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[sonerohi]

What I don't get is this: They had to drill the thing, yeah? So that means that somewhere in the world, a company makes big metal sticks the size of the hole, long enough to reach it. Why haven't we stuffed a fucking metal stick in it?

Because it'll get shot right back out?

lol@ Leafsnail

Put a boat on top of it or some shit. It's an oil spill, not Atlas.

[smjjames]

What I don't get is this: They had to drill the thing, yeah? So that means that somewhere in the world, a company makes big metal sticks the size of the hole, long enough to reach it. Why haven't we stuffed a fucking metal stick in it?

Because it'll get shot right back out?

lol@ Leafsnail

Put a boat on top of it or some shit. It's an oil spill, not Atlas.

Hrmm, isn't the pipe hole about the same size as the vent on the Death star? Lets get Luke Skywalker to send a torpedo down it!

[The Architect]

What I don't get is this: They had to drill the thing, yeah? So that means that somewhere in the world, a company makes big metal sticks the size of the hole, long enough to reach it. Why haven't we stuffed a fucking metal stick in it?

This may be the most rational idea from a non-technical person I've heard so far. Stick a gigantic metal stick down the long hole with a huge weight on it to counteract the pressure of the escaping oil. Hole sealed.

From my understanding: You'd need to cut the pipe off clean near the source, and you'd need to find a way to guide the gigantic metal plug into the hole with absolute precision while deep enough underwater to render the feat somewhat technically difficult. You could taper the end of the pipe, making the insertion rather simple. You could even put grooves in it that get steadily smaller toward the surface, allowing oil to escape up until the point when the full weight of the device comes to bear and cuts it off completely. Should the device fail, you'd have significantly less oil escaping as it would remain in place with the grooves partially exposed, and you could then possibly force it the rest of the way in.

[kuro_suna]

In addition to trying to get the rod in the hole while oil with enough pressure to explode a drilling rig is pouring out you wouldn't get it very far since theirs still a drill string and half closed BOP shear in the way.

[The Architect]

Ah, the drill string. I forgot about that.

The shear could be undercut, but the drill string remains a complete impasse.

[RAM]

What I don't get is this: They had to drill the thing, yeah? So that means that somewhere in the world, a company makes big metal sticks the size of the hole, long enough to reach it. Why haven't we stuffed a fucking metal stick in it?

Because it'll get shot right back out?

lol@ Leafsnail

Which is why I suggested balloons, they would need to be tough, maybe even mostly mechanical rather than flexible, but something that expands so that you only need to stick a comparatively narrow spike down.

[Greiger]

Any of you see on youtube an ad for BP that apperantly is rated something like 1 1/2 stars just because it's BP?

After more thought on the whole deal, I kinda figure BP might be getting a bad rap.  Sure It's at least 50% their fault, but I don't think they want a big disaster like this happening, and not just because it hits their pocketbook.  There are apperantly tons of failsafes on those things.  And we all make big flow based projects ourselves. 

The way I see it this is similar to a triple magmasafe floodgate controlled magmaflood device that was activated to deal with a goblin invasion and when the levers were switched to turn the device off 3 fire snakes managed to simultaneously get themselves lodged in each floodgate and jamming the whole thing open, and then blaming the problem on a lack of a 4th redundant floodgate.  At some point I figure it's not so much a lack of redundancy blame the designer situation, and more an Act Of God situation.

But I donno, maybe I'm just watching the wrong news channels.

[kuro_suna]

Even if the initial disaster was unavoidable BP really should have had a least a napkin scribble level plan of how to seal a deep water well.

[nenjin]

At some point I figure it's not so much a lack of redundancy blame the designer situation, and more an Act Of God situation.

Er, no. Investigations have shown they skipped several standard deep water rig safety measures. OSHA has issued 600+ egregious safety violations in the last three years. Millions of documents were pulled from the LAST BP Oil well explosion in 2005, that clearly shows they're aware both of the risks and of the negative publicity...and they gambled on both that nothing would happen. Which it did. Several times now.

I understand everyone wants to check their populist outrage...but if you take in all the evidence at once, it's ****ing offensive to the senses.

Hayward goes in front of Congress tomorrow, in light all of the BS that has been revealed in the past two weeks. Watch, listen to the Senators catalog all the evidence, and then tell me if you think they're still getting a bad rap.

Even before BP was actually BP, it had an atrocious record. Go read a Wiki article on BP. They're corporate cultural has been ****ed for almost a century now.

[Il Palazzo]

I amazed we haven't sucked the Earth hollow like a deflated balloon yet.

God almighty, I've read this as "deflated baboon" and was mightily disturbed by the imagery.

Therefore, we need a loan from God.  He makes oil twice as heavy for a decade or so while we find a way to capture it.  In return, He can make oil half the weight for the next ten years (plus interest, of course).

No rational being would refuse a loan like that.

But the oil on the ocean floor would kill countless sea cucumbers! And then it would turn out that the interest on oil weight went so high, that it would become ligher than air. Now, that would be another kind of problem.


Continuing the silliness:
BP spills coffe, if you haven't seen it yet.

[olemars]

Actually, the earth does sort of deflate because of oil production. I use survey heightmaps for oilfields in my day job, and around the older oilfields, particularly Ekofisk, there is a very noticeable oval depression many kilometers across on the sea floor.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I think I've found the solution.

Quite simply, our problem is that oil floats on water.  If oil were heavier, it would just stay at the bottom of the sea doing nothing.

Therefore, we need a loan from God.  He makes oil twice as heavy for a decade or so while we find a way to capture it.  In return, He can make oil half the weight for the next ten years (plus interest, of course).

No rational being would refuse a loan like that.

If we get God when he's in an Old Testament mood we're fucked.

[Virex]

What I don't get is this: They had to drill the thing, yeah? So that means that somewhere in the world, a company makes big metal sticks the size of the hole, long enough to reach it. Why haven't we stuffed a fucking metal stick in it?

This may be the most rational idea from a non-technical person I've heard so far. Stick a gigantic metal stick down the long hole with a huge weight on it to counteract the pressure of the escaping oil. Hole sealed.

From my understanding: You'd need to cut the pipe off clean near the source, and you'd need to find a way to guide the gigantic metal plug into the hole with absolute precision while deep enough underwater to render the feat somewhat technically difficult. You could taper the end of the pipe, making the insertion rather simple. You could even put grooves in it that get steadily smaller toward the surface, allowing oil to escape up until the point when the full weight of the device comes to bear and cuts it off completely. Should the device fail, you'd have significantly less oil escaping as it would remain in place with the grooves partially exposed, and you could then possibly force it the rest of the way in.

Problem is, getting that drilling equipment would take just as long as getting the equipment to drill the relief well, so you're better off just doing that. They're not doing nothing, it's just that the only thing that would work takes quite some time to get.


I also find it funny that petrochemical companies are so full of themselves about the safety of their oil refineries and crackers, but at the same time they cut corners on drilling platforms and pipe lines...

[alway]

Hey, if popular media has taught us anything, it's that unbelievably wise supernatural entities are extremely easy to trick.

We could solve global warming in a similar way.  Just have God cancel the greenhouse effect while we grow old and die solve it to give a better world to our children!

We don't need a deity for that, we've got nukes! A nuclear winter would slow things down considerably. As a bonus, if the nukes explode in the gulf of mexico, they could vaporize all the oil, water, and wildlife (to prevent claims from environmental groups of damage to the ecosystem).

[Nonsapient]

Listening to the testifying before congress at the moment,  just wanted to drop in and let you guys know how retarded this is turning out to be.

When setting casing (a lower rated casing that they shouldn't have used)  Halliburton recommended 21 stabilizers (large/odd one in picture but you get the idea, they're used to keep pipe in the middle of the borehole).



BP chose to use 2.

Putting casing down in that well was like shoving a wet noodle into a hole in the ground;  it's going to bunch up and bend, causing weird torques and weak points, not to mention being IMPOSSIBLE to cement into the hole properly, because all the cement will end up on one side or the other.

A good point on this:  all that tortuosity of the pipe would actually DECREASE flow, due to increased friction and such.

A bad point:  this definitely contributed to the problem's initiation, and might mean that the casing is also leaking further down.

That is absolutely ridiculous.  I started giggling when I heard it.

Edit:  AND there was no secure lockdown sleeve to hold the casing in place.  This is crazy.