What is being done to stop oil leak?

Slideshowbob

What is the current engineering solution?

Who is working on it?

what happened the cap they were to use a few weeks back?

Macha

The NY Times is providing a pretty comprehensive account of details:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/o/oil_spills/gulf_of_mexico_2010/index.html

Latest update on containment efforts:

BP began collecting crude oil on June 16 from a second containment system that the company hopes will help stem the thousands of barrels escaping from its damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico, an amount that scientists said could be as high as 60,000 barrels a day. The company is siphoning the oil through a series of pipes and hoses to a ship, which will then clean and burn the oil and gas mixture in a processing device. The method BP has been using since June 3, a containment cap, has been able to collect about 15,000 barrels of crude oil a day. But based on new estimates of the flow rate released June 15 that may be only about one-quarter of the amount leaking daily. Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard, the national commander of the spill, said BP was also developing a new system to replace the current containment devices, one that will be more flexible in the event of a hurricane. This system will also be able to collect more oil if those estimates increase, with a maximum capacity of 80,000 barrels.

Judgement Day

And Obama is pretending to be a statesman by bashing BP.

Cookie_Monster

So they're just collect some it on a ship and burning it, great job there. Why not park a tanker next to that ship and just pump it in there for processing later?

jacaranda

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

So they're just collect some it on a ship and burning it, great job there. Why not park a tanker next to that ship and just pump it in there for processing later?

How easy is it to anchor an oil tanker in the ocean some miles off shore?

Dolphinsushi

Slideshowbob wrote: »

What is the current engineering solution?

Who is working on it?

what happened the cap they were to use a few weeks back?

Just some more questions I have not seen asked in the media?

What happens if they cannot plug the leak completely. Will it mean that it can keep going for years?

Will the oil eventually get into the gulf stream and end up here in Ireland?

How long does it take for oil to eventually decompose and "disappear" By this I mean disperse back into the environment like it never happened?

What do they mean by a suspended underwater bloom of oil? How do they deal with underwater blooms?

I see up-beat reports about this being over when they eventually complete drilling relief wells. Is this just media spinning? Should I believe these reports.

Cookie_Monster

jacaranda wrote: »

How easy is it to anchor an oil tanker in the ocean some miles off shore?

I would imagine its fairly easy to be honest. don't even need to anchor it. GPS direct stabilising thrusters

tommyhaas

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

I would imagine its fairly easy to be honest. don't even need to anchor it. GPS direct stabilising thrusters

You cant just make things up. They'l be using DP (dynamic positioning) ships. These are ships that can hold their position by using the thrusters and propulsion systems to conteract wind/current etc. Only a very small percentage of tankers are DP, but afaik they have a few out there

The problem with a ship anchoring at that depth is that tankers when achoring usually use chain lengths of up to 6 times the depth of water, hense a very large swinging circle

jeffex

why can't they lower a collar valve over the leaking pipe and weld it on. Then the valves can be closed to stop the flow of oil. I have a customer who works for the company who's robots are showing us the underwater pictures. I began to ask him some questions on robotics at that depth and their ability to position things under those pressures. He informed me h was limited to what he could talk about. I simply put it to him Why don't they weld on a new collar valve. He replied..." you know too much . I can't say any more" and went in the house. WTF!

Judgement Day

Well one thing for sure, if Obama and his ****ing spin doctors put as much effort into sorting out the leak as they do into attacking BP and its CEO it would have been fixed weeks ago. Special relationship my hole - I hope the next time Obama comes looking for more canon fodder for US military adventures that the Brits tell him where to go.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1287925/BP-oil-spill-boss-Tony-Hayward-takes-time-enjoy-Cowes-Week-despite-ongoing-Gulf-Mexico-disaster.html

Cavehill Red

I'm still surprised at how people are so wound up about this spill, yet no one seems to know about this gas leak that's been going on for literally decades:
http://skinflicks.blogspot.com/2008/03/mouth-of-hell.html

jinghong

maybe capping it would cause more problems, like a tsunami, maybe on the way anyway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMEr4FctWAM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4hfGY6i75w&feature=related

I came across this article on theoildrum.com, if true it's pretty scary stuff.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6485#more

A mishap during the loading of an oil tanker off Saudi Arabia in 1993 initiated a cascading disaster, resulting in what was the largest offshore oil spill ever, but the oil was mostly recovered by deploying supertankers to vacuum up the spill. This is the story told by a former Saudi Aramco engineer in concert with his efforts to convince BP and the U.S. Coast Guard to consider this approach for cleaning up the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

While the possibility of a spill-tested but presently ignored solution to the unfolding environmental mess is very intriguing, I was equally drawn to the fact that, if the story were true, Saudi Aramco had managed to keep this massive spill and its mostly-successful remediation a secret for over sixteen years. Not unexpectedly, Saudi Aramco has denied that this spill took place. Who is telling the truth?

Who cares! Start the movie!

To recap the sequence of events, what we have so far is:

1.A tanker is loading crude while several (at least three) additional tankers are waiting in line
2.The "umbilical cord" feeding the tanker is dislodged, spewing crude oil into the water
3.The tankers begin scrambling to move away from the oil
4.In the ensuing panic, four tankers end up leaking oil and two wells are somehow uncorked.
5.700 million gallons of oil is eventually spilled, with 85% of it collected over six months using supertankers as giant wet/dry vacuums.
6.Oil is offloaded to onshore gas oil separation plants.
Assuming these details are accurate, the following questions come to mind:

1.When did the spill happen?
2.Where could this spill have happened?
3.Could that much have been spilled?
4.Where did the tankers used to collect the oil come from?
5.How would the oil be separated from the water?
6.Is there any evidence of such a spill?
Alternately, all or part of the story could be fiction. Indeed, after several weeks, Saudi Aramco finally issued a flat denial.