ATS: Do you have a Novel Solution to the Gulf Oil Spill?

COLLECTIVE THOUGHT



When enough people focus thoughts at the exact same time on closing the riser pipe and stopping the flow of oil from earth it will be. This must be done at the same time. Enough people might mean everyone on earth. Could we ever put aside what we are doing to unite on one thing? Is Mother Nature going to force us to unite? Did man wake a sleeping giant by continuously raping the planet?

TOG

I think that detonating low yield nukes in the bedrock near the well is the only way to stop it.

reply to post by Sri Oracle


This disaster has been referred to as the "American Chernobyl" already. I fear greatly the consequences of a continued spill. My suggestion is simple: stem the flow by encasing it in an underwater sarcophagi as was done in Russia. Underwater cement has been used for many years now. Emergency measures are demanded now.

I've got it. The pressure must be reduced. Think of a 5000 long prophylactic, with a high strength collar at one end and a controlled opening at the other. Make the circumference of the whole thing about 50 or 100 yards.

Drop the un-cinched apparatus over the flow. When it gets below the depth of the leak, you the clamp the collar down, cinch the opening into the collar. Take your biggest sticking tanker hook it up to the surface end. Sure, you will then have a giant "Oil Bladder" in the middle of the Gulf, but it will give you time and at that volume, there should be a reasonable amount of time to work with. You may want to keep that bladder a couple hundred feet below the surface to protect against hurricanes, but that should give us something to work with. Just saying.

I live in New orleans so I've gotten a ton of information on the spill. I have a few ideas.

1. Worlds largest buttplug.

2. Not being terribly familliar with oil drilling I would tend to think some sort of metal dome with piping attatched at the top. Lower it down over the hole after the existing piping is pulled, and make an attempt to cap it off. Drain the oil to aleviate pressure. Not sure what the weight of the dome would have to be to avoid being blown off by the geyser, but I'd assume it could eventually be drilled into place.

3. Once the leak is contained via the dome, Fuel-Air bomb on the slick. Completely and totally incinerate it.

WOW...

Thank you for your thoughts... I didn't expect ten pages so quickly... I'll admit I've only read through page 6; but I'll finish up before I retire for the evening.

For the moment, it seems to me like the drop a cone (dome/container) idea is the plan of choice by the powers that be; at least for the "patch solution"

www.reuters.com...
BP says no guarantee dome will stem U.S. oil leak

98-ton steel "containment chamber" [] will be lowered by cable to the site of the leak

So this is my question:


As a matter of policy, why is there not a 100 ton prefabricated dome aboard every single one of the 3,000 active gulf oil rigs sitting ready at a moments notice to be lowered over top of the well head?


Hindsight... sure... but I think it is a very fair bit of "questioning authority".

If domes are the "science" behind capturing a blowout on the sea floor, shouldn't there be one of these devices available immediately at every location like a fire extinguisher, instead of 2 weeks of custom fabrication and several million gallons later?

And if you say every location would be cost prohibitive (which I doubt in the scheme of things) then maybe not at every active rig... but where would we be right now if there were 50 such domes prefabbed in various sizes from 40 tons to 1,000 tons sitting on any of the several thousand abandoned oil platforms or anchored barges waiting to be dispatched to an emergency in the gulf by tug/barge and crane?



I'm the last one to support big oil... but if we have to drill, I believe prefabbed domes would be a wise item to force oil companies to keep on hand.

Again... thank you all again for your responses. I do hope that brain storming mission here at ATS can be a help to the desperate situation facing the gulf coast ecosystem. This situation is far from over... lets keep attacking if from all angles:

Solutions to the slick
Solutions to the leak
Solutions to the cleanup effort
...and future policy solutions.

Sri Oracle

Originally posted by DaddyBare
Once again I have to mess up all your bright shinny ideas with an ugly fact...
It's not some open hole on the sea floor...
What happened is when the rig sank it took with it a mile of riser pipe... that's the pipe coming up from the sea floor to the rig above...

So laying on the sea floor is one mile of bent twisted pipe... that's where the leak is coming from... in fact its not one but three leaks, along three sections of that pipe...

That doesn't make sense! How can steel pipe bend in 3 different locations to cause 3 different leaks? Steel normally bends and fractures in 1 point and according to many officials the fracture is located exactly on the sea-bed.

The funnel they are building will overlap the broken pipe and hole, then additional pipe will be attached to the funnel opening to lead the oil upwards where oil tankers will be stationed to collect it. That is what I read and that is what I believe.

Originally posted by DrJay1975
I live in New orleans so I've gotten a ton of information on the spill. I have a few ideas.

1. Worlds largest buttplug.

2. Not being terribly familliar with oil drilling I would tend to think some sort of metal dome with piping attatched at the top. Lower it down over the hole after the existing piping is pulled, and make an attempt to cap it off. Drain the oil to aleviate pressure. Not sure what the weight of the dome would have to be to avoid being blown off by the geyser, but I'd assume it could eventually be drilled into place.

3. Once the leak is contained via the dome, Fuel-Air bomb on the slick. Completely and totally incinerate it.

Its probably impossible to cap-off the fuel leak due to the tremendous pressure the oil is rising out of the ground. I think the only solution is to lead the oil upwards and contain it in barges and ships.

As for the current oil slicks that cannot be contained, yeah burn it but I am not sure how well floating crude oil burns. Is it even possible?

reply to post by Sri Oracle


Great post!

The fact they need to hand-build one from scratch tells me one of three things: (1)Oil companies are so arrogant about their drilling capabilities they figure disasters never happen. (2)They are TOO CHEAP to take any pre-cautionary measures and be able to deal with emergencies (3)The disaster was planned and executed to perfection.

Either way, IT'S CRIMINAL OUTRAGE!!!

[edit on 6-5-2010 by EarthCitizen07]

If this funnel idea works, then you can bet they'll have a handful of these things sitting around in Tx, and La waiting to head out in case of a similar accident again. This type of accident doesn't happen very often at all, and as far as I know never at this depth so they weren't ready for it, it's as simple as that. Next time, they'll have a plan. That's usually how disaster planning works, you don't find a solution to a problem until you've dealt with that type of problem before.

A Giant Screw Plug

Not sure if anyone else thought of this but here goes.

Very heavy, very large, very sharp, tapered and spiraled, spun into the hole by some force maybe rockets and gravity. The well head would probably have to be removed first. A leak stop kit only on a giant scale.

TOG

I'm not a geologist i'm a mechanic. Heres my thoughts. The drill head is in a deposit of oil. Why not drill a hole into the deposit and fill it with some kind of foam or hydrolic cement? When you open a hot radiator under pressure, antifreeze rushes out of the radiator due to the atmospheric pressure difference similar to the open hole in the pipe. Pump in a sealer of sorts until it finds it's way to the source of the leak, similar to stop leak. Sorry but thats the best I have. Edit to add that now you have created a new hole. Ah, I got nothing.

[edit on 6-5-2010 by JMech]

Originally posted by JMech
Why not drill a hole into the deposit and fill it with some kind of foam or hydrolic cement?

I believe this is the purpose of the "relief well" which will take 90 days to drill. They intend to close off the wellhead with "heavy fluid" or specialized concrete, but apparently the physics of the situation requires that 1) there be a relief in pressure from the bottom of the well and 2) the "heavy fluid" also needs to be delivered near the bottom; else it will just blow out... bottom line... thats 3 months out.

Sri

Originally posted by Torch of God
A Giant Screw Plug

Very heavy, very large, very sharp, tapered and spiraled, spun into the hole by some force maybe rockets and gravity.

The well head would probably have to be removed first.

I like your plan... however as I understand, the removal of the well head would increase the flow rate from the current 5,000-25,000 barrels per day to over 100,000 barrels per day. OUCH.

(I also like your size=6 code for new ideas )

What are your thoughts on a

GIANT CRIMPING TOOL

???

Something that could be lowered to the bottom of the ocean and work to crimp the line shut under intense hydraulic pressure.

also...

Why do we only have several hundred thousand feet of oil boom on hand?

why not a:

MANDATED MINIMUM

1500 MILES OF OIL BOOM

ON HAND

80,000 feet of boom was deployed during the day. This brought the total length of boom now deployed to protect the shore to over 100 miles.

www.bp.com...

Oil companies or our coast guard should be prepared to protect the entire national coastline (or at least a really long strip of it) from off shore spills... not just 100 miles of coast... that's really petty in the scheme of things... No? Perhaps there might-should-be an annual protect-the-coast-safety-drill whereby this 1500 miles of boom was deployed in less than 24 hours.

Exxon Mobil reported the largest annual profit in US history Friday, making $45.22 billion

money.cnn.com...

Oil giant BP has reported [] Its replacement cost profit for 2009 was $13.96bn

news.bbc.co.uk...

methinks there might be room in the budget...

Sri



[edit on 7-5-2010 by Sri Oracle]

Originally posted by liquidself My suggestion is simple: stem the flow by encasing it in an underwater sarcophagi as was done in Russia.

Could you provide a date/location and link?

Thanks,

Sri

Originally posted by SG-17
I think that detonating low yield nukes in the bedrock near the well is the only way to stop it.

Do you have any links to evidence of what effect such a nuke would have in either "glassing over the surface" or to what depth it would disturb the mud/soil of the ocean floor??? How deep would the nuke need to disturb the ocean floor/well head in order to cap it off? I've heard suggestions of drilling down a few hundred/thousand feet and then nuking at that level along side gusher. There is definitely the possibility of a nuke making things worse if improperly deployed don't you think?

Thanks,

Sri

Originally posted by filosophia
If BP is paying to clean up, I think they should be in charge since this is their operation.[] Why should the executive branch be handling any of this?

When you get rear ended by someone in a car accident, does the person that rear ends you get final say in the way your car gets repaired?

Nope. Your car gets fixed in a timely manner by "your people" and the bill gets handed over to "their people". If "their people" own a reputable auto body shop... then you (the injured party) have the choice to work with them.

I see a conflict of interest with the outlook you propose.

I do believe this is a moment where "of, by, and for" should be in charge.

BP needs to be doing as their told... or get out of the way and wait for a bill.

BP just rear ended my new Lexus.

Sri Oracle

Originally posted by Now_Then
Loads and loads of thermite with tones and tonnes of silicone (silica sand bags?) and lead... Stuff that will melt under the heat.

What you do is lay massive thermite charges around the hole, then you pack / dump as much silica sand bags and lead as you can on top of this, set the thermite off and voilà! As soon as the thermite burns out the very cold water down there will solidify the lead and sand into a plug.

I like this plan... we'll call it:

The

THERMITE, LEAD, and SILICA

SOLUTION

Perhaps we should be testing something like this; determining what granular size of silica/lead works best.... determine the proper ratio of thermite to make an instant solid of the lead/silica at that depth.

This sounds like a project the military should be researching. (at BP's expense of course)

Sri

[edit on 7-5-2010 by Sri Oracle]

Here's my solution:


The Concrete Barge

Build a gigantic barge out of concrete, high enough to make it float. Seal the top and connect supply tubes so it can be filled with more concrete. Tow it out and place it directly over the leak.

Bring in a bunch of tankers with more concrete, start pumping it into the closed barge. Once it's heavy enough it will sink right down onto the hole and cover it.

Originally posted by ethancoop
If this funnel idea works, then you can bet they'll have a handful of these things sitting around in Tx, and La waiting to head out in case of a similar accident again. This type of accident doesn't happen very often at all, and as far as I know never at this depth so they weren't ready for it, it's as simple as that. Next time, they'll have a plan. That's usually how disaster planning works, you don't find a solution to a problem until you've dealt with that type of problem before.

I am sorry but explanations of this kind just don't cut it with me.

When your an OIL GIANT such as BP and make TENS OF BILLIONS of dollars A YEAR in profit, you damm better make sure you have 99% of all emergency protocols COVERED!

Waiting for a disaster to happen before exploring different techniques is both amateurish and irresponsible. I am sure most posters on ATS will agree with me. Yes I am very pissed off and I don't even live anywhere near the gulf coast. Our enviroment is more important than oil will EVER BE! If the gusher continues unabated for 2-3 months you can bet thousands of marine animals will die and worst of all the salinity of the ENTIRE OCEAN will change.