Possible Solution for Gulf Coast Oil Spill

No, no and no.

Why? Why? and Why? Please provide your reasons why you think it won't work?

Your suggestion is so outrageous as to be comical.

Supersonic vortex? Through 5,000 feet of water? Laser beams that penetrate water and seal well heads?

Seal well heads?

You have no concept of the scale of the outflow.

And potentially a 4th "no" for the 4th question.

Explode the wellhead

That could get the oil out faster

Since we are going wild here, what about a straw up into space idea?

With a long enough straw BP could suck the oil into space and worry about getting it down to earth later on.

With the reduced pressure the anti spill valve may also function and close.

Hell, photon torpedo.

Petroleum is lighter than water, but definitely NOT lighter than air!

You can theoretically 'suck' water up just over 10 meters. With a density roughly 0.7 g/cm^3, you could theoretically 'suck' petroleum up about 14 meters. That's pretty far from space!

Great idea!!

And it solves another problem as well: Global Warming.

With oil floating through space around the earth, less sunlight gets onto earth's atmosphere, cooling earth.

About the vortex idea. Oil is bursting out at around 2000 psi and 10 gallons per second. I don't think creating a vortex would have any influence.

What is needed, is a total weight of 60 tonnes into a 9 inch pipe. That means putting a solid concrete tube of 1 km long and 9 inch diameter into the pipe.

And that's technically not feasable.

BBEI:

You wrote: '... Oil is bursting out at around 2000 psi and 10 gallons per second. I don't think creating a vortex would have any influence.

What is needed, is a total weight of 60 tonnes into a 9 inch pipe. That means putting a solid concrete tube of 1 km long and 9 inch diameter into the pipe....'

Where are you getting these figures? Both figures are very low.

Multiple (non-BP) sources have provided estimates ranging from 30 gallons per second, up to 70 gallons per second.

The pressure figure is off by even more. Some estimates have the oil pressure approaching 70,000 PSI. The figure you quote of 2000psi, would have the flow going the other way (down hole)....the ambient pressure at 5000 ft under the surface exceeds 2200 PSI....

If you intended to suggest the oil is coming out at 2000psi greater than ambient, that still seems incredibly low. If the differential was that low, pumping heavy drilling fluid would have been able to overcome the pressure and form a slug to seal the leak, but it did not.

If you feel I am misinformed, and you have some sources for the numbers you quote, I am interested in learning more.

BBB

I never heard of a well that had 70,000 PSI. most blow out preventer's I have seen could not handle 70,000 PSI. From a pipe fitter's view this some kind of crazy pressure especially when some of the thickest (3-5" wall thickness SA 335 P22) pipe I have fooled with was rated for a couple thousand PSI. I know that welding on a crack or leak with even a pound of pressure is impossible so that pretty much eliminates under water welding which is not developed enough to make high pressure pipe welds as far as I know.

I don't think some people realize how much pressure 70000 PSI is and what it would take to stop it and then hold and control it. It is really no wonder BP is having a hard time dealing with this situation, as far as I know the equipment and tools they need to deal with 70000 PSI and the crushing pressure the sea has at those depths has not been invented yet and everything must be thought out and then fabricated as they go along.

When I worked in the gulf back in the early 80's the casing pipe we used was standard wall carbon steel pipe that cannot handle even half of this pressure. Does anyone know what the pipe material type and grade, Sch. or wall thickness etc. is or what kind of pump was used to try and pump mud into a well and to overcome that kind of pressure? I would like to get more information about the equipment BP is using here because It has to be cutting edge technology.

After reading that there is 70000 PSI oil coming from this well I have my doubts that anything short of drilling the relief wells would have a chance to stop this leak and I really wonder if these will work now. It is pretty easy to see how BP has spent 2 billion bucks now and even if they spend 4 billion or 20 billion it may not be enough to stop this leak. I think it may be time that we all ask who ever it is upstairs that we pray to for some help here because we as human beings may have a created problem that we are not smart enough to solve.

My best wishes go out to everyone at BP and all the contractors that must be working day and night to drill the wells, build the equipment, move it into position and all the other work it takes to implement these solutions/ideas. The gulf of Mexico is a very hot and humid place to work in at this time of the year so please keep up the hydration. It takes many strong men and women to keep it up when these ideas don't work and they have to start over trying to do the next fix without hesitation.

Here's a post with some more information about the casing

http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/584563/Re-Gulf-Spill-Likely-To-Get-Worse

What forces do you propose to use to create this downward flow?

It would be theoretically possible to send a laser beam through a mile of fiber-optic cable, but the losses would be significant. What would you do with the beam, besides cut the pipe?

Ion and electron beams are only possible in a vacuum, so totally scratch those!

Should this vortex be clockwise or counter-clockwise?

I think you have it all wrong. BP is testing out a new way to drill oil. Now you see they don't need pipes to bring the oil to the surface. Brilliant!! Now they do need to work on being neater when the oil gets to the surface.

It's good to think laterally, but reality will always be the final judge - and that one is not real !! - the strong views of some respondents are the voice of that reality.

But it did get me thinking.

According to my back-of-envelope calculations, if the oil flow is a Exxon Valdez every 4 days, that's about 460,000 ft3 /day, and if the oil is flowing through a pipe of around 16 inches dia, the flow rate is around 4 feet a sec - not too fast.

So would it be possible to poke a (say) 10 inch pipe into the broken one and then explode it outward to make a seal.

The details to consider are numerous - uncontrolled follow-on explosion, fluid hammer, physical retention of the exploded inner pipe when it seals, having adequate ductility in the expanding pipe (super-plastic material ? ) and strength etc. etc.

Perhaps there would be a need to have a two or three staged exploding pipe process to minimise fluid hammer and increase strength.

And of course, the problem of putting anything anywhere you want it when the scene is 5000 ft away.

Yep, the idea would be be difficult to implement, but hell nothing else has worked even close yet. They did use explosives to blow out land based oil well fires in the past - which is at least as left field as what I've just suggested.

FYI, it's a 21" pipe out of the riser. Pressure around 2500 psi to as high as 5000 psi.

A vortex, really..........well beam me up Scotty

Thanks for that. I guess that means that my calculated flow velocity is too high. !!!

Presumably the pressure is "static" so that this does not have to be fully overcome until the flow is fully stopped.....but that is quite some force on the "blocked end" of the pipe.

The key to my original questions were to foster discussion and find solutions. That's the only way scientists and engineers can propose new theories, perform new experiments, and increase the knowledge and technological base of the world. The world in which we live is ever-changing as new revolutionary breakthroughs and experiments expand upon long standing theroies and/or counter accepted science and engineering methods. TrevorM has provided an intelligent detailed response (as have many other users), by expanding on the questions I asked and proposing new ideas. I believe he is on the right track of inserting a pipeline into the existing wellhead area. Sure there are a lot of factors, but it's better to explore the possibilities than refute the ideas and deem them outlandish and proposterous. 60 years ago, space travel was not even possible for humans. Sealing a weelhead and the area destroyed around it and avoiding worldwide ecological damage seems like an impossible task today. But a few months from now, we will have found a solution-maybe derived from this online forum.

To answer the other questions posed. To oppose and overtake the upward pressure, one has to create a greater opposing downward pressure. Since the drilling was done in a circular downward motion, one would also consider using a counterclockwise circular flow at a higher pressure and a supersonic speed than what is coming up from the oil reservoir vertically. How you say, think of using an F-16 jet engine attached to a pipeline. Maybe the aeronautical engineers on this forum could assit with this.

In terms of the use of lasers, why not use the underwater robots (currently being used) to laser beam weld the fast kill section of pipe, once the flow has been stopped. There are a wealth of papers written by PhD's on this--just google it, if you don't believe me.

Thank you all for thinking outside of the containment box. I look forward to the comments and discussion.

Employ everyone on the coast to chew gum and to donate it into
a pipe down to the bottom, a couple of hundred ton should stop it.

(if we are in cuckoo land, all submissions count?)

jt.

Love thy neighbour, especially BP.

Oh, jeez...

Yep the last two would be like trying to stick a wet noodle up a mountain lion's rear end.

BP needs to buy a nuke sub, install a shaft with taper on end on the bottom of the sub. Then cruise down, center shaft over well pipe and "SIT ON IT UNTIL WE TELL THEM IT'S OK TO COME UP FOR AIR"

Another part of CR4 does old tyre stuff...

Drop old tyres over/near to the well--- rubber improvised as energy store?-- to carry out purposeful activity to address basic problem?

I am reminded of the old saying that power is nothing without control, leading on to a doctrine of adequate power and superior control...

S.

U.K.

I heard that the Russians have had a few of their wells crash and they would send down a tactcal nuke and seal it off...problem solved.

Shepster's 2 cents

This idea is not completely out of line, if those who have the technology in place would be willing to try it. And I hope those reading this (the younger ones) realize that the technology referred to is from the Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed "Star Wars," not the movies you grew up with. By the tone of some comments, one wonders.... Obviously, someone has to figure out a way to seal the wellhead as well as the sediments and rock around the wellhead, which cannot be easily done by conventional methods. Why not research the technology already created, regarding laser beams (and perhaps ion and electron beams), and see if something that exists could be used for sealing the wellhead? While some people joke about this, or make fun of genuine attempts to expand our knowledge base, many beings are suffering and dying. Perhaps this is a time for stretching our imaginations to find scientific and technological solutions, and working together to expand upon viable contributions. If a circular hole has been drilled in the ground, wouldn't a circular solution be necessary? Using a high intensity beam around and on the point of imminent flow seems more logical than putting a "containment box" around the oil, especially since most of it is well beyond feasible "containment." (That is, if you're trying to fix this and not just find a better way to contain oil so that further profits aren't lost.) By keeping the level of discussion as serious as this issue, maybe something helpful will come out of this.

Guys, I know this site is controversial, but do read this post, and also consider in your choice of options the possibility that the well is really crippled downhole (under the sea bed)?

IMO, the best solutions should be also which consider this possibility, as forcefully capping it, may only make things worse.

Here's a link for the graphic of the fail.

Just food for serious thought, everyone.

BP needs a solution, and fast. But most importantly, pray.

- langyaw

BP has already made their choice

drill 2 relief wells

the rest is just theater