[ale] BP knew of problems 11 months before the rig blew

[Jim Kinney]

nuke, or even high explosives for that matter, have a greater chance of
adding to the problem. The stuff is under pressure so anything that can
widen the exit port is a bad idea. I'm not sure how far under the sea floor
the rock drilling occurred but since the cement cap injected as a well crown
stabiliser is not working as designed, it's safer to not further subject the
area to concussive shocks.

The "cap and capture" method is actually still a workable idea but they have
to have a capture hose much larger than the existing leaking process. The
engineering issue with that is they must be actively pulling a suction on
the line while the cap is lowered into place. This will prevent the methane
ice from forming a plug like before. However getting a 48 inch running,
suction line down a mile is not something the engineers have tested before
since the process has always been guided by the hubris of the management.

On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 1:22 PM, Damon L. Chesser <damon at damtek.com> wrote:

> For crying out loud.  Use a very large HE explosive or a very small
> tatical nuke.  Hole sealed, oil in the area neutralized.
>
> Of course we can't use a nuke, after all nukes are BAD.  NOT.
>
> The problem that I see is that politically/socially/enviroly, nukes are
> not an option.  Don't know why a large (very large) explosive would not
> work.  If you nuke it, you can't use that well (opening) any more and if
> you want THAT oil, you would have to diagonally drill off from about 2
> miles distance.  So, we would have a 1 mile patch of glowing ocean 1
> mile deep.  I don't see a problem with that, but I am insensitive, and
> perhaps (admittedly) not fully informed on the repercussions.
>
> On Sun, 2010-05-30 at 10:13 -0400, Jim Kinney wrote:
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30rig.html?
> >
> > Time to start pumping the well head full of execs yet?
> >
> > Does anyone know of a single component compound that reacts with mixed
> > organics to make a solid? Drilling mud is a lubricant. They need to
> > pump in a fast-setting glue. However, since the article talks about
> > the screw ups in the valve and the cement well casing I'm concerned
> > that with the well pressure a plugged head will only force a leak (or
> > blowout) near the head in the sea floor. The cement casing is supposed
> > to act as a reinforcement but there are reports that the material used
> > was substandard (thanks Haliburton!) and poorly installed.
> >
> > Maybe since the riser pipe is still attached to the head they can beat
> > on it with the "top cap" box and crimp it down to cut the flow. Who
> > knows. Maybe a slow crimping cutoff of the flow will not shock the
> > casing and allow a temporary blockage with the sub-floor fracturing of
> > the crappy casing they are worried about.
> >
> > --
> > --
> > James P. Kinney III
> > Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness
> > Doing pretty well on all 3 pursuits
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> > See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>
>
> --
> Damon
> damon at damtek.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>



-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness
Doing pretty well on all 3 pursuits
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20100530/e17bf4b2/attachment-0001.html