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BP Robot Seriously Hampers Oil Spill Containment
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes
"A high-tech effort by BP to slow the oil gushing from its ruptured well head led to a large accident yesterday that forced the company to remove a vital containment cap for 10 hours. Robots, known as remote operated vehicles, were performing multiple operations at the disaster site when one bumped into the 'top hat' cap and damaged one of the vents that removes excess fluid, according to the US Coast Guard. The robots weigh around four tons, and are controlled from vessels on the surface using advanced IT systems with both manual and automated functions. BP removed the cap for nearly 10 hours ... in order to assess it after a discharge of liquids was noted from a key valve. The cap's removal left the oil gushing out of the wellhead, largely uninterrupted. Admiral Thad Allen, US National Incident Commander for the response, told the media that part of the problem was the number of robots conducting simultaneous operations at an immense depth. A dozen robots are circulating the wellhead."
Another factor that may hinder containment even more is the increasing potential for tropical storms in that area of the Gulf.
Get BP out of the equation NOW. Is it not obvious that they cannot handle the situation at all? Unless BP pays a disinterested third party (and I hate to say this, but one picked by the government) to get this capped permanently, we will never see an end to this "cleanup" operation.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
I use /. almost as much as I use your momma... get over it.
If there is a dozen ROV's around the well, why are they only releasing the feeds from 8 of them.... They should release the rest of them.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
BP is complete fail...like this is going to be something that will be forever flaunted in the face of any politician brassy enough to imply a self regulated industry as innocuous as even a q-tip packager is a sane idea.
ive heard everything from "bp is censoring the media" to "bp is burning sea turtles alive" and now "bp is smashing robots into the
well cap." BP has tried FIVE TIMES to contain this spill for over two months now. every wild fancy from broken golfballs and rope to heavy mud and cement has been thrown at this thing and nothing BP "engineers" can come up with seems to be imaginative enough to stop this fucking leak.
in another six months the gulf coast will not only have to contend with the fallout from its annual bevy of hurricanes, but the inevitable complexities coastal crude oil fires pose as municipalities will be forced to extinguish flaming transformers and ruptured gas lines tainted with this shit. ground water table pollution is also a consideration after the hurricane season.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The biggest factor that will hinder containment and cleanup is that BP has no inherent motivation to either contain or clean up the oil, other than an economic one. All of the normal human responses, that it's a horrible disaster that will cause unimaginable human and environmental suffering for years if not decades, none of that matters to BP at all.
Nice rant, full of lots of big words too. Mods really like that one. Pity it bares no resemblance to reality what so ever. I may have believed this "BP doesn't care and will walk away as soon as it's capped" nonsense a few weeks ago except due to either collosally bad timing on your post, or maybe simply not opening a news paper you may have missed the new organisation that BP has set up for the explicit purpose of long term restoration of the Gulf.
Some corporations fuck up, everyone knows that. But not every corporation is sociopathic and will just walk away ala Exxon after their pissweak attempt to help cleanup the Valdez spill.
But hey let's all just keep generalising. Corporations are sociopaths at heart, governments are all fascist, and I'm sure even a card carrying PETA member would kick a dog if they were about to get bitten. Summary: The world's fucked, buy a helmet.