Speak Out: How would you stop the oil spill?

Posted by Shapley Hunter on Thu, Jun 17, 2010, at 11:56 AM:

Do exactly what BP is doing now, drill relief wells. That is the traditional remedy, and has worked in numerous cases in the past.

The other measures are simply stop-gap measures designed to trap the oil or reduce the flow until the relief wells are drilled. The relief wells aren't expected to be completed until August, I believe.

It took 10 months to fix the Ixtoc spill, way back in 1979. If they fix this one in August, they will at least have improved on that timeframe.

Replies (25)

  • What I was going to say would not have been nice, because it would have been using a politician, so forget the thought.

    -- Posted by Have_Wheels_Will_Travel on Thu, Jun 17, 2010, at 12:00 PM
  • Get a donation effort from the women of the US to donate tampons to collect the oil. Send a plane over, drop em in and let em soak up the oil.

    -- Posted by almighty on Thu, Jun 17, 2010, at 3:09 PM
  • Put a wedding ring on it, so it will quit putting out! Sorry, couldn't resist!

    -- Posted by manning on Thu, Jun 17, 2010, at 3:29 PM
  • I think I understood that if the well was plugged the oil would just come up from around the actual pipe as the rupture in below the sea floor.

    I go with Shapley on this one.

    The thing I can't understand is this: The old earth is about to run out of oil because of our greedy habits but this thing could continue to spill a million barrels a day for decades if not stopped.

    -- Posted by Old John on Thu, Jun 17, 2010, at 3:33 PM
  • To blazes with it being an exploratory well, stick a hose on the end of the pipe and suck it dry.

    -- Posted by non-biasedphilosopher on Thu, Jun 17, 2010, at 11:09 PM
  • Okay you guys ... Here's the deal about 'the wedding ring' ... from a female perspective:

    Before Marriage: The guy takes the gal out to eat, to the movies, etc. Usually he pays the bill. At the end of the 'date,' the couple snuggles romatically for a while and then participates in a mutually enjoyable activity.

    After Marriage: The guy and the gal come home from work. The gal fixes supper, throws a load of clothes in the washer, feeds the dog, cleans up the kitchen after they eat, throws the laundry into the dryer, etc. They go to the bedroom and the guy says, "Let's get a little," whereupon the gal says, "I'm just too tired."

    It isn't the wedding ring, fellas! ~laughing~

    -- Posted by gurusmom on Fri, Jun 18, 2010, at 1:45 PM
  • Started to say "Turn off the spigot," but since the spigot broke in my apartment and flooded the place, my smartypie answer just didn't seem appropriate.

    Maybe the correct answer should have been "Get out the wet/vac!" Seems more apropos somehow.

    -- Posted by voyager on Fri, Jun 18, 2010, at 3:35 PM
  • Voyager, Was the water leak caused by faulty work done during the Bush years?

    Mom, Now days the gal comes home from working as hard as him and opens a can, and he suggests from now on he should take her out to dinner with the credit card.

    -- Posted by Old John on Fri, Jun 18, 2010, at 3:53 PM
  • Old John, this joint was built in the Carter years> And he's a carpenter with Habitat for Humanity.

    Hogwash.

    -- Posted by voyager on Fri, Jun 18, 2010, at 4:43 PM
  • Vayager, Now that I think of it, I remember Carter on a ladder breaking several OSHA rules to get his picture taken during a Habitat promo.

    -- Posted by Old John on Fri, Jun 18, 2010, at 5:23 PM
  • Yeah, sure thing there Rick. Think they had a lookalike in the White House during his term.

    -- Posted by voyager on Fri, Jun 18, 2010, at 9:36 PM
  • "... Now days the gal comes home from working as hard as him and opens a can, and he suggests from now on he should take her out to dinner with the credit card."

    Doggone it, Old J.! I was doing it wrong all those years ... ~sigh~ I should have been buying Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, right?

    Stupidest thing is ... I never thought about doing any of it differently. Oh, and vulcan ... Hang onto that good woman! Perhaps she is similar to the way I was ... going to the bedroom was sort of like having dessert after a trying day? ~blushing~

    -- Posted by gurusmom on Sat, Jun 19, 2010, at 1:48 AM
  • Man, you guys just can't focus. The initial question is just absurd. There is no one really qualified to answer that. Anyone qualified certainly would be reading the SEMissourian much less live here. Apparently, no one is qualified, even your beloved Obama. He doesn't want to waste this crisis. He is quick to blame his own failures on Bush like all mindless liberals.

    -- Posted by jadip4me on Sat, Jun 19, 2010, at 9:21 AM
  • Jadi,

    Not beloved by all of us!

    -- Posted by Have_Wheels_Will_Travel on Sat, Jun 19, 2010, at 9:38 AM
  • Why doesn't this country just cut to the chase and go all out full throtle for hydrogen.

    There's certainly far, far more of it than oil and the source of supply is right here and not dependent upon any foreign supplier.

    With the oil spill results, gas is going to climb higher. Obama's cap and trade means even less oil. Its going to make hydrogen even less expensive by comparison.

    BTW, natural gas is the current best source of hydrogen,

    Consider the tremendous economic benefit of hydrogen useage. We are the Saudi Arabia for natural gas. All the money involved from exploration to distribution remains in the USA.

    Of course, the oil companies are not very fond of the idea. So what?

    -- Posted by voyager on Sat, Jun 19, 2010, at 9:59 AM
  • Spank, If Rover gets to go to Mars, does Fido get to go to Jupiter?

    Considering the fact that oil floats, it looks like another pipe could be lowered to the source to inject a clotting chemical that would keep the oil more together so it could be less scattered on the surface, thus easier to round up.

    -- Posted by Old John on Sat, Jun 19, 2010, at 5:01 PM
  • I say we sink lawyers on top of it until the sheer weight of their bodies stops the flow of the oil. If we run out of lawyers, use the remaining politicians. However, since most pols are lawyers that may be a problem.... After politicians use Cubs fans, then NBA players, then the 4 US Soccer fans.

    But that will just cause another problem... the slime from the lawyers will cause yet another slick...dang

    -- Posted by John in Jackson on Sun, Jun 20, 2010, at 8:25 AM
  • Wonder if they could make enough of this stuff - forget about stopping the leak, just eat it up and digest it as fast as it comes out :-)~

    BioRem-2000 Oil Digester http://www.cliftindustries.com/files/36059696.pdf

    -- Posted by fxpwt on Sun, Jun 20, 2010, at 2:39 PM
  • All of these people with "i can fix the oil spill" ideas, are so naive about the pressures and depths involved. The girl with the idea to inflate tires is absolutely one of the dumbest ideas ever. You can't "inflate" anything in those water pressures.

    If you cap the well, you run the risk of doing 100 times more damage. If the pipe in the well is broken below the surface (which they now believe), then capping it will build pressure at the break, and cause erosion, and basically make the spill unfixable.

    These "kids smarter than BP engineers" aren't.

    -- Posted by martlet1 on Mon, Jun 28, 2010, at 9:05 AM
  • martlet1 wrote:

    "You can't "inflate" anything in those water pressures."

    Actually, that' not true. In fact, the blow-out preventer valve does just that, it is a pinch-type valve.

    We think of tyres as being simply designed for 30 - 50 psi, but you have to keep in mind that we're talking differential pressure. To close a pinch valve you merely have to overcome the difference in pressure between the oil-pressure at the well-head and the pressure of the water at the sea-floor. 35 to 50 psi differential would still do it. However, to say that the girl is smarter than BP engineers is stretching it, as I'm sure they've already looked at that and rejected it to other difficulties, known or unknown to the general public.

    The problem, of course, is how to get the tyres or balloons or whatever into the pipe and hold them there against the pressure until they can be inflated.

    I commented elsewhere about the unknowns when someone was referring to BP as 'liars' because of the ever-changing estimates of the oil flow. There are no pressure guages or flow meters at the well-head. We know what the sea-water pressure is, because that is a simple calculation, but we do not know precisely the pressure at which the oil is reaching the sea-floor. It has been suggested that it was an underestimation of that pressure that led to the disaster in the first place, as they attempted to pump out the heavy mud from the pipe that held it in check before they had the capability to stop the flow mechanically. Once the weight of mud was less than the pressure-force in the pipe, the oil would have forced the remainder out with increasing velocity.

    That being said, they have had time to calculate with some precision many of the unknowns.

    However, as you note, if the pipe is broken below the surface, then blocking the discharge at the pipe-end will not stop the flow, but will spread it out over a large area, making it much more difficult to stop. That is why the relief-wells is the best approach. They will relieve the pressure in the failed pipe and allow them to plug it.

    -- Posted by Shapley Hunter on Mon, Jun 28, 2010, at 9:21 AM
  • Pray harder to baby Jesus.

    -- Posted by FriendO on Tue, Jun 29, 2010, at 2:51 PM
  • Shapley,

    I have been told by a diver friend of mine that to this day not far off the southern Texas Coast there are HUGE globs of oil the size of small houses filled with clams,oysters and debris floating near bottom from the Ixtoc spill in 79 and 80. I am sure this spill will result in the same thing. I was also told these globs are harmless to the environment. Somehow I doubt that.

    I do however agree that the best solution is the relief wells. One thing is well known and that is the ixtoc spill was much worse then the deep water horizon spill and the Gulf of Mexico survived it. Not saying that this is not a huge disaster. This spill is much closer to currents

    that could carry some of the oil all the way to Europe. Fortunately that could also help with dispersement.

    -- Posted by GREYWOLF on Tue, Jun 29, 2010, at 4:06 PM
  • I don't doubt that remnants of the Ixtoc spill remain and, as you say, they are not 'harmless'. My point is simply that the Gulf survived it, and will survive this one.

    Skimming the oil is helpful, and it is being done.

    It looks to me as if, for all the belly-aching about BP, they are using the best technology available and are getting the job done as fast as it can be done. There will be time for assigning blame and assessing penalties later, right now the thing to do is to fix it. BP is doing so, near as I can tell, and I don't think all the doomsaying and belly-aching is helpful.

    -- Posted by Shapley Hunter on Tue, Jun 29, 2010, at 4:13 PM
  • According to an article on Reuters, many scientists/experts say that the best thing that could have been done was to leave the spill alone except for keeping it away from the coast ... Was very interesting.

    -- Posted by gurusmom on Wed, Jun 30, 2010, at 4:10 AM
  • Pinch off the end of the pipe. It could be done with a large hydraulic press, and would greatly reduce (if not stop) the amount of oil spilling into the gulf until the relief wells can be drilled.

    Instead, they are fooling around cutting the pipe so it has a clean end...INCREASING the flow of oil. In order to cap the well, they are fighting the pressure within the well...more than a mile deep under water.

    To see what I'm talking about, try this:

    Turn on your garden hose full blast, then try plugging the end of it with your thumb. That's what they are TRYING to do. Now, bend the end of the hose over to put a kink in it. That's what I'm suggesting. Which does a better job stopping the flow of water?

    This ain't rocket science.

    -- Posted by dixietrucker on Wed, Jun 30, 2010, at 5:54 PM

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