Gulf of Mexico oil disaster

[Dr Mordrid]

No need for the shock wave to ever leave the casing.

Imagine a coaxial casing segment with a small, thin ribbon compression charge between two layers; a hard outer one (steel etc.) and an inner casing more malleable than the outer one, maybe copper. Compression charge goes off with just enough force to collapse the inner casing without bursting the outer one, blocking the lumen at least enough to stem the flow and perhaps enough to stop it if >one are triggered. The below is a bit rough, but should give you the idea.

All you need is a section of casing a couple of meters long, if that, and maybe 3 "sealing pipes" for redundancy.

[Dr Mordrid]

True on the cementing, but obviously another method needs to be developed and explosives can be very reliable. I'm not saying use this in this leak, but to build it into future casings placed at intervals.

[ND66]

...how the Horizon's one failed is beyond me - they have failsafe systems which are made failsafe by another failsafe system and then the whole system is made redundant - again with failsafe.

...

The way to bypass such a protection would require some kind of stupid or deliberate human interaction, no?

.

[Dr Mordrid]

Maybe those pipes need to come up and get checked for nitrates....

[ND66]

Oh, yeah…

Thanks for reminding me about that Chinese drywall used in Florida’s constructions.

[VJ]

Ok, so the BOP is tested before it is installed... But what when it is in place? If it fails it seems to me that there is no way of replacing the whole blow-out preventer?

How big is the blow-out preventer?

[VJ]

Very interesting read!

I'm always weary about these "it does not fail" comments...

[ND66]

Yup!

Thanks GuchiGuh.

[VJ]

Interesting note on page two here: oil spill

Shirley, the marine biologist, notes that oil is not a foreign substance in the gulf: "What most people haven't considered is that there's 48 million gallons of oil that's leaked naturally in the gulf every year."

(it is the only source I could find about how much oil leaks naturally)

[cjolley]

I don't know about that exact number, but it is a lot spread out thinly.
Mostly it evaporates or is eaten by bacteria.

OTOH, if someone filled the passenger compartment of your car with gasoline and set it on fire you wouldn't think it was OK just because your car would burn even more gas than that in the normal course of a year.

[Umfriend]

OTOH, if someone filled the passenger compartment of your car with gasoline and set it on fire you wouldn't think it was OK just because your car would burn even more gas than that in the normal course of a year.

ROFLMAO

[VJ]

I don't know about that exact number, but it is a lot spread out thinly.
Mostly it evaporates or is eaten by bacteria.

Yes, of course. I just thought it interesting data to know...

[cjolley]

I thought it was interesting too.
Didn't know about it until it was mentioned in several articles about the spill.

[VJ]

According to this article in a Belgian newspaper (but it is more a popular sensation newspaper), BP's layers are investigating whether BP needs to pay tax on the oil they recover from the ocean...

[Sasq]

it may be the skinfull I have had this evening. but I just posted this to the feedback site for BP regarding the spill

I am an Australian living in Japan, shortly about to return to Australia.
I used to favor BP, I do not mind paying a little more per liter of fuel to a company that takes responsibility seriously.
Your CEO's actions, and the pressure on your employees to cut corners and ignore safety requirements to further profits, is inexcusable.
I will in future actively avoid all petroleum products that have BP in the supply chain, until such time as the current CEO, board of directors, and senior management atones for their mistakes, step down, and donate their last few years salary to the clean up efforts.

regards
an ex-customer/profit point

I know full well it won't be heard and will go to /dev/null but be dammed, drilling for oil is not overly environmentally friendly. I will not give money to a company that actively chooses to and to be very blunt, rapes mother nature without lube all in the name of stockholder value.