The final cut..... Deep water Horizon

Is it just me being cynical, or is someone paid to sit there and twiddle the ROV joystick 24/7 to make it look like they are doing something?

Just nuke it I recon. Can't possibly do any worse.

Dave.

Yup. If they unlucky they could almost double the flow rate.

I just hope they have some convincing way of attaching the new contraption that is supposed to take the oil away afterwards. Oh look it has filled with ice and dropped off will not play well.

I want to see what instructions the production manager of the rig gave to the operating team and when they knew the BOP was no longer failsafe.

Regards, Martin Brown

hey

I suspect that we will find out. The US government does seem to searching for scapegoats, and BP's production manager would do fine - it's not as if British Petroleum would have paid to help any US politicians to get themselves elected, though they may have had to "lobby" to get permission to drill the well in the first place.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Martin Brown schrieb:

Hello,

they could not replace the bad BOP by another good BOP, they only could mount another BOP on top of the existing BOP.

Bye

John

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How big is this thing? The more images I see on TV, the more I start wondering why they just dont erect a giant concrete block pyramid over the top of it, with loads of plastic wrap or sheeting in-between. Take several BIG ships worth of concrete blocks out to the site and start lowering away....

Might take several days to do, and even if it didn't stop 100% of the leak, at least it would buy you time until BP drilled the relief well?

Of course, I don't know diddly about deep-water drilling, so there could be a very logical explanation why this effort wasn't undertaken. But on TV, it looks like it would do the trick.... Just keep stacking blocks.

That is similar to what they tried to do first. Problem is in the addition to the Archimedes force there is a bubble of oil under high pressure which tries to lift the dome from the floor and/or unassemble it.

VLV

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vblog.com

With estimates of 15,000 psi oil jet in 2,000 psi water pressure, concrete block works more like styrofoams.

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Well, they didn't pay them much. Obama may well have got more money (? $77,051) from BP employees than any other politician, but his new trick was to raise money from lots of people via the internet, and and his $750 million probably includes a lot of cases where he got more money than other politician from a whole range of contributors.

BP certainly does seem to have spent quite a bit more on lobbying.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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eevblog.com

I think 15,000 PSI is a bit high. 7,000 is more like it. Still that is a lots of pounds.

10^2 * pi * 7000 =3D 2.2E6 pounds or about 1000 metric tons

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The oil pressure is coming from 1 mile of water (2000 psi) and 3 miles of rock (10,000 psi). 7,000 is too low.

But 12,000 psi is the pressure a 4 miles below the sea surface. You still have a 10,000 column of oil. The question is how much pressure is forcing the oil up? Its greater than 2000 psi at the well head for sure.

It looks like fairly well cracked oil, not Mazola but it's been under pressure and heat for quite some time. Which makes it easier to refine.

Cheers

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eevblog.com

Is that 15,000 psi oil jet net?, (differential), or does it include the weight of the water over it? Maybe I am showing my ignorance here. Seemst to me that 15,000 psi would inject a hell of a lot more oil into the Gulf. (Perhaps that is indeed the case?)

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How heavy was that "top hat" thing, or that 4-story containment dome. And how much real estate did it take up? Oil and water should not be very compressible, but the gas might still be at that depth. (?) Just wondering if the pyramid idea holds and water, no pun intended.

Regardless, you would still need a crane to offload the blocks. I've seen some container ships that carry their own cranes, but I don't know what their capacities are. My guess is the container could not be filled completely with concrete, and still be able to lift it.

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I believe it's 2.5 miles. 4 miles would be much worse.

Oil is lighter than water (S.G. 0.8) and rock is heaver than water (S.G. 2.5). So, 2.5 miles below 1 mile sea surface work out to be around 15,000 psi, including weight of the oil.

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Water pressure is around 2,000 psi. Net of 13,000 psi.

No worst than BP engineers.

Close enough. What they are doing is grossly inadequate. Perhaps I should take over the job.

It's roughly one atmosphere per 33' ...Jim Thompson

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or 0.44 psi per foot.

Using S.G of 2.7 for rock and 0.5 for oil/gas:

water + rock - oil/gas

2200 + 14850 - 2750 =3D 14300

round it up to 15000 psi. with temperature compensations (around 300C)

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Calculating rock (or any solid) contribution to pressure like it is a fluid is rather unlikely to be correct. Solids transmit forces in all directions but differently than fluids. Some of the rock might be in tension which works out very differently for fluids, solids also support shear (lateral) strain well which fluids do not do worth a damn.