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

[Tom Freeman]

I'm doing this off the top of my head, so expect errors.

Re: using a nuke. Couple of objections here.

Lets start with the easiest to take care of - BP is a corporation and 
doesn't (well isn't supposed to at least) have access to nukes. And 
last time I heard, BP is still in charge of the cleanup/stop leaking 
operations.

I think, there may well be treaty obligations for the US also, which 
I suspect pretty much rule out even a small nuke.

Back in the 60's and early '70's there was a government run program to 
harness small nuclear explosions to engineering (civil) problems. I was 
a tad bit young then, but if memory serves Project Ploughshare was 
pretty much a bust from the get go, and that was all land based work. 
Of the publically acknowledged shots, none of them in my memory 
produced anything like what the engineers expected, although they did 
frequently manage to more millions of tons of material around.  I don't 
remember any marine experiments, which would just complicate the 
issure. 

Finally, I'm not sure that an explosion of any sort would be effective 
in the first place. Since the petroleum appears to be under a modest 
abount of pressure, and the fluid is fairly viscous also, any explosion 
of sufficient power to fracture enough rock is going to suspend that 
rock into the upwelling current. Looks to me like a recipe for making a 
large hole in the bottom of the ocean from a small hole. (And that 
doesn't address the unknown probability of getting enough small stuff 
to actually plug the hole from an explosive device. Maybe if you 
managed to get the explosives to the bottom of the bore??)

I like things that go "boom" pretty much as well as anyone, but I 
honestly don't see explosives working to close off the hole. YMMV of 
course.


On 05/30/2010 01:22:30 PM, Damon L. Chesser 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
> 
>