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BP Says "Top Kill" Operation Has Failed
MrShaggy sends a quote from a CBC story: "BP has scuttled the 'top kill' procedure of shooting heavy drilling mud into its blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico after it failed to plug the leak. BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles told reporters on Saturday that over the last three days, the company has pumped more than 30,000 barrels of mud and other materials down the well but has not been able to stop the flow. 'These repeated pumping[s], we don't believe will likely achieve success, so at this point it's time to move to the next option,' Suttles said."
Yeah! Lets punish a group of people, 95% of which had absolutely nothing to do with the safty of oil rigs just to satisfy the screaming mob! They're rich, who cares about how innocent they are!
If this keeps going, we can go down to the local BP petrol station with some ropes too!
Thank god we have you here to tell us how to do it. In all seriousness, the reason they don't "just simply do
- you are an ass. For decades the oil drilling companies have come up with nothing at all, my point is that there are probably things better than nothing that can be done.
You're talking depths of over one mile. Do you know how much pressure there is that deep? I'm willing to bet that you don't
- you are an ass. 10 meters of water = 1 atm, were I went to school it was explained in the 6th grade, which was at age of 12.
Do you know how to power "large propellers that would add dynamic push to the static, gravity added push against the leak." a mile under water?
- you are an ass. People have been powering things under water for a hundred years at least. One possibility is to run a cable from a ship on top, that could power that with nuclear or diesel.
What the fuck? Do you know how to get these "large legos" into a hole that is
- you are an ass. I said place enough containers on top of the ocean floor that depending on the leak size, connect them together. What is the best way to connect them together is an engineering question. How many of them should be dropped is a question of total leak magnitude and force.
(how wide? Surely you must know, you're apparently the fucking expert on this shit.)
- you are an ass. I precisely said that I am no expert on this shit but that the so called experts have done Absolutely nothing in decades to improve any of their procedures have obviously failed in the past and are failing now.
while exactly (how many?) BARRELS of oil rush out per minute?
- you are an ass. BP Specifically would not allow scientists anywhere near the leak so that they could not ever tell anyone how much oil is siphoning out.
Yes, oil companies should be required to have solutions for stopping leaks such as this, but could everyone please stop putting out their nonsense "engineering solutions" out there.
- you are an ass. Who are you to tell people what they should and should not be putting out there?
The situation isn't as simple as you think and people smarter than you are working on this.
- you are an ass. As far as people working on this being smarter than me, that is totally your own conjecture and is not a fact.
If you came up with it in 10 seconds then it WON'T FUCKING WORK.
- you are an ass. Many things can be improved or thought of in 10 seconds, but the implementation with all the necessary calculations take much longer than that and I was quite specific on the fact that I am not providing a calculated solution but a cursory idea that the oil companies don't look at.
STOP ADDING TO THE NOISE BY SPEWING MORE FUCKING BULLSHIT.
- you are an ass. Follow your own advice.
That's exactly the LAST thing we fucking need right now.
- you are an ass. Who the fuck is 'we'?
what an ass.
You can't handle the truth.
What I think is that they are lying every second of every day, I don't see a single reason to believe a thing they are saying and the only 'advancement' for the past 30 years since Ixtoc was that they decided to change names of their failed attempts to stop the oil gushing.
They used to call the cone, that they tried putting over the leaking well a 'Sombrero'. Now they call it 'Top Hat'.
You can't handle the truth.
As an engineer, I take offense when people come up with stuff off the top of their head and assume that teams of professionals haven't considered the same options and rationally analyzed the feasibility.
^^ this. Your statement is complete and utter bullshit when related to this situation. No, they have not rationally considered the options and have not rationally analyzed the feasibility. They are doing exactly the same thing they have been doing for the past 30 years at least. The current oil spill is a mirror image of the Ixtoc disaster, the difference is just how deep they are drilling. They couldn't stop the spill in 50 meters of water with the blow out preventer, it did not work then, didn't work now; with the 'sombrero' = 'top hat', with the 'junk shot'= some metal balls they were throwing into the well then, they couldn't stop the leak with pumping the mud='top kill' etc.
You can take all the offense you like, but this is simply the truth. Engineers are not running BP or Transocean or Halliburton. Engineers matter only to the question: how much more money can we dig out of the earth and not: how do we deal with a disaster we may cause.
You can't handle the truth.
Instead of simply blaming governments and oil industries we have to think about our own desire to consume oil. We, as consumers, have a responsibility in this situation as well.
Let's say an apple farmer gives his apple pickers faulty ladders to work with and, as a result, dozens of workers every year fall and break their necks. Are you saying this would be the fault of consumers who purchase apples? Should people reduce their consumption of apples to fix this problem? Or does the fault lie with the farmer and have nothing at all to do with the people who purchase the apples?
Substitute farmer and apples with BP and oil.
Your analogy is flawed and incomplete.
The consumers demand apples, but also demand that they should not be able to see the orchards. Consumers also demand that apples be cheap; when apples are expensive, the same demanding consumers demand that the farmer be investigated, and that his orchards, ladders, barns, outbuildings, vegetable gardens, asses, horses, children - all of his property and interests - be confiscated. See also socialism.
This forces the farmer to work on steep mountains and in canyons and other places where consumers don't go. He can't stop, because he doesn't want his things stolen. His choice is risk and wealth, or abdication and ruin.
He uses ladders that he believes are safe and takes the precaution of putting a net under each ladder in case someone should should fall. Unfortunately, while working on a particularly tall and steep and inaccessible mountain 50 miles away from civilization, a ladder breaks, and the net fails as well...
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The real flaw in the analogy is that the consumers don't really care about the dead workers so long as they have access to cheap apples, so our scenario needs to end with an s--- load on apples rolling down the mountain and into the river to wash up on the beaches as smelly and deadly applesauce. If anyone wants to fix the analogy some more...?
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If the consumers aren't to blame entirely, they at least share in the blame.
BP took shortcuts. It is their fault.
And while I agree that our dependence on oil is a contributing factor, everyone saying it's all our fault needs to stop driving, stop taking the bus or anything that uses petrol and live up to your claims. Yes, alternative fuels will be nice someday, but get off your soapbox and start practicing what you're preaching. It's not so easy, is it?
We need more R&D into alternative fuels but right now much of that is being done by the oil companies, and our shoddy education system based on standardized tests doesn't exactly turn out the best and the brightest to contribute to more R&D. I see that as a bigger problem that will fail to sustain America.
What a brilliant idea. Let's cripple our already ailing economy by making transportation unaffordable for the masses. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will see a nice rise in their production, and a drop in their oil prices as they are not burdened by wasteful taxes.
I hear there's a presidential race coming up, and you seem like the man for the job!