bottom hold drills lets go to work.

How about a shallow intersecting bore - one that would encounter the well at, say, a mere 1000 ft. beneath the seafloor, and drilled rapidly with a goal of tangentially entering a radius of about 25 feet of the production pipe. Insert a fabricated high explosive charge, backfill (mud and concrete) the relief bore, and detonate. The result should be well destruction, cavity creation and compaction-collapse, and cessation of flow. The oil discharge and debris should tamponade three structures: the deep afferent section of well-pipe entering the resulting cavity, the cavity itself (choose a geologic strata of unconsolidated sediment, I think), and the efferent (with reference to our cavity) discharge well-pipe to the sea. Advantages: (1) If performed deep enough beneath the sea, I think there is almost no possibility of flow rate INCREASING. (2) Could be done relatively rapidly compared to the tediously exacting relief well, because a) of it relatively shallow depth, and b) its lesser need to be "right on the money" in trajectory. Disadvantages: (1) Interruption of the intact well-pipe would preclude later mud/concrete obstruction, at least without precison relief well intersection at an even lower depth; (2) Development of the appropriate explosive might be problematic (but might be easy! ... think munitions, or gov't-industry cooperation); (3) blow-out cratering of seafloor resulting from propagation of fracture zone up the casing could release whatever choke there is on the well at this time, and obliterate the well-head within a morass of cratered chaos on the sea floor. [But if the charge is deep enough, I don't think so...]

Fred Dale

I'm not a scientist or engineer and I don't join blogs but thought that any idea to stop this disaster is worth putting out there. I was thinking that using liquid nitrogen delivered in a large quantity at high pressure might temporarily freeze the flow enough to cap or block the pipe permanently.

Just a thought. If it has merit use it.

Ben

Think of the game Ker Plunk. What if they were to drill many screws through the pipe from all angles? Would this not increase the chance of a successful top kill?