To the OP who started this post, thanks for starting it. I knew I wasn't the only one who's been reading some crazy stuff lately. Here's some thinking I've been thinking about while reading stuff on yahoo news and this topic. A lot of it is playing devil's advocate, so feel free to educate me if you know better. I'm afraid I cross the line into blatant paranoia at some points in this post, but I like to tell myself that it's ok because everyone's really out to get me.
Step 1: Get a submersible
Step 2: Load a single chunk of basalt onto it
Step 3: Get the beardiest contractor to go down and build a wall
Actually I think the most important thing is to freeze the assets of the companies involved, spend their money and use their equipment to employ whatever fix is determined, and let them sort it out among themselves in the courtroom after.
And if that causes a little economic hardship at the top, well, maybe next time they'll think twice about shorting their safety budgets.
Okay, actual suggestion: all the petroleum research out there has got to have yielded some chemical reaction that can crystallize or vulcanize or otherwise harden crude oil. Inject that shit into the hole, even if it means the whole deposit is ruined.
I can't help but feel that the company would rather let the oil spill until it stabilizes rather than compromise their ability to harvest from it in the future.
Obama has been firm in declaring that he wants BP to take the brunt of the costs, so if it all works out, they will. However, it's possible that they would lose more by destroying the oil than by letting the oil spill out.
Right now there is actually a law that says a cap of $75,000,000 is the maximum the company will have to contribute to clean-up efforts. After they hit the cap it appears they have no legal duty to pay for cleanup costs. I don't doubt they'll surpass that on their own but don't expect too much generosity. I'm guessing it will fall significantly short of a billion dollars unless Congress changes the laws in time. On that note, I'm afraid it will be held up once the Republicans think of some paranoid theory involving government takeover of private business. If Republicans can only slow the debate down enough for BP to hit the cap, it's a huge win for the company who caused the trouble, and if Republicans can do that without public uproar they will only become more obstinate.
You want to know the real way to get shit done? Tell BP you're going to fine them $10,000 for every minute that the oil continues to escape from the well. I can pretty much guarantee you that BP will have interns and temp workers down there drinking oil and sea water tomorrow morning.
This is honestly the best solution I've heard. Much better than all the crazy idea's BP has had combined. Thanks OP for showing how much of an effort BP is putting into false ideas doomed to failure. Every day they would have a new crazy scheme, and I would sigh, and do a facepalm. This alongside the amount of oil escaping a growing daily, due to someone's lies and not because more oil is escaping, makes me very disappointed. This idea where the company is more and more liable as time goes by in addition to the cleanup costs would also encourage them to innovate ways to minimize the time it takes to fix a problem such as this. Right now there is theoretically no reason for them to hurry and fix the leak ASAP, as there is a cap of $75,000,000 dollars on cleanup costs and the facts I list later in this post that draining a large oil well and wasting it theoretically doesn't hurt them that much in a "Drill Baby Drill" America. It's sort of like how the government used to pay farmers not to grow food in some of their fields, so that the supply would go down or stay the same and raise or maintain the prices.
The problem seems to be that oil is lighter than water, and creates some decent current trying to flow up from the depths. Any attempts to just "pour" something will likely fail. The most dwarvenly insane project would be to construct a giant reinforced concrete slab over the well and just drop it down. Using a giant steel bucket is also an option, but it'd have to be one damn large bucket, and it'd need guidance to get down JUST right, and then make sure that nothing leaks off from the edges.
I was thinking, why not modify an old navy diesal submarine? I'm not sure if it would be able to withstand it, but I'm pretty sure it could settle on it. It seems like it would be heavy enough to plug it if you could get it on top of it. Just sit it right down on the hole and then find a way to get the crew out or do it remotely. Heck, you might even be able to modify the sub to collect the oil somehow as it spews from the pipe, but that would take more time.
Oh I know Halliburton is a small fry in the scheme of things, I just find it hilarious that there's hardly a sticky situation America is involved in that doesn't have Halliburton's fingerprints on it somewhere. Given their track record, I'd be amazed if there wasn't some extra corner they cut, but yeah it's mostly BP's game to lose, and Transocean is going to get reamed too.
The degree of reamage depends entirely on what happens in Congress. Current, reparation of damages and cleanup is capped at a paltry $75million. The Democrats want to rush through an amendment to that law either abolishing the limit or raising it a nice round number like $10billion, and the Republicans by numbers certainly aren't suicidal enough to try and stop them. What I'm worried about is the law still taking too long to pass (reaching $75mil or such soon), and then BP claiming that they're not liable for anything after that due to the law being a post facto attainder. They're going to be losing a lot of civil court cases for a very long time though.
Actually, my bigger worry is that oil prices are going to shoot through the roof as BP jacks up their rates to make sure they don't lose a dime. Given the oil industry's smashing record of turning disasters and shortages into record-profit quarters, I wouldn't be surprised to see the spill cleaned up by next year, as BP break's Exxon's profit records with gas at $7 a gallon.
PLAYING DEVIL'S ADVOCATEThis smells of a plan gone wrong because someone used the wrong/too much explosives or something and accidentally killed too many people for the news organizations to ignore it or forget it after a few days.
I also wonder how much BP made last year in profits. I'd imagine that a cap of $75,000,000 doesn't matter too much to them. It makes me wonder if they somehow expect a return on their investment. Were they honest about how large this oil field that they are draining is, and would they destroy it if it was found to be enormous since it would affect their careful manipulation of America's gas supply? Now, I'm not a scientist, but apparently that oil is coming out faster and for longer than everyone thinks it should be, so simple logic tells me that there is a lot of oil under pressure down there. Since it would theoretically lower oil prices if people knew about a vast reserve, and apparently the American government is unable to get anything done in time, especially if BP leans on a certain party, what keeps BP from destroying the oil in an apparent accident? A $75,000,000 price tag? I'm sure they'd pay it to keep their share of the multi-billion gas industry. Also, if they have a huge stockpile of oil somewhere, all that oil is lessened in value by the discovery of new reserves in the gulf, so it's a 3 way blow to the established company in that it will 1:face greater competition, 2:it's futures stock of oil is worth less, and 3: future oil product is worth less. If there was a huge amount of oil there, they could have counted on American and international competition taking their share once the news got out, especially with the slogan of "Drill Baby Drill" being thrown around by American politicians, who I'm assuming thought they would let private industry map out the country's oil reserves and take their word about what they found(good thinking!)
{Can anyone prove that the government actually did it's own studies of undersea oil fields, especially in this area, without relying on a private corporation for the equipment/manpower? It would go a long ways to debunking this crazy theory of mine. However with the American government's reliance on private companies for such simple and necessary things the government should really be in charge of, such as supplying the Army, I wouldn't be surprised if it was entirely in private company's hands and that it was moreover BP and it's advanced technology in charge of undersea exploration for drilling in the area where this oil well is.}Perhaps they underestimated how well it would work, or the explosion was too big, which would explain the deaths and excessive media attention that usually results when your oil rig sinks. If they had attracted much less attention with a lightly damaged or undamaged and not sinking oil rig then it would have been a perfect scheme at the perfect time. They could have had the same rate of leak and not "discover" it until the oil was already on the beaches and they could claim it was a slower leak than it really was. I bet the government would have even bailed them out if they told them it would impact future drilling or would improve safety so "minor" incidents wouldn't happen in the future. Most likely Congress would not have changed the law for a "minor" leak, so they would only pay up to the cap of $75,000,000 and made billions in future profits through consolidating their share of the gasoline market.
Hurray for other people's vats, mine is emulating a back massage atm.
On a more serious note, the estimated projections for the amount of oil gushing out is another 4-5 times higher, unless CNN is reporting old new today. I'd like to be part of the solution, but money is in the way.
http://www.examiner.com/x-27431-World-News-Examiner~y2010m5d20-Second-leak-on-BP-Gulf-oil-spill-brings-total-gushing-to-4-million-gallons-per-dayhttp://www.examiner.com/x-27431-World-News-Examiner~y2010m5d14-BP-oil-spill-in-Gulf-may-be-at-a-rate-of-3-million-gallons-per-dayAlso, another reason why they won't give us a firm answer on exactly how much oil is coming out could be because they know people know maths. If they give a bunch of different numbers, no one can say for sure how much oil will have leaked out by the time it's all done and over, and thus realize it was a substantially larger well than they were saying. I noticed once the government FORCED BP to put the live video up and math teachers at universities came out with surprising estimates as to how much oil was spewing out, BP was quick to announce a large, unspecified percentage was gas. This of course makes it impossible for skilled people to use advanced math that is beyond my abilities to either say how much has come out when it's done leaking and also how much is coming out now.
I wholly support the nuking option. There simply has not been enough research into the effects of a nuclear explosion on several thousand gallons of oil surging upwards. I think the potential for success is amazing. Also, if a hurricane passes over the area then we should definitely nuke it, to also find out how nuking a hurricane in the center affects it.
I too think it will be successful. I think we should start a petition and see how far it goes. I think the internet community will find it amusing enough to attempt to force the government to our foolish whims that it would at least make the government worried. I can't think of a better way to say fuck you to your government than trying to force it to nuke a hurricane. We should get Steven Colbert to endorse it, it sounds like something he'd be interested in as a serious attempt enough to bring to the attention of his audience. It would actually be a litmus test for seeing how our government would handle attempts by the people to do things the government does not support, yet is technically not illegal. Would it be martial law, would we wipe out that storm and simultaneously do something very Fun, or would we somehow reach a reasonable agreement where the government gives us and Toady money to stop trying to force them to nuke a hurricane?
Well, nothing but the relief well will actually stop the leak, but reducing it from 50,000 barrels a day to 5,000 a day (or whatever the numbers are now) is nothing to sneeze at. Besides, they fucked it up, it's time for them to dance and spend a lot of money, because that's what you do when you're a disgraced public spectacle.
That's a good point. Any reduction of the impact is a good thing. With that said I wouldn't trust them to get their numbers straight on how much they're reclaiming.
I want to see this cause big Change.
You don't have to answer, but is that the general sentiment of the workers in your field? That's refreshing to hear from someone who works in the industry. Like others have said, it's good to have you here. With an actual industry insider with no reason to lie to us I bet Bay12 can solve this problem since we have something the government doesn't.
Does anyone know where to find something that will list the industries that depend on the coastline and various facts about them that I could use to deduce a basic estimate of the effects this will have? Something like a government public record or something that shows what percent of American's daily or yearly food comes from fishing in the region? Also, why should I have to do this? Why aren't the reporters doing this like they should be doing, or at least asking people who are paid to figure out what the long term affects are? I ask because I wasn't able to find anything useful after a short internet search.
Also, how bad does it look to be in your opinion? If it's still coming out and it's washing up on Louisiana beaches it seems pretty bad from my limited knowledge of this. Anyone live in affected areas? How are the fishermen functioning?
Also, I read that they are diverting ships away from the widening oil slick. What sort of effect do you see this having on trade if the situation persists for the "several months" it takes for the relief wells to be drilled, and also does this equate to BP effectively controlling the viability of the Gulf as transport route for however long it takes to fix? It makes me wonder if the food supply will be affected in the area, since local fishing will be affected along with international trade during the summer months before the Late summer/fall harvest when the majority of American food crops are harvested. Another sudden realization I maybe crossing into paranoia hits me when I think of how easy a food shortage would be to blame on Obama, and inflamed by having his political opponents arguably in control or collusion with a majority of the companies that would be able to assuage such a shortage.
Does anyone know more than I do about whether the American South East imports a large amount of foreign food via the ocean during the summer months? I'd imagine inter-gulf commerce would be a hefty percentage of food due to the proximity to climates which allow year round harvests. I certainly don't think people will starve to death, but some food prices could definitely spike, perhaps severely, due to a lack of supply.
Dang, I need to get people to pay me for writing papers like this.
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Topic: There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea - One Year Later (Read 110316 times)