'Top kill' planned to stop oil leak

Originally posted by The Theorist
I have significant doubts about this 'top kill' they're talking about. I keep hearing percentages thrown around that are making me nervous.

Agreed. FYI:

BP CEO Rates Chances of ‘Top Kill’ Success at About 70 Percent

www.businessweek.com...

If this fails, my understanding is that they move to "junk kill" which has been described as
extremely risky and and "all or nothing" procedure.

Originally posted by trader21
Here is a youtube video with what looks like to me a good idea of how to stop the Gulf oil leak.

(1) Make a clean cut of the pipe on the bottom without any jagged edges, (2) attach another pipe to it that has an installed opened valve, and (3) after the new pipe is completely attached then close the valve.

www.youtube.com...

That seems viable as does this from a link @ gcaptain:

www.wehdeinteractive.com...

And to confirm the are concurrently drilling two relief wells.

24 MILES OF LOUISIANA IS DEAD.



[edit on 26-5-2010 by Vitchilo]

Federal On-Scene Coordinator Rear Admiral Mary Landry, acting on the validation of government scientists and in consultation with the National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen, has granted approval for BP to begin proceeding with their attempt to cap the well using the technique known as the “top kill.”

This expedited step provides the final authorization necessary to begin the procedure.

Source

Scientists believe there is a second outlet

The leak being Top Killed today is one of two, and is the tiny one. There is another leak with much more toxic (dark) oil underneath a large plume, accounting for the estimated 120,000 barrels of gushing oil per day.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

There's a guy named Simmons that says this flow could last for years.

I think if anything else this should be proof that there is no oil shortage.

Live feed of the "top kill" operation can be seen here.
www.cnn.com...

So far after 3 hours it is not working.

Originally posted by Jessicamsa
I think if anything else this should be proof that there is no oil shortage.

There is no oil shortage in supply, and the production is ahead of schedule for future predictions based on population growth.

The ideal solution is to replace crude oil drills with reformers. Eliminate the need for crude oil wells. Use alternative energy to power the reformers. The reformers can supply a compatible gasoline solution without the need for crude oil.

Solyndra, funded under the Recovery Act, manufactures quick install photovoltaic cylinder arrays. They have manafactured equivalent of 120 MegaWatts a year, and have two new plants in construction. One produces 500 MegaWatts per year (in products).



There is the possible power for the reformers.

[edit on 26-5-2010 by dzonatas]

Fox News has a story about the U.S. Coast Guard giving the go ahead to BP for "top kill", and the story gives much information about what happened and why.

Here is an excerpt from the article.

The oil giant's chief executive earlier gave the procedure a 60 to 70 percent chance of working, and President Barack Obama cautioned Wednesday there were "no guarantees."

This actually means there is a 40-50% rate of success if not less.

Let's continue.

Witness statements obtained by The Associated Press show senior managers complained BP was "taking shortcuts" the day of the explosion by replacing heavy drilling fluid with saltwater in the well that blew out.

You see, normally the mud engineer of the rig is the one that decides how thick the mud, or drilling fluid must be, and he makes this decision based on the formation being drilled, and the downhole pressure, meanwhile causing the least damage to the producing formation as it is being drilled.

The mud engineer is the person that knows best how thick the drilling fluid (mud) has to be, but in this case and in some others, the company man who really normally doesn't have the knowledge and, or the experience of the mud engineer decided that he knew better.

Normally the company man only has the experience of having worked for years, or even decades as a roghneck, a toolpusher, and or possibly as a driller, but many of them don't have the knowledge and experience of the mud engineer, yet I have dealt with, and known company men who think they know everything when they don't.

Any experienced crew of an oil rig will tell you that even after years of working oil rigs they don't know everything and you get to learn new things, and experience problems which are new even to the most experienced crew.

Anyway, the reason why this company man wanted to take shortcuts is because company men get bonuses if a well is completed before schedule, and they get BIG bonuses...

Anyway, let's keep reading.

"I overheard upper management talking saying that BP was taking shortcuts by displacing the well with saltwater instead of mud without sealing the well with cement plugs, this is why it blew out," Crawford said in his statement. BP declined to comment.

The statements show workers talked just minutes before the blowout about pressure problems in the well. At first, nobody seemed too worried: The chief mate for Transocean left two crew members to deal with the issue on their own.

What began as a routine pressure problem, however, suddenly turned to panic. The workers called bosses to report a situation, with assistant driller Stephen Curtis telling one senior operator that the well was "coming in." Someone told well site leader Donald Vidrine that they were "getting mud back." The toolpusher, Jason Anderson, tried to shut down the well.
It didn't work. Both Curtis and Anderson died in the explosion.

At a hearing in New Orleans on Wednesday, Douglas Brown, the Deepwater Horizons chief mechanic, testified about what he described as a "skirmish" between someone he called the "company man" -- a BP official -- and three other employees during a meeting the day of the explosion.

www.foxnews.com...

This company man should be jaiiled, and fined for what he did...

"Hayride sources indicate that today’s effort at a “top kill” of the Macondo gusher carries with it gigantic stakes for BP – as if no measurable progress is made on the spill through that method, President Obama will announce when he comes to New Orleans on Friday that the federal government will seize control of the response from BP and turn it over to the U.S. Navy.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus has reportedly floated the idea of sinking a battleship directly on top of the Macondo well in order to drop 80,000 tons on it and crush the drill pipe and the blowout preventer alike.

We haven’t confirmed it yet, but that’s the word floating around Louisiana’s state capitol today."
www.breakdownofamerica.com...’t-work-u-s-navy-to-take-over-spill-the-hayride

[edit on 26-5-2010 by irishchic]

I need to repeat what I heard on my last little vacation...
I hope and pray, what I heard was a derogatory joke....

A friend of the family coast gaurd man of many years claims that in top kill, the thick heavy fluid is nothing more than wet almost dry lumpy, concrete, he even went as far as to ssay there was hundreds of thousands if not millions of golf balls in it too....

I my self have messed with some very very high pressures and size...
Like for example, an 18 inch..its actually metric but 18" is close enough for me..hydraulic ram/hose for a large crane, everyone saying , just attach another pipe, go outside and crack open a fire hydrant and then try to put on the hose...it is not easy...not to mention the pressures we are speaking of here are huge as compared to our silly little water pressures..

But I have no answers either, and wish them luck...I truely hope its not concrete and golfballs.....god forbid it blows and rains golf balls all over the world, oh well the politicians would be happy.../sarcasm

I just took a screen cap of the live feed. Still gushing oil.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b98473a268a3.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by Erasurehead


I think that's mud. They're pumping like hell and that's the mud coming out of the top I think (hope).

7:20pm CDT... BP officials just held a news conference. They said the Top
Kill procedure is going as planned, but the CNN live feed show oil gushing
out as intensely as ever.

Why they would hold a news conference without some type of visual proof
that the procedure is working is a mystery.
-cwm

reply to post by Erasurehead



Yeah that looks like mud. It SEEMS they might have stopped it. Let's hope they did. The only problem is that we still have to clean up all the oil that was spilled into the gulf, which is well in its way to the North Atlantic conveyor belt. If nothing is done about that oil, it is going to slowly migrate north and will continue killing ocean animals and other biological lifeforms in the ocean.

Believe me guys, all these trials are for shows. Eventually they will say that the only option left is to use a nuclear bomb before things is too late. When that happen, people will die.