[blackkitty]

Hope this works...don't see how it wouldn't unless the pressure is too great....

---------------

BP to try unprecedented engineering feat to stop oil spill

Port Fourchon, Louisiana (CNN) -- It sounds like a Hollywood movie. An impending disaster -- think the disabled spacecraft in "Apollo 13" or the asteroid hurtling toward Earth in "Armageddon" -- prompts a daring intervention by engineers to save the day.

This time, the threat is oil gushing from a broken well on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico that could destroy livelihoods and irreplaceable coastal wetlands.

Equally real is the attempted engineering marvel -- a four-story metal container that will be lowered onto the leaking pipe to try to suck in the flowing oil. More...

 

[Pinhead]

I should've been an engineer; I was visualizing the thing in my head BEFORE I read the article!

 

[oscar615]

Port Fourchon. Dang, That was one of the best beaches in LA when I was younger. We used to go camping there. You could drive for miles down the beach and see no one for days.

 

[SgtBooker44]

Look like they are redirecting the flow to a ship where it can be collected.

Fingers crossed

 

[Grevlin]

Couldn't the geniuses have figured out better fail-safes to prevent the whole thing in the first place...


...like a cut-off on the pipe at the sea bottom?


I wonder if we killed the whole Gulf...

(I was born and raised on South Padre Island, Texas and I'm starting to get that feeling like when a family member dies)

 

[wvsurvivalist]

Couldn't the geniuses have figured out better fail-safes to prevent the whole thing in the first place...


...like a cut-off on the pipe at the sea bottom?


I wonder if we killed the whole Gulf...

(I was born and raised on South Padre Island, Texas and I'm starting to get that feeling like when a family member dies)

They actually did have something like what you describe - it just didn't work.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6421

 

[Dwind]

if necessity is the mother of invention, Sloth is definitely the father- and in BP's case- both probably apply.

Engineering got us into this- lets hope it can get us out too.

 

[TMcArthur]

Good luck to them. Given that this was an experimental well, would be nice to have had this sort of thing ready in advance.

 

[blackkitty]

Didn't work....

Onto the next one...

-------------------

Next step to stop oil: Throw garbage at it

Venice, Louisiana (CNN) -- If using a massive dome to cover the source of the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico doesn't work, crews are preparing for another option: clogging it.

Engineers are examining whether they can close a failed blowout preventer by stuffing it with trash, said Adm. Thad Allen, the commandant of the Coast Guard. The 48-foot-tall, 450-ton device sits atop the well at the heart of the Gulf oil spill and is designed to stop leaks, but it has not been working properly since the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 and later sank.

"The next tactic is going to be something they call a junk shot," Allen told CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "They'll take a bunch of debris -- shredded up tires, golf balls and things like that -- and under very high pressure, shoot it into the preventer itself and see if they can clog it up and stop the leak."

Oil company BP, the well's owner, had attempted to lower a four-story containment vessel over the well to cap the larger of the well's two leak points. But that plan was thwarted Saturday after ice-like hydrate crystals, formed when gas combined with water, blocked the top of the dome and made it buoyant. More...

 

[v00d00_chi1d]

Nice plan, put more garbage into the gulf. lol. I think BP is just talking out of their asses because they really have no idea what to do.

 

[stephpd]

Maybe they should pull that box back up, stuff it with tampons and see how that works. Keep them dry, with air, while lowering it.

Sounds better then garbage.:thumb:

 

[SmithWessonOil]

We are screwing up our beautiful lush wonderful planet big time.

Make BP and the ship builder pay through the nose to clean it all up, even if it means bankrupting the companies involved, but that will never happen.

The Companies involved will find legal loop holes and take years to dilly dally.

If I were President, I would make BP hire as many people as it takes to try to clean up this mess NOW, I'd levy a "pollution tax" on them so heavy they would have to go bankrupt.

Hit them where it hurts $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

The loss of sea life is horrible

How would you like it if someone dumped massive amounts of oil on you, your house and your neighborhood.

We're polluting our air, water, dirt (with pesticides, spent radiation and our garbage).

When will humanity grow up.

 

[vicdotcom]

Ohh man I just read the "throwing the kitchen sink into it" option.... seriously... I mean really????
But can you imagine if it worked? Some dozens of engineers think of a multimillion dollar failure, yet it was stopped with a couple of hundred bucks worth of trash!

Just detonate the thing already and collapse the well.


Either way, I forsee a HUUUUGE boost in wind and solar power in the very near future....

 

[danglefeet]

Hope this works...don't see how it wouldn't unless the pressure is too great....

---------------

BP to try unprecedented engineering feat to stop oil spill

Port Fourchon, Louisiana (CNN) -- It sounds like a Hollywood movie. An impending disaster -- think the disabled spacecraft in "Apollo 13" or the asteroid hurtling toward Earth in "Armageddon" -- prompts a daring intervention by engineers to save the day.

You know I SO could live without Michael Bay reenacting this on a multimillion dollar epic movie budget.

 

[kahn]

Put the damn 4 story thing back on top of the pipe, pipe in warm water to melt the ice then fill it with 4 stories of high strength hydraulic cement cap it and seal the problem.

 

[d3athp3nguin]

While engineers run around in circles trying to fix the problem, how about a grassroots solution to help contain the damage?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/05/06/oil.spill.pet.hair/index.html

Pet's fur can help clean oily Gulf Coast



If you dog sheds a lot, he can help the effort to clean up the Gulf oil spill.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Your hair and pet's fur is needed to help clean Gulf oil spill
• The hair and fur is stuffed into nylon stockings which become booms
• The oil clings to the hair booms and mats which are then removed from water
• Matter of Trust is coordinating collections and volunteers to build booms

(Mother Nature Network) -- If you've been keeping tabs on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, you've probably been wondering how exactly you can help.
Well, for those of you with furry, four-legged flatmates, it can be as easy as sweeping the floors and collecting all that errant fur and hair.
So how exactly can hoarding pet fur help with cleaning up one of the worst environmental disasters in recent memory? Enter Matter of Trust, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that's been accepting donations of non-filthy pet fur and human hair since 1998 to craft oil-absorbing hairmats -- described as "flat square dreadlocks" -- and hair-stuffed containment booms made from recycled pantyhose.
These hairy contraptions are effective at soaking-up oil and they don't require any new resources ... just stuff you'd normally trash (or compost) unless you're into, umm, stockpiling fur.

 

[Pinhead]

While engineers run around in circles trying to fix the problem, how about a grassroots solution to help contain the damage?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/05/06/oil.spill.pet.hair/index.html

Forget pet fur... Straw and hay is much more widely available and works extremely well.

 

[joes]

Sadly it didn't work..Sure seemed like a good idea...

 

[crankyfarmer]

They should stuff some of my wife's hair into the pipe. I havn't found a drain yet she couldn't clog tight.

 

[vicdotcom]

Forget pet fur... Straw and hay is much more widely available and works extremely well.

But pet fur and human hair actually work better. Ever see the seals and other animals that get oil on their fur/feathers? That stuff is like magnets for oil.