How to Stop Oil Spill in Deep Water

"I do not know if I am foul, out or too lazy to understand" Whatever that means, I think you are a foul. You obviously have no comprehension of the problem at hand.

There have been a number of posts such as yours. Most of them are about as practical as yours.

Why don't you read the other offerings.

Maybe you have all the comprehension, instead!

I thank you for your great response to my presentation. Anyway, I do not agree with you and I would appreciate you giving me just some little indications about former solutions like mine.

Sorry, but I will agree with you only when you are able to explain in technical terms what is wrong. My project is not as foulish as it seems: think about it!

"Sorry, but I will agree with you only when you are able to explain in technical terms what is wrong."

Sorry, but your post is totally devoid of any technical terms, unless you consider this statement technical: "build up a simple room, on the sea-floor, made of a certain number of thin and rigid walls, put together automatically, all around the well head."

Any way, here's one for you.

The most conservative estimate of oil flow is over 500,000 gallons per day. Do you comprehend the volume of oil and gas that is flowing out of the sea floor? I seriously doubt it.

At 5,000 feet below sea level the pressure exerted by the water is 2,325 pounds per square inch.

Visibility is near zero.

Your English is far from understandable, Its very difficult to work out what your saying.

the pressure of oil is enormous and would no be stopped by putting a building round it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

Already discussed

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/55160/Oil-Rig

BP engineers have attempted a number of techniques to control or stop the oil spill.

The containment idea has been tried

The first and fastest was to place a 125-tonne (280,000 lb) container dome over the largest of the well leaks and pipe the oil to a storage vessel on the surface.^[118] This option was untested at such depths.^[118] BP deployed the system on May 7–8 but it failed when gas leaking from the pipe combined with cold water to form methane hydrate crystals that blocked up the steel canopy at the top of the dome.^[119] The excess buoyancy of the crystals clogged the opening at the top of the dome where the riser was to be connected.

Following the failure, a smaller containment dome, dubbed a "top hat", was lowered to the seabed.^[120] The dome was lowered on May 11 but is currently being kept away from the leaking oil well.^[120] The dome is meant to funnel some of the escaping oil to a waiting tanker on the surface. Like the first containment dome, the dome has been deployed successfully in the past but not at such a depth.^[120] The 4 feet (1.2 m) wide and 5 feet (1.5 m) tall "top hat" dome is much smaller than the first containment dome, which was 40 feet (12 m) tall and 125-tonne (280,000 lb).^[120] The "top hat" dome originally was planned as BP's next attempt to control the spill and there has been no explanation for why BP engineers decided to try the insertion tube first.^[119]

On May 14, engineers began the process of positioning a 4-inch wide riser insertion tube tool into the 21-inch-wide burst pipe.^[119] After three days, BP reported the tube was working.^[121] Collection rates varied daily between 1,000 and 5,000 barrels (42,000 and 210,000 US gallons; 160,000 and 790,000 litres), the average being 2,000 barrels (84,000 US gallons; 320,000 litres) a day, as of May 21.^[122][123] The collected gas rate ranges between 4 and 17 million cubic feet per day (110×10^³ and 480×10^³ m³/d). The gas was flared and oil stored on the board of drillship Discoverer Enterprise.^[124] 924,000 US gallons (22,000 barrels) of oil was collected before removal of the tube so shutdown efforts could begin.^[125]

BP tried to shut down the well completely using a technique called "top kill".^[126] The process involves pumping heavy drilling fluids through two 3-inch (7.6 cm) lines into the blowout preventer that sits on top of the wellhead. This would first restrict the flow of oil from the well, which then could be sealed permanently with cement.^[127] The top kill procedure, approved by the Coast Guard on May 25, commenced at 1 p.m. CDT on May 26 and, according to BP sources, while failure could be evident in minutes or hours it may take "a day or two" before its success could be determined. ^[128] On May 27, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is coordinating the government response, indicated that engineers had succeeded in stopping the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico. He further stated that the well still had low pressure, but cement would be used to cap the well permanently as soon as the pressure hit zero.^[129] However, BP officials said it was not possible to tell how far down the well the mud may have reached and declined to speculate on the odds of actually stopping the flow. "We have some indications of partial bridging which is good news. I think it's probably 48 hours before we have a conclusive view."^[130] On May 29, BP announced that the attempt to plug the ruptured oil well had failed.^[131]

^{the above taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill}

possible to build up a simple room, on the sea-floor, made of a certain number of thin and rigid walls, put together automatically, all around the well head, valves and so on, and with a ceiling dome that closes everything inside it

your simple room made up of thin walls would be crushed at 2,325 pounds per square inch.

all around the well head, valves and so on

There is no well head, the leak is coming from a ractured pipe and leaking in 2 places.

What does "refundation" mean ?

Thank you for your suggestions. Sorry for my poor English, I don't speak very often your language.To me, "Refundation" could mean to create a fund by selling that recovered oil and to use it for all the expenses that U.S. may have, without being submitted to B.P.

Regarding the pressure and all the already attempts to close the spillage, I must say that I followed all the story and I don't mind about that big water pressure over the floor. I just would know what the oil pressure is and then I will give you the dimensions of the two rooms needed to stop the gushing: at first estimation I could say that it could be sufficient 20squared meters of floor surface: not that big house. The right stiff structure is very simple to manufacture (even with that pressure...don't worry!).

They put a dome on the well and this didn't work as planned. In my case, the dome will be the last thing to put on, and perhaps the effect of the pressurized oil flow will create also the suction of eveything is deposited on the sea-floor (oil plumes), if well arranged that way.

I have some preparation about aeronautical and mechanical things: so, please, comfort me about this idea! Bye

I'm sorry, but BP already tried a heavy-walled enclosure like this. A flimsy thin-walled structure would fail even faster.

Authoritative data, and even good estimates, have not been made available. Nonetheless, some preliminary calculations can be made that will indicate the basic scale of this problem. The lack of such calculations leads to the many cockamamie ideas that have been proposed on these oil threads.

The problem is not well understood by the vast majority of people, including people who have a working knowledge of somewhat similar situations. This is due in large part to insufficient and erroneous information being released about the nature of the problem.

A couple comments have noted the ambient pressure at the sea floor due to the depth. That pressure actually works to decrease the flow rate of oil, however the ambient pressure is a small fraction of the pressure that is ejecting the oil. A couple estimates have the pressure around 70,000 PSI.

It will be very difficult to pump anything into a rupture with tens of thousands of PSI driving an abrasive mixture of sand and hydrocarbons in the opposite direction.

This well is very deep, and as is common when drilling, the structures that were containing the oil under pressure, were purposely fractured to 'unplug' the oil. Those rock formations, the structures that were shattered, are kind of similar to the concrete at the base of a huge dam (Hoover?), only the pressure of the oil is many times greater . Once a dam is fractured and fluid is flowing, the task of stopping it gets more difficult as time goes on.... until the reservoir is drained.

The sad truth is that most of the Gulf of Mexico as well as the US Atlantic Coast up to around Nag's Head and Myrle Beach, will probably not recover within the lifetime of many people reading this.

My more pessimistic side says this may eventually trigger hyperinflation in food prices, water shortages/rationing, and civil unrest and possibly worse with millions migrating away from the coast as a result of no employment and nothing to eat.

I live in Florida currently. I am actively planning to relocate in the short term. Lest you think I am an alarmist, two cops I know are burying a survival stash inclusive of unregistered weapons after being told to be ready to be ready to go house to house to confiscate gun, a la Katrina.....

....or maybe if you just accept the 'news' from the major networks, and go back to sleep, you will wake up and it will all have just been a bad dream...

Yeah, right.

b.b.b.

relax, the gulf stream will take it just past Florida, meet up with the Antilles drift and and then freight train it straight towards the Atlantic drift and Iceland......It will make a mess as it rubs on Fla. and Cuba though.

My guess and I am NOT an expert ,is that the east coast will get some globs and sticky beach fronts but the Stream has it in its grip now and any open water commercial fisherman ( pre-GPS days) will tell you that the big under sea globs are onboard one of the strongest currents in the 7 Seas.

A strong hurricane negates all of this.

nm

Thank you for your advice suggesting to 'relax'. That is almost always good advice, as stressing out rarely allows one to make the best decisions in critical times. I appreciate the intent of your advice, even though I am and have been relaxed and relatively calm while evaluating increasingly alarming data.

In contrast, I cannot commend the reasoning you provide for your advice. Your basis for suggesting 'relax', has nothing to do with maintaining a clear head with which to make the best decisions, but instead on very positive yet vague assertions with a couple terms in bold thrown in (Antilles and Atlantic Drift) to add credibility to the (self described) guess of a non-expert.

Stop listening to the official story. It probably have a much larger effect for a much longer time.

A couple of points.....

1. It is still spilling. All efforts to stop it have failed. The flow rate is likely 70,000 barrels per day plus or minus 20%. I have seen estimates (from people who have no use for a disclaimer asserting they are 'NOT an expert') that we may be dealing with trying to cap pressures on the order of tens of Kpsi.

2. Even if as you say 'the Stream has it in its grip' this does not mean that all of it or even most of it is leaving the gulf anytime soon. Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Mexico as well as numerous Caribbean nations will certainly suffer from the loss of industry related to fishing as well as tourism. A significant food source is now severely impacted for years to come.

3. The gulf stream 'rubs' up against not only Florida and Cuba, but also Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina where it bumps out from the coast, diverges and heads for Newfoundland, Iceland, Greenland, Great Britain, and Africa among other places...

4. Again, it hasn't been stopped yet.

5. If you still believe that the impact will be minor, please review #1 and #4 on this list.

Although many would rather you go back to sleep, it is important to take note. Telling the story with rosy, if erroneous, wording, and calculating the oil flow from only what can be seen on the surface (while ignoring the EPA order to cease dumping the highly toxic dispersant to sink the oil) may make it easier for you to relax, right up until you realize your desire not to worry has made you complicit in the deception of yourself.

Read the news with a critical eye. Most of the nonsense isn't really plausible. Try to review some sources of news from other countries. Any lastly, relax.

B.b.b

Thank you.

I am not convinced the TV and news print are reporting as much as they should. I am now relying on the words and thoughts of fishermen who have experience in tides , currents and flow.

The Gulf Stream will pull this mess up and away but yes you are correct, it will rub against a lot of coastline. My comments were rather relaxed.

However, thinking this will cause civil unrest and we should start burying guns and food are not productive either.

I certainly do not believe the economical impact will be slight. I am in the net making business. Want to venture a guess as to how many orders I have for commercial nets ??

I am an Non Expert. I said so. But I have spent an awful lot of time on the water in these areas and know that the spill was only 48 miles out from South Pass La. but it took almost 30 days to reach land....due to the GS and the Westerly Drift which is barely mentioned but well known by every shrimper from Key Wset to Brownsville.

You are again correct and probably much smarter than I am . the spill is continuing and will continue right up until the first pristine Florida beach is fouled and then we will see a solution .

No offense podna'. I'm just talking out loud like everybody else. But I've weathered several big hurricanes, floods, fires at sea and at least one shoot 'em up riot in a foreign country and I weathered them by staying calm and relaxed, even when i scared like I am now

Thank you for your straight forward comments.

PS

The Antilles Drift will keep most of teh Caribbean safe and after the US beaches and estuaries are contaminated, the Central American shrimp, fish and aquaculture business will thrive like it never has in the past decade. Can we say Pond raised Penaeus setiferus???

Thank you.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I was perhaps not as relaxed as I claimed when I responded to your comment. I certainly could have been less combative.

You and I have very different views of the most probable outcomes. I hope that I have been unreasonably negative in my analysis, and that things progress more in the way you describe.

Congratulations on maintaining business with new orders sufficient to make you proud. I hope that your business and the Gulf both weather this disaster with ease.

B.b.b

No offense taken.

I tend to make simplicity of serious matters as a defense mechanism. It has seen me through many disasters.

You are correct though....I may not be as in-the know as I think. Its just when i see all of this high tech equipment and the most industrial country in the world being defeated by a 7" pipe, I tend to go back to the Ol' Skool way of thinking.

My business will survive because we are very small and can adapt quickly. We also do not rely on any handouts from the government. We make it or we break it by ourselves.

No offense taken. You were correct, my views were simplistic and I am not an expert.

sa va bien mon amis.

By the way, that aquaculture sea food business i was speaking of was NOT going to impact us by 1 single $$$ dollar.

Its all going to be outsourced through Central, South American net shops ( good for them) and a US middle man will sell it at high prices to seafood starved Americans.

No, mon amis, there will be no business for any USA net makers from that location. But that is business and they will take advantage of the situation to make a living . Nothing wrong with entreprenuership.

In fact, our own government might just send some "technicians" down there ( on our tax dollars)to make sure they do it right!

Oh Boy....dispersant fumes are making me goofy..........here's my plan.

Lets remember, I make nets....so take it easy when you start ripping up my idea. I am NOT professing this will work. I don't know....I'm just putting in my thoughts.

Steel rod frame 30' across x 20-25' high and with a 6'-8' top opening.

No concrete, no tonnage...just covered vinyl tarp material sewn in . ( Boat type tarp) 20-24 oz. weight. Trust me, it is very strong.

Spliced 4" purse line rings could hold the bottom hoop where you want it....5,10, 15 meters away from the surge of the plume. I don't know. Safety snaps can be handled by the rov (?).

* If not, put in a Dead Head splice at the desired depth along the guy lines and to stop it ,drop Tom Weights down the lines to force it down on the Dead Heads.It might give a little and that is good....flexible....not rigid....

Anchors on 3-4 cables or 12 strand Amsteel 3/4" would support it. * I have replaced most cables on most every tow line I use on deepwater gear with Dyneema 12 ( Amsteel) or Plateena 12 strand.

Instead of fighting the water and oil pressure, back it up just enough to catch MOST of the plume. Its an Accelerator funnel... we use them all the time made of webbing.

At some point away from the leak you all said in other forums the pressure would subside as it works its way through the water.

So, let the oil leak do the work. As most of the plume goes into the funnel won't it create a venturi effect or something akin to that?

NO, IT WON'T CATCH IT ALL, BUT THEN NOTHING ELSE HAS???

Suction could be applied...(?) and at some point the tube can be cut off, allowing the water and oil to escape. Even if the oil spread out 1/2 mile or so, it would still be in a more closed area to skim then the present 1 -20 miles diameter.

* there is an easy shock absorbing anchoring system made with some dyneema line, a steel strap, a few shackles and big @$$ tractor tire....in the event concern comes with bad weather and the oil tanker has to come back to port. Once again, don;t fight a 30' sea....sink your gear underwater and let the weather pass. Its how the Japanese do with their giant fish pens. And yes, I've built some that weathered mild typhoons....well one at least.

Instead of steel tubing, use a 8' wide vinyl tube like the geo-tubes used to make beach front walls . These geo tubes are very flexible and tough.

In net design I always try and NOT fight the water but try to design gears that flow with it. The Japanese master net builders I worked with were heavily influenced by the Aikido theory. I use it in all of my best net designs.

I am NOT an engineer...not even close ...but my business is making things go fast and evenly in water .......its just a thought on this. Quit fighting so hard to conquer the pressure and instead use it to fight itself.

** My concerns would be that the vinyl geo tube material may collapse when suction is applied. In a short stretch we would insert a Spring steel hoop every few feet to support it open..... I guess the same applies here(?)

Now go ahead and rip up my theory. I will view it as a good lesson either way. No offense will be taken for honest commentary from reputable sources.Its ok....after 36 years of marriage I'm used to it! HA ! HA!

nm

you know last year we had a contributor Bruce Marshall who was awarded a patent for a hydrothermal vent scheme. I think that some of the methods of capturing energy from seafloor vents has a parallel to the issues of this problem. (there are some schematics under the 'how it works' link on his site.

Chris

I saw it on TV. His first attempt failed when the 'tube' tore up.

His concept worked for a short while. He needs to use a higher grade and reinforced material and/or encase his tube in a netting frame work designed to hold the tube and not allow twisting and so much stretching.

I'd have liked to had a small input on that project. It is very workable.

On my idea, the 'tube' can be replaced with corrogated plastic pvc so it does NOT collapse as well as being encased in a net sack covering for added strength.

It just struck me as something no one tried. As far as water movement and such ......what the heck do I know. Just read the post from Guest. He'll corroborate that.

Thank you.

nm

MY CORRECTION!

This was NOT the guy. The apparatus I saw was made with flexible 'tarp' cloth and was used for bringing up cold water and plankton to near the surface.

My bad. Guest was correct again. I am not as much in-the-know as I thought.

nm

Hi: I have said this before and sent the idea to bp and i know you are not supposed to repeat yourself on cr4 and i believe the squeaky wheel gets replaced not fixed but i just had to respond to your post. Yes i believe it should not that hard to stop this leak. I also believe that a device has to evolve that will be present on all of these drill rigs to put into action for future oil leaks. I think if you paint the underside of the ice black at the poles it will cause the stuff to melt very fast and where will we be then. My idea was similar to yours except i wanted to freeze to the sea floor using liquid nitrogen within self powered augers that drilled in as far as they could or how long there were and then piped the nitrogen into the hollow augers freezing the sea floor regardless of surface roughness or slope or anomalies. Now you have a cage locked to the sea floor over the leak and you commence to build the walls of that cage with ice from the sea floor and up to make the containment. All the while the top tube is in place and connected to the barge on the surface. Is it impossible to get liquid nitrogen down there in a recirculating system that can maintain the ice wall?

I'm with you and I actually thought that the first attempt they made was the best idea. But when they had mentioned a "dome" I had featured something mush more massive. Although what they had concocted weighed in excess of 60 tons or so as I understand, it was too damn small with what would have seemed to me not nearly enough volume to contain much pressure for even a short amount of time. I'm sure the pressures are nearly unimaginable but had it been able to be contained for a long enough time it may have sought the controlled release they were hoping for and I think it might have worked. Seemed it was the coyote/roadrunner type of mentality. Never try the same thing twice- even though with another 20' of rope you'd have nabbed him. Seems to me that with the engineering experise that's out there in this world, someone should be able to come up with something. I'm no engineer but if you are for crying out loud put your head to it!

It is difficult to realise how hostile the situation is, and the volumes involved.

I have submitted my idea (more than once!) but to no effect.
A simple metal fabrication could seal these leaks and be an "off the shelf item"
A sketch is below, for the clamp units, actioned like "tongs"

The air tank (bag) is used because:
a) it does not have to be any where close to a leak.
It can be much nearer the surface; and, air is (relatively) easy and cheap to pump.
b) immense clamping pressure can be created by the buoyancy of the tank. (bag)
Which can be easily installed, maintained, increased, or removed, for the clamp,
and also could support the positioning of the unit, which could be thrown overboard!

The design of the clamp, which is (relatively) a very easy fabrication, would
stay insitue, as naturally formed around the pipe. The seals on the inside, with
the bracing (strengthening) ribs on the outside, bonding like a clam to the pipe,
it being specifically sized to fit around that particular pipe.

These units can be stock items; ready for use "off the shelf" sized to fit the pipes.
BP could have dummy "runs" to practice the fitting of these units, within hours.
They could even have one or two "down there" - ready for such an emergency.
With colapsed air tanks (bags) onboard ships for immediate use. (good pr.)
(Gee, please wake up BP)

These are cheap to make, to fit, to maintain, and, it could be implemented
almost by almost anyone. Hope the oil companies please consider it.

jt.

A salesman is trying to sell a Gatling gun to the king, during his middle ages battle;
The king says to him, "DON'T trouble me now, can't you see I have a battle to win!"

Your idea is good; but, what about the real shape of the point where is the leakage?

Then, have you thought about the time to last with the air pressure acting on the clamps, while the oil pressure continues being very high?

My idea, instead, is of a simple two or three circular walls, joint together around the wellhead and with a cap that closes the room, leaving the oil to flow in another tubing. Around this room there is a bigger one filled with air, instead of water. The solution gives a way to control the oil pressure, because of the larger area submitted to the water pressure.My research told me that the maximum difference would be about 3 sq.m. to 1 for the two rooms.

This way gives also the opportunity to create a suction, with a tube placed outside and inserted in the oil tubing, so the oil plumes could be sucked and brought on the tanker. To this regard, I don't think that it is feasible to put plastic, rubber or similar materials as tubing, because the depression created by the oil flow will destroy them.

Perhaps, my idea or most of it could be useful even if B.P. will be able to stop the spillage with its actual solution.

Hi Rocbu,

My idea is only an emergency measure, with sized, prepared units, available
on site at nominal cost. (like a fire extinguisher, not needed until....)

A band aid if you like!

jt

They need a 38' casing down to 30' with a v shaped hard rubber seal at the bottom a valve on top close the valve. the pressure pushes the seal down around the smaller part of the pipe to seal between the 30' pipe and the pipe with oil leak. To keep it there it will have six pins pushed in above the seal by hyd. press. to hold from being blown off. Its not a simple task but it can be done.

Sorry, but I have some difficulty to understand american speaking. As far as I understood, are you suggesting to make a casing, like that room proposed by me, around the valve where the broken pipe is? Then this room is closed by means of the water pressure acting on a larger area?

Please, try to explain to me your project in more simple words, thank you.