CUF Solutions to the BP Spill

[RobinFinderson]

I've got an idea for how to close the BP Oil Leak. This thread is for people who think they have good ideas, both serious and comical, for how to plug the leak.

Here is my idea... a series of truncated concentric cones. The cones would fit over each other, and each would latch on to the one before it. The idea is to slowly constrict the flow of the oil. The first cone would get bolted to the ground (is there anything solid enough to bolt to??), and would restrict oil flow minimally. Each cone that follows would have an increasingly narrow spout, until the flow was completely shut off.

There you go. RobinFinderson just solved the BP Gulf Oil leak. You are all welcome.

In case BP doesn't read CUF, or in the unlikely case that one of you other people has a better solution, what is it?

[Pheidippides]

Lol, you've just created a crazy high pressure oil cannon, capable of ripping the sheet metal off of ships. To give you an idea of the pressures we are talking about, do you remember that metal box they tried a couple of weeks ago? It was bigger than my house and probably as heavy. The oil spewing out of there essentially made it float away.

[Moliere]

RF with another fabulous idea for a thread (definitely not fool proof though). Here's my idea:

Pump sea water into the blowout preventer until the relief well is completed. I know the top kill didn't work but it seems that it stopped the leakage of oil or at least slowed it down. We should continue to pump something into the BOP until the relief well is completed since this would keep the amount of oil leaking out to a very minimum. If sea water doesn't work, then we should use drilling mud. In any case, the cost of doing this can't be much more than cleaning up the beaches after 60 more days of spewing oil.

My other idea is to have my brother take a dump in the gulf since he was pretty good at clogging up the bathroom in our parents house.

[doctorcoug]

Nikuman:

Doesn't the density of water cause the force required to move an object to be less? So, just because that object was very large and had a large mass, the density of water made it much easier to toss and turn, right?


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[Katy Lied]

My other idea is to have my brother take a dump in the gulf since he was pretty good at clogging up the bathroom in our parents house.

So my coworker was going on and on about her 4 cats, and I was nodding and smiling and I glanced at this post on my computer and totally lost it. My coworker is quite offended.

[Pheidippides]

Nikuman:

Doesn't the density of water cause the force required to move an object to be less? So, just because that object was very large and had a large mass, the density of water made it much easier to toss and turn, right?


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Don't look at me - I'm no physicist, at least not any more. Although I have been told that at those depths we're talking about water that's almost as dense as the "mud" that they use in normal well drilling - maybe that makes it easier, I don't know. In any event, we're talking about several tons of farking steel (there were ice crystals as well.

I don't claim to be an expert at the actual operational side of drilling at all - I just know what I hear from industry people. But it's beyond any doubt that the pressures involved are insane. As I've said before, blowouts of this type typically involve gas escaping on the platform at the speed of sound.

[falafel]

So my coworker was going on and on about her 4 cats, and I was nodding and smiling and I glanced at this post on my computer and totally lost it. My coworker is quite offended.

Maybe she was offended because you were reading the internet during your conversation.

[Pheidippides]

RF with another fabulous idea for a thread (definitely not fool proof though). Here's my idea:

Pump sea water into the blowout preventer until the relief well is completed. I know the top kill didn't work but it seems that it stopped the leakage of oil or at least slowed it down. We should continue to pump something into the BOP until the relief well is completed since this would keep the amount of oil leaking out to a very minimum. If sea water doesn't work, then we should use drilling mud. In any case, the cost of doing this can't be much more than cleaning up the beaches after 60 more days of spewing oil.

My other idea is to have my brother take a dump in the gulf since he was pretty good at clogging up the bathroom in our parents house.

Sea water at that level is not much different than drilling mud. Or, at least, sea water at that level is so close to drilling mud at the surface in terms of pressure that it is sometimes used instead of mud for casing/cementing pipes. At least that is what I am told.

[Katy Lied]

Maybe she was offended because you were reading the internet during your conversation.

That too, but I would never have given anything away had Mr. Jones not made me laugh.

[Moliere]

Sea water at that level is not much different than drilling mud. Or, at least, sea water at that level is so close to drilling mud at the surface in terms of pressure that it is sometimes used instead of mud for casing/cementing pipes. At least that is what I am told.

So is my idea plausible? I've been wondering this ever since they stopped pumping crap into the BOP. I mean, if there is any way to stop the oil from coming out this seems like a good stop gap until a more permanent solution is used. I'm sure it's not plausible or else they would be doing it right now.

[Moliere]

That too, but I would never have given anything away had Mr. Jones not made me laugh.

I finally made someone laugh. My work on CUF is done. I'll say hi to DDD for everyone.

[Lost Student]

The pressure at 5,000 feet down is around 2200 psi, which is actually pretty low compared to the pressures within the wells. Pressures down in the wells exceed 20,000 psi.

Not only that, but the deep-sea oil wells have temperatures up to 400 degrees F and very caustic conditions. Most equipment designed for normal wells will fail quickly under deep-sea conditions. I hope this info helps you all as you figure out your solutions.

[Uncle Ted]

RF with another fabulous idea for a thread (definitely not fool proof though). Here's my idea:

Pump sea water into the blowout preventer until the relief well is completed. I know the top kill didn't work but it seems that it stopped the leakage of oil or at least slowed it down. We should continue to pump something into the BOP until the relief well is completed since this would keep the amount of oil leaking out to a very minimum. If sea water doesn't work, then we should use drilling mud. In any case, the cost of doing this can't be much more than cleaning up the beaches after 60 more days of spewing oil.

Yes, the relief well seems like the only solution that will most likely work.

As for clean up I am wondering if this idea of using supertankers has any merit. Apparently it worked for Saudi Arabia.

My other idea is to have my brother take a dump in the gulf since he was pretty good at clogging up the bathroom in our parents house.

You need to submit this idea to the Whitehouse immediately.

[beefytee]

My other idea is to have my brother take a dump in the gulf since he was pretty good at clogging up the bathroom in our parents house.

Maybe they can put baby wipes down there. That's what does it at our house.

[beefytee]

From what I've heard, the nuke option or other simple explosions like this would easily stop the leak, but the biggest concern is recovering the oil that is still in the well and one of these simple solutions might make that more difficult.

Is there any truth to this? Is the reason they can't find an easy way to stop the leak because they want to keep drilling there?