How would you fix the leak?

Miami Mike · **Posted:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 8:56 am

Musicians are usually creative people and just curious if anyone has been following the 'oil spill' going on in the Gulf :

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-0 ... ate2-.html

..and if so, and it was YOUR responsibility, how would you stop it?

If this thing meets up with a nasty hurricane (it is the season for them), then it could really turn into an even worse situation.

captainc · **Joined:** Mon Feb 01, 2010 3:38 pm **Posts:** 1744

I would have gotten the Army Corp of Engineers immediately involved once the first attempt by BP failed. I also believe Russia has dealt with these situations numerous time in the past and blasts the leak possibly with nukes but i have to do some research on that.

I got a kick out of the Joy Behar show the other night... God I hate that woman and her insignificant show. They sat around criticizing republicans ...there's a shocker and saying how Obama is not responsible for this. I'm not playing the blame game but i got such a kick out of the fack that if this happened on the last guys watch, those same folks would be certainly blaming GB.

BMW-KTM · **Posted:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 9:13 am

Not that I think this is a funny situation because it's not. It's quite deadly serious. I am at a loss to think of a solution but I do still get some sinful pleasure watching the Obama haters try to figure out ways to blame him for it like it's all his fault. Those Obama haters are frequently the most humorous stories of the day. They make me giggle like a girl some days.

Twelvebar · **Posted:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 9:39 am

The Soviets used tactical nuclear charges to cap 5 similar situations with the last being in 1979

Quote:

As BP prepares to lower a four-story, 70-ton dome over the oil gusher under the Gulf of Mexico, the Russians — the world’s biggest oil producers — have some advice for their American counterparts: nuke it. Komsomoloskaya Pravda, the best-selling Russian daily, reports that in Soviet times such leaks were plugged with controlled nuclear blasts underground. …

The Soviet Union, a major oil exporter, used this method five times to deal with petrocalamities. The first happened in Uzbekistan, on September 30, 1966 with a blast 1.5 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb and at a depth of 1.5 kilometers. KP also notes that subterranean nuclear blasts were used as much as 169 times in the Soviet Union to accomplish fairly mundane tasks like creating underground storage spaces for gas or building canals.

These kinds of surgical strikes to shut off underground leaks, however, were carried out only five times, with the last one occuring in 1979. And there was only one misfire, near Kharkov, Ukraine, where a nuclear blast was unable to stanch a gas leak. Happily, with a track record like that, “the chances of failure in the Gulf of Mexico are 20%,” KP writes. “The Americans could certainly risk it.”

Source:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/05/n ... -well.html

russianracehorse · **Posted:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 9:40 am

Miami Mike · **Posted:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 9:49 am

Watching this counter with the amount leaked :

http://action.clf.org/site/PageNavigato ... 5QodHCPaGQ

I'd imagine at some point, it will affect prices of just about everything including swamp ash.

cvilleira · **Posted:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 10:18 am

Twelvebar wrote:

The Soviets used tactical nuclear charges to cap 5 similar situations with the last being in 1979

Quote:

As BP prepares to lower a four-story, 70-ton dome over the oil gusher under the Gulf of Mexico, the Russians — the world’s biggest oil producers — have some advice for their American counterparts: nuke it. Komsomoloskaya Pravda, the best-selling Russian daily, reports that in Soviet times such leaks were plugged with controlled nuclear blasts underground. …

The Soviet Union, a major oil exporter, used this method five times to deal with petrocalamities. The first happened in Uzbekistan, on September 30, 1966 with a blast 1.5 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb and at a depth of 1.5 kilometers. KP also notes that subterranean nuclear blasts were used as much as 169 times in the Soviet Union to accomplish fairly mundane tasks like creating underground storage spaces for gas or building canals.

These kinds of surgical strikes to shut off underground leaks, however, were carried out only five times, with the last one occuring in 1979. And there was only one misfire, near Kharkov, Ukraine, where a nuclear blast was unable to stanch a gas leak. Happily, with a track record like that, “the chances of failure in the Gulf of Mexico are 20%,” KP writes. “The Americans could certainly risk it.”

Source:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/05/n ... -well.html

The Soviets did use Nukes but they were on natural gas wells not oil. I would think they would have to compare pressure and also wonder if the natural gas exploded itself down into the well head to a depth past the blast helping seal it.
From the start I would have thought they would cut the pipe to have a clean opening. I myself have been on a ship and seen a unmanned sub cut underwater cabling while working for JHU. I have also seen welding underwater the same way.

BMW-KTM · **Posted:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 10:43 am

I'm no expert on off shore drilling but is there not some kind of crimp-on or clamp-on technology that could be used here? I mean this is basically a broken pipe sticking out of the sea floor that we're talking about isn't it? Or do I have that wrong? If it's a pipe the answer can't be as difficult as they're making it sound. You square up the broken end, grind some grooves around the end for grip-tion, place a heavy plastic cap over the end and clamp or crimp away. Pour concrete around it afterward. Two SCUBA certified pipefitters should be able to wrap that up in a single shift. Am I wrong about the facts of this? Is it not a broken pipe?

Miami Mike · **Posted:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 10:45 am

BMW-KTM wrote:

Am I wrong about the facts of this? Is it not a broken pipe?

Oh, it's broken, for sure!

captainc · **Joined:** Mon Feb 01, 2010 3:38 pm **Posts:** 1744

BMW-KTM wrote:

Two SCUBA certified pipefitters should be able to wrap that up in a single shift. Am I wrong about the facts of this? Is it not a broken pipe?

The leak is about 5,000 feet down to my knowledge. Way to deep for SCUBA divers to attempt. I believe their max depth is somewhere around 2,000 feet.

JSJH · **Posted:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 10:57 am

Is it too naiive to wonder why, with the incredible amount of money coming in each second into the world's oil economies...

...a few ten-millionths of one percent were not used for planning for and preparing for "Plan A, B, C, D, E, F...ZZ...for how to deal with any and every form of leak, rupture, and such...?

Greed won, the Gulf loses.

godsgifttomusic · **Joined:** Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:22 am **Posts:** 49

I am willing to plug it with my putz but I don't know if it is big enough.

Miami Mike · **Posted:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 11:10 am

With almost 20.5 million gallons that have leaked (see link above) you would think so.

"A so-called top kill attempt to plug the leak using heavy fluids failed, London-based BP said May 29. BP started cutting the leaking oil pipe today in an effort to funnel crude up to a vessel at the ocean’s surface. Relief wells, the first of which is scheduled for completion in August, may be the best hope to stanch the leak,"

Twelvebar · **Posted:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 11:40 am

cvilleira wrote:

The Soviets did use Nukes but they were on natural gas wells not oil. I would think they would have to compare pressure and also wonder if the natural gas exploded itself down into the well head to a depth past the blast helping seal it.
From the start I would have thought they would cut the pipe to have a clean opening. I myself have been on a ship and seen a unmanned sub cut underwater cabling while working for JHU. I have also seen welding underwater the same way.

they used Nukes to cap both oil and gas wells, according to what I have read, but really,CV, the principle should be about the same. they didn't cap the gas wells by dropping the nuke down the leaking hole. they used shaped charges a distance away to basically push over the entire rock formation to collapse the leak into itself. the natural gas wouldn't have been directly exposed to the blast. i would imagine any available oxygen would be depleted really fast anyway, and there would be no fuel to ignite the gas anyway, even if they did nuke the leaking shaft itself.

BlackCatBone · **Posted:** Tue Jun 01, 2010 11:51 am

I would insert Obama's head in the hole, problem solved. No way any oil is seeping past that big $@! noggin of his.

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