Slashdot Mirror
BP's Final "Top Kill" Procedure For Gulf Oil Spill
eldavojohn writes "So far every attempted fix has resulted in failure to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill with the exception of the riser insertion method that appears to be little more than a mile-long tube sucking up oil. After attempting many options to allow the continued collection of crude oil, BP is finally considering a 'top kill' option that will kill the well. A vessel at the surface will use 30,000 horsepower pumps to slam kill mud and clay into the well's bent riser, allowing them to cap the well off with two relief wells (which won't be ready for several months). If that fails, the vessel will move on to a 'junk shot' that involves spewing larger debris like shredded rubber and golf balls into the lines to gum up the flow and stop it. Government officials acknowledge that while this may provide a solution, it may also worsen the situation if the resulting pressure causes the lines to blow or fail at other points. While this is likely one of the worst environmental disasters to hit the gulf, BP's debacle has caused Shell to pre-build cofferdams into seven wells that it is currently drilling in the gulf. These would drop into place in the event of such a catastrophic failure of a riser under the well."
Personally, I think it's amazing that one of our solutions for these spills is still to "burn it off" from the surface of the ocean. Then another alternative involves dumping bacteria into the water that will "eat" the oil.
Why haven't we done more to build devices to collect up the oil that's spilled (since oil and water don't mix anyway, you'd think their separation wouldn't be a huge technological hurdle), vs. wasting a natural resource we've already gone to such great lengths to collect in the first place?
Seems to me the best course of action would have been to plug up the well ASAP, followed by recovering as much oil as possible that leaked to the surface, BEFORE it had days or weeks to float all over the place with the changing currents.....
You know you've successfully made a point on Slashdot when your post gets modded up to +5 then back down to -1 within the first 30 minutes of it being up.
Just proof that the moderation system is a popularity contest amongst a slightly more intellectual crowd. It's not news.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Your post is so lame slashdot thought it was lame. That's lame. That WALLOWS in lameness.
It went to the zoo, bought a ticket to see lame, fell in the lame pit and LAME ATE IT.
It's so lame that when psychoacoustical models were applied to reduce the additional useless overhead, the result was silence. That's how lame it was.