Gulf of Mexico oil disaster

[VJ]

I'm surprised there is no thread on this topic just yet...

The seemingly huge problems to stop the flow of oil has got me puzzled: do they really have so little safety-precautions?
In the beginning there was talk of a funnel they tried to put over the well... To be honest, I thought something like those funnels were permanently in place, just in case something were to happen: it would have allowed them to direct a large part of the oil to tankers or so... It also is striking that they seem to have no contingency plans if a problem like this were to occur: they are just making things up as they go along... (and frankly, plugging the whole with dense matter and dirt just seems so primitive for such a high-tech installation...)

I don't know if it was the arrogance of the engineers ("the blow out preventer will not fail"), the aim to spend as little money as possible to pump from the well, or the too loose regulations and/or checks... but I do hope it gets fixed soon...

[Brian Ellis]

Can you imagine the pressures involved? The oil must be well (no pun) over the hydrostatic pressure of the water depth to force itself out like that. 1500 m >500 bars minimum, under appalling conditions in the presence of clathrates (which was what blocked the funnel). It is unprecedented, so no hindsight was available to forecast that it would or could happen.

There seem to be a number of ideas still, but each one gets more risky. Apart from the diagonal relief wells, it may be possible to dig a series of peripheral holes a few hundred m deep round the well and put in some very large explosive charges to implode the well itself and then pour in concrete before the oil filtered up through the debris. They would require hundreds (or more) of tonnes of TNT or whatever, possibly the biggest non-nuclear explosion ever. Another idea is to pump in vast quantities of air and actually flare the oil under water (the fishermen would have their catch ready-cooked!); it could be done.

Then, of course, who could foresee the initial explosion being so catastrophic? Yes, there are an average of 3 major platform accidents/year but never one with these dimensions; even the 11 deaths are rare in scale.

I feel BP have acted as responsibly as possible under the circumstances and it's no use Obama getting shirty over it; he has little responsibility other than to try and placate the guys who are losing their livelihood. In reality, it is analogical to a shuttle disaster; there is always a major risk when one penetrates the great technological unknown. Unfortunately, it went very wrong. Lessons will, hopefully, be learnt!

[VJ]

Can you imagine the pressures involved? The oil must be well (no pun) over the hydrostatic pressure of the water depth to force itself out like that. 1500 m >500 bars minimum, under appalling conditions in the presence of clathrates (which was what blocked the funnel). It is unprecedented, so no hindsight was available to forecast that it would or could happen.

Yes, I know... rule of thumb is pressure increases with one ATM every 10 metres under the surface, which would put the water pressure at the bottom at approx. 150 bar. The oil pressure must be much more than that.
So given the pressures and the issues with depth, I would have expected more contingency plans to exist. If you are dealing with such forces, you can expect that if things go wrong, it can go horribly wrong. Even if they would not have immediate action to "plug the damn hole", they could have had machines that suck up the majority of the oil or something.
So far, with everything they tried, it was added "but it has not been attempted at such depths".

There seem to be a number of ideas still, but each one gets more risky. Apart from the diagonal relief wells, it may be possible to dig a series of peripheral holes a few hundred m deep round the well and put in some very large explosive charges to implode the well itself and then pour in concrete before the oil filtered up through the debris. They would require hundreds (or more) of tonnes of TNT or whatever, possibly the biggest non-nuclear explosion ever. Another idea is to pump in vast quantities of air and actually flare the oil under water (the fishermen would have their catch ready-cooked!); it could be done.

I don't quite understand how blowing it up might help. If anything, I'd be afraid it could cause a cave in and create more leaks. (but I'm no expert)

Then, of course, who could foresee the initial explosion being so catastrophic? Yes, there are an average of 3 major platform accidents/year but never one with these dimensions; even the 11 deaths are rare in scale.

I feel BP have acted as responsibly as possible under the circumstances and it's no use Obama getting shirty over it; he has little responsibility other than to try and placate the guys who are losing their livelihood. In reality, it is analogical to a shuttle disaster; there is always a major risk when one penetrates the great technological unknown. Unfortunately, it went very wrong. Lessons will, hopefully, be learnt!

When dealing with such forces, I think catastrophic things should be assumed...

I also think it is unfair to compare the situation now with hurricane Kathrina: no government has the know-how to solve this problem. So they can't do much more than follow what BP says (and provide an expert panel). There will be plenty of time to play the blame game afterwards. Personally, I also believe that BP is trying everything they can to stop the oil from leaking; not out of environmental concern, but just financially: the sooner it stops, the less the damage they will have to pay (I've even read speculations it could be the end of BP!).

I expect lessons will be learned, but at the same time I think it will make deep oil drilling much more expensive and less viable for the time being. It was not economically viable many years ago, and I suspect the lessons learned will make it more expensive and thus not economically viable for some years to come.

[KRSESQ]

There seem to be a number of ideas still, but each one gets more risky. Apart from the diagonal relief wells, it may be possible to dig a series of peripheral holes a few hundred m deep round the well and put in some very large explosive charges to implode the well itself and then pour in concrete before the oil filtered up through the debris. They would require hundreds (or more) of tonnes of TNT or whatever, possibly the biggest non-nuclear explosion ever. Another idea is to pump in vast quantities of air and actually flare the oil under water (the fishermen would have their catch ready-cooked!); it could be done.

I don't quite understand how blowing it up might help. If anything, I'd be afraid it could cause a cave in and create more leaks. (but I'm no expert)

I recall hearing that using explosives to seal the well was dismissed as too risky. The crust over the reservoir is relatively thin and somewhat brittle. They're afraid an explosion strong enough to stop the leak could shatter the rock and create many more leaks.

Kevin

[Marshmallowman]

I don't think BP was acting responsibly.
There is not much they can do now, but what they skipped early on is the cause.

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/oil_spill_update.html

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/costly_time-consuming_test_of.html

Honestly I think everybody in the chain of command up from that decision should be lynched.
These cleanups or impossble and what they can do will cost billions, BP will probable end up paying a couple of percent of the real clanup cost and they will keep all there normal operating profit.

Just think exon valdez, how much did they pay... and how did they not pay and not do.

All the profits and no one can pin the real costs to the corporate monsters.
But we will end up subsidising their profits by being taxed to clean it up.
(and in the destroyed fisheries)

[Dr Mordrid]

Plenty of blame to go around...

BP for having one of the worst safety records in the industry

the Administration for highly questionable regulation: 'normal' procedure is to cap the wellhead then pump out the drilling oil. BP asked for, and got, a variance from MMC (the regulator) to pump it out uncapped, this over the objections of the wildcatters. This decision got the head of MMC fired last week, though when asked about it at his news conference Obama acted like Sgt. Schultz of Hogan's Heroes

again, the regulators and the industry for not having better, and multi-redundant, means of shutting off a well in an emergency. 'cmon guys, what's wrong with small shaped perimeter charges in the well casing that would collapse a coaxial liner in several locations? This well extends almost 2,000 feet below the bottom, so there's plenty of room for 'em without cracking the bottoms crust.

Environmentalists for ignoring the law of unintended consequences. They fight like dogs to prevent the drilling of shallow water wells and the use of our massive inland oil shale deposits, ignoring that forcing drilling to deep waters means if something does go wrong it's harder to do anything about it.

US citizens and Congress; the former for evading the need to switch to nuclear, oil shale and other alternative power systems for decades, and the latter for demonizing and politicizing anything the environmentalists object to - deserved or otherwise.

Obama himself for two major screwups: not giving the gulf states immediate clearance to build barrier islands so as to protect the coastal marshlands, something the governor of Louisiana asked for from the get go but got the red tape treatment, and not using all available naval resources to speed containment. Even his fellow Dems in the area are highly critical of these un-moves. Making matters worse is that there is a pre-authorized plan for handling these things drawn up in the early 1990's as part of a Clean Water Act update for handling such spills, but it's gone un-used.

[cjolley]

From the depths of the ocean to outer space the mistake in high risk ventures seems to always be the same.
A series of seemingly minor shortcuts to lower costs marginally, leading to Ka-Boom

[KRSESQ]

It's like the plot of a James Cameron movie.

Kevin

[RedRed]

Apparently, the russians used a small nuclear bomb to block pipes in the 70's and 80's.

Drill down beside it (as Brian mentioned.)

place charge (big, big, bomb - probably nuke)

Kerboom - hole (temporarally sealed).

Could take months though.

www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=84102 (I cant read the whole article at work - sorry.

trouble is that this drilling was one of the deepest on record the pressure as pointed out by Brian is crazy, A nuke on its own probably would not damage and compress the well enough to make a perminant blockage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon

[cjolley]

http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2010/06/01/oil_spill_nuclear_option/index.html

Tuesday, Jun 1, 2010 13:58 ET Enough lollygagging: Nuke the Gulf oil spill!

The Soviet Union employed the nuclear option to stop runaway gas wells. So what could possibly go wrong? Video

By Andrew Leonard iStockphoto/AP

Why can't we just nuke the oil well out of existence? As each successive failure to stop the nation's worst-ever spill ratchets up popular outrage and political pressure on the Obama administration, chatter about the nuclear option has also heated up. We've got an extreme problem -- so why not an extreme solution? Strange as it may seem to hear people advocating thermonuclear devastation to stop an environmental catastrophe, one can understand the psychological attraction. Enough with the nutty Rube Goldberg "top kill" kludges. Let's just blow the damn thing up and get it over with! Hey, the Soviets did it, why can't we?
This much we do know: In four separate instances dating back to 1966, the Soviet Union successfully used nuclear explosives to shut off runaway onshore gas wells. According to a report published by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2000, "The Soviet Program for Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Explosions," the first successful application of the nuclear option took place in the Urtabulak gas field in Southern Uzbekistan. The Urtabulak well had been gushing more than 12 million cubic meters of gas per day for almost three years and had defied numerous techno-fixes.

Finally, in the fall of 1966, a decision was made to attempt closing the well with the use of a nuclear explosive... Two 44.5-cm (13.5-in) diameter slant wells, Holes No. 1c and 2c, were drilled simultaneously. They were aimed to come as close as possible to Hole No. 11 at a depth of about 1500 m in the middle of a 200-m-thick clay zone.... The location for the explosive in Hole 1c was cooled to bring it down to a temperature the explosive could withstand. A special 3O-kt nuclear explosive developed by the Arzamas nuclear weapons laboratory for this event was emplaced in Hole 1c and stemmed. It was detonated on September 30, 1966. Twenty-three seconds later the flame went out, and the well was sealed.

Emboldened by their success, the Soviets proceeded to cap three other runaway gas wells in ensuing years, once in 1968 and twice in 1972. Another attempt in 1981 failed, however, and as far as we know, there have been no further efforts at nuclear well destruction. I cannot affirmatively attest to the authenticity of the footage in the following video, but the events recorded align pretty well with the DOE report, and it certainly makes for gripping viewing:

One of the Soviet scientists involved with the Urtubulak effort has already helpfully proposed that the U.S. follow the Russian example, inspiring animated discussion among the online Deepwater Horizon voyeurs who hang out at places like the indispensible The Oil Drum. What's Obama waiting for? What could possibly go wrong?
The first cautionary note would be to observe that there's a big difference between a gas well on land and a deep water oil well. The primary reason why the Deepwater Horizon spill has proven so difficult to stop is precisely because the wellhead is 5000 feet under water, and the wellbore penetrates another 18000 feet below the seabed. Solutions that are possible on land or in shallow water are not readily applicable, or the well would already be plugged.
It's also worth noting that in the Soviet case, additional "slant wells" had to be drilled in order to get the nuclear explosive deep enough and close enough to the original well to be able to seal it off. Although some armchair nuclear option quarterbacks have recommended exploding a nuclear device at the sea bed in the hope of fusing the surrounding seafloor into a giant cap, it's not clear that such a cap would be able to withstand the immense pressure exerted by the oil and gas bubbling from below. To properly place any explosive -- conventional or nuclear -- deep enough to be able to permanently plug the well would require drilling a new well -- a process that we already know is time-consuming.
This is just speculation, but I'm also guessing that we don't have a whole lot of data about what happens to the geology of a deepwater oil reservoir when a nuclear bomb is detonated in the general vicinity. I'd hate to be the president who authorized a nuclear strike against an oil well and discover that the blast created numerous fractures in the sea floor that allowed even more oil and gas to escape. It seems to me that one might want to hold such a tactic in reserve as a last resort.

And then there are the worst-case scenarios -- such as the possibility that a nuclear explosion might ignite a chain reaction of methane hydrate eruptions that could result in the most horrific global catastrophe since the Permian extinction:

You think the good citizens of Lousiana are upset now. Imagine how they'd feel after a tsunami followed by clouds of deadly methane gas laid waste to the Gulf?

[Dr Mordrid]

The use of a nuke would violate the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which bans all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes.

[RedRed]

for info, the US is a signatory, but never ratified the CNTBT

http://www.ctbto.org/map/

[Dr Mordrid]

The Administration at the time signed it but it's up to the Senate to ratify the treaty. That said it's been policy to adhere to it regardless, until it's time not to - which would likely be in retaliation for a WMD attack.

[Dr Mordrid]

It's like the plot of a James Cameron movie.

Kevin

More so than you think....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100601/sc_afp/usoilpollutionenvironmentfilm

'Titanic' director Cameron joins effort to plug Gulf spill

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Filmmaker James Cameron and another Canadian who built submersibles for the director's 1989 thriller "The Abyss" joined talks on Tuesday in Washington on innovative ways of capping the Gulf oil spill.

Cameron and Phil Nuytten, head of North Vancouver-based Nuytco Research, were to join several deepwater and oil sector experts meeting with Environmental Protection Agency officials, a spokeswoman for Nuytco told AFP.

No details of their talks were immediately available.

After failing to plug the leak with mud, BP has moved on to a plan to cut the leaking pipe and seal it with a tight cap. The company said this latest effort could stem the gushing oil within 24 hours.

The company is also drilling two relief wells, but these are not expected to be ready until August.

Nuytten is a diving pioneer who conceived of a rotary joint technology used in his company's renowned Newtsuit and other diving suits used in underwater exploration and rescues.

[Marshmallowman]

I don't think they want to use any explosive techniques at all. There is talk of the geology being rather thin and fragile, an explosion is just as likely to allow a lot more to leak than stop it.