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Hundred-Ton Dome To Collect Oil Spill
eldavojohn writes "After failing to contain the Gulf oil spill any other way, a massive containment dome had the finishing touches put on yesterday. It amounts to a giant concrete-and-steel box made by Wild Well Control that is designed to siphon the crude oil away from the water. They expect an 85 percent collection with this device. It's not a pretty situation as Google Earth illustrates."
If this concrete dealy doesn't work, what other options do they have?
My understanding is that the only other option is to drill a relief well. Unfortunately it will take months before they have the equipment and logistics in place to do that.
I'd like to know how this dome is supposed to work in rough seas. The oil is going to be contained within the dome and brought to a surface ship. What happens when that surface ship can't maintain position due to inclement weather? Hurricane season starts in another few weeks....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Can anybody tell me about the chemical dispersants? what happens to the 'dispersed' oil plus these chemicals? This is a naive question, please educate me but surely this means you now have oil+chemical in your water rather than just oil in your water - is the dilution level so low that it doesn't affect the sealife that is later caught to eat, does it combine with the oil to something that it relatively innocuous that breaks down in sunlight, or something that sinks to the sea bed etc?
Information welcomed, just curious about what happens to that oil if its not skimmed off the surface or burnt off, but chemically treated and left in the ocean and left there. Maybe it's just so dilute it doesn't matter, I don't know. Any knowledge on this, folks?
you realize that the liability of BP is capped by law at a ridiculously low amount?
I find it amusing that the industry thought they could get away with that one. That they thought such a law could withstand the will of hordes of enraged and ruined people. No, BP is going to pay far, far more than $75 million. If they could stop the leak right now, and gather up all the spilled oil before it does any more damage, they could live this one down. It may turn out not as bad as feared. Seems unlikely from what I've heard.
No one has forgotten the Exxon Valdez. If this is worse, and every indication is that it will be much, much worse, this will never be forgotten either. What's a big company's reputation worth? A lot more than a paltry $75 million. To this day, I still sometimes avoid Exxon gas stations. Corporations have learned that they absolutely cannot afford such epic mistakes, no matter what technical limitations in liability they've won with lobbying. There were safety measures they could have taken to avoid all this. Union Carbide didn't survive Bhopal. Piper Alpha is the biggest oil platform disaster ever, but Occidental survived. This one doesn't have as many deaths. But it may be bigger. If that oil leaks for another 3 months, BP's downfall may be the least of the consequences. The entire Mississippi delta, Florida's coast, west and east, and who knows where the loop current and gulf stream might ultimately transport the mess?
The industry has really shit its nest this time.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
BP owns the oil lease, and are responsible for everything that happens there, including safety and disaster mitigation.
When BP contracted to someone to put the rig in place and drill, they set the safety standards for their contractor to follow, and were responsible for ensuring performance to contract.
When your employee doesn't follow your rules, it's as much your fault as theirs.
I think a lot of people are very interested to learn why the Blowout Preventer failed, given that they have multiple failsafes, and are built to account for this exact sort of incident, including two "shear rams" that should have been able to cut through anything stuck in the valve to seal it.
BP's got a poor track record, and should be sued into oblivion if we find out that they tampered with or disabled safety measures on the BOP.
However, there's no evidence of this just yet, and several companies were involved with this particular rig at the time of the incident.
From what I've been reading, the BOP failure could either be narrowed down to a complete, colossal screw-up by BP, or a Rube Goldberg series of events that prevented the BOP from working.
Obviously, we'll be seeing many new safety measures installed on all current and future BOPs, as well as ROVs that can supply sufficient hydraulic power to close the shear rams in the event of a multiple system failure.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose