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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.
Welcome our new robot underlords.
... and then they built the supercollider.
So the well is alive now and needs to have a platoon of 4-ton robotic pacemakers?
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.
Instead you would suggest...who, exactly? Oh, that's right--no one. There is NO ONE who is set up and ready to step in for this. BP doesn't own any of the robots or much of the gear that's being used to try to contain this--it's all contract work, basically. If you "got BP out of the equation" it wouldn't change a damned thing. The same crews with the same robots would be doing the same thing, except someone else would be paying for it. Probably the US Taxpayer.
What would a robot's ideal soup be? Hot soup would interfere with the cooling systems, so it would have to be cold, it's a robot, so obviously petroleum would be a must, and needs a good amount of salt. Oh, hey, robot soup is oil in ocean water.
This whole mess is probably caused by robots trying to get delicious, delicious robot soup.
I hear a lot of people saying that. I hear very few people offering suggestions of companies who already have this sort of equipment ready. Any suggestions?
This disaster is horrible, but on the other hand we have several 4 ton robots circling a well a mile beneath the water.
Humans are awesome.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
The operators got bored, and decided to play a few rounds of Robot Wars . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Hm. 1+ mile underwater welding. That sounds ... um, rather difficult.
They had a hard enough time dropping a giant cap and not having it pop off due to the pressure...
What was that robot thinking?
Clearly this idea was rejected because it is far too simple.
Very few things are easy when you're 5000 feet below sea level and dealing with pressures of 2k psi.
According to the National Hurricane Center (sorry, .PDF), hurricanes themselves won't affect the spill much one way or another. But they will seriously interrupt the recovery process, such as it is.
"The key to great robot cooking is to start with a good oil... and eat it" - Bender
I thought pouring oil on troubled waters was supposed to calm them!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The chief concern I've heard is that the hurricanes might drive the oil deeper into the wetlands, doing harm to one of the critical ecosystems in the area.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I hate to tell you this, but BP has more incentive than anyone to actually fix the problem, since they are going to be paying for the damages for the next 20 years.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
This reminds me of all the accidents caused by SUVs. With nary a mention of the driver.
How about Bad Robot Driver!!
How many hours was that guy on shift without a rest? How long ago did he have soup? Coffee?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
And then the pressure builds up behind the top of the wellhead, forcing oil through the porous sandstone compromising the integrity of the sea bed possibly causing a complete rupture of the ocean floor leading to the entire contents of the oil deposit rushing into the gulf. There's a reason they quit trying to top kill it. There's a reason they removed the broken pipe at the wellhead allowing more oil to flow into the gulf. This is bad, but the alternative is far worse.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You have two problems at work here: you have to do this under a shitton of water, and you are trying to cap a pipe with a shitton of pressure behind it. If it were as simple as "simply clamping/bolting a cap on it", then I suspect it would be done by now.
Or hey, maybe I'm wrong and you should be busy sending your resume to BP right away instead of posting on slashdot. ;)
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Yeah, Navy has a LOT of undersea oil exploration experience. Right!
The best experts are already on the job, except for the ones BP wants to hire, with spill cleanup expertise from the mideast, being kept at bay by the US Government.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Uh huh. Seize a petrol company tightly knit with a foreign government that happens to be one of our allies and also a nuclear power.
Let me know how that works out.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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If BP is seized it will quit laying golden eggs. BP isn't human, so damaging the shareholder value does _nothing_ against the employees who screwed up.
Paper entities don't feel pain, people do. Find and punish the malefactors to deter future screwups and to SAVE BP, whose stock is held by many US and other pension funds.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I know that BP has a worse safety record than other drillers, but that doesn't mean their ROV operators are less skilled. I'd like to see you (or anyone else) pull something like this off without making at least a couple mistakes.
These days, suddenly, everybody is a petroleum engineer.
Table-ized A.I.
Maybe if BP drilled for vinegar, and just let all that flow out as well . . . they could turn the whole disaster into a tasty salad dressing?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The problem is pressure. There isn't a pumpjack on the sea floor using suction to draw the petroleum out of the well. It is coming out by itself, and under very high pressure.
You could weld a valve onto the top, but if you try to close it, the pressure will seek relief elsewhere. If you get really, really lucky, it just blows out the weld and rejects the valve. Much more likely, however, it would split the pipe under the sea floor where we don't have access. The only hope of capturing anything is if the breech remains above the surface.
One day in July or August BP will suddenly get shit under control and the leak will stop over night. That will be the day the two relief wells come online and provide means to reduce the well pressure. BP started drilling these relief wells in April, and they take a few months to come online. Everything else is window dressing.
See that "Preview" button?
That reminds me, where did I leave that mile long pipe? I must have dropped it somewhere, if found please call... Assume it will launch and hit the moon (given BP's luck it will) then knock it off its axis and crash into North America causing the west coast to sink into the Pacific and I guess Mr DontBlama will put that bill on BP as well but dont worry BP money is endless right?......
The problem with making a wide pipe is that it would need to be very thick in order to sustain the pressure difference between a mile high column of oil and a mile high column of water. It would be too heavy to put in place as a result. Also, it's not likely to solve the hydrate problem, since the hydrate crystals would still build up on the inner surface of the pipe. They solved the hydrate problem by preventing seawater to enter the recovery system. A large containment dome would sill allow seawater in.
Find and punish the malefactors to deter future screwups
That's never going to happen even if anyone were serious about it. Making BP's investors pay is a whole lot easier than getting those responsible to pay.
Kindra Arnesen
BP is a band of complete villains. Putting these psychopaths in charge of the cleanup is like putting the same cast of characters who crashed the economy back in charge of the economy. Fuck these guys.
-FL
Every time one of their fixes fails, and I'm tempted to say things like "those guys are idiots!", people like you come along to demonstrate what true idiocy looks like.
Thanks for puttin' it in perspective.
The enemies of Democracy are
We will all die!
How many LoC's is a shitton and how many Shittonnes does that equal?
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
BP stockholder eh?
If BP is seized it will quit laying golden eggs.
I don't think people are too happy with the "golden eggs" that BP is laying.
so damaging the shareholder value does _nothing_ against the employees who screwed up.
The first problem is identifying who actually screwed up. Was it some worker who made a mistake and hit the wrong button or something? Or was it his manager who asked him to bypass some safety measure? Or perhaps the manager's manager who asked for unrealistic metrics while looking the other way on ethical violations? Or was it the manager's manager's manager who knew all this was going on and just didn't do anything?
How do you assign blame, and how do you prove it? Once you've figured that out, how do you punish them? Do you throw them in jail? I'm not opposed to it, but it doesn't help clean up the oil spill. You could fine them billions of dollars, but I don't think the individual employees have that money.
And here's the thing: when you get down to it, the shareholders invested in a company that was behaving unethically. It's the shareholder's investment that allows BP to function this way. When CEOs act unethically, they do it in the name of serving the shareholders. Don't the shareholders bear some responsibility? Isn't part of the problem that the "owners" of the company failed to ensure that their company was "doing the right thing?" I'm not sure that we should be seeking to punish shareholders, but I also don't see why they should take a pass.
As I see it, we have a systemic responsibility/blame problem. We love to blame people, but our system is explicitly set up to limit liability of anyone with wealth or power so that entrepreneurs won't be too risk-averse to build new business ventures. However, I think we've gone too far. The problems of the last decade have not been because people are not risk-averse enough.
People aren't investing their money, they're gambling it. Corporations cut corners and endanger lives to save a few bucks, creating situations where serious accidents become likely. When accidents occur, we let them off the hook. We say, "we shouldn't punish these corporations, because that will just hurt share holders!" and so not only do we not punish them, but we bail them out. I bet if we do go looking for an individual to blame, we'll get fed some low-level middle-management-type who was just passing along orders. Nothing will happen. Nothing will change.
Depends whether you're talking about long shittons, or short shittons.
A long shitton is 1.12 short shittons, and a long shitton is also close enough to a Shittonne that it makes no appreciable difference.
The real question is, how many Shittonnes in a MetricFuckload?
One Shittonne equals 10 MetricFuckloads, or a decaMetricFuckload. Or, more readable, a deciShittonne equals a metric fuckload.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Robots are known as Robots. ROV's are known as Remotely Operated Vehicles. This is a human's fault, not a machine's.
That's basically what they're doing with the current cap, although it's a bit more complicated than that.
The blowout preventer is still stitting on top of the wellhead, which prevents them from ramming it down onto the floor. Cutting off the BOP presents another huge series of problems, and probably shouldn't be attempted.
The primary issue with capturing the oil is the insane amount of pressure at the wellhead. The oil is gushing out of the well, despite there being a mile-high column of water on top of it. Actually obtaining a seal around the pipe (and at those depths) is going to be nearly impossible.
Don't forget about the methane hydrates too. The extra pressure created by a capping mechanism causes the methane to solidify, and clog the pipe.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Here was your equipment offer. Advanced Skimming Equipment
The well casing is ruptured below the sea floor. If they cap it, oil will begin leaking below the surface. This will cause extensive erosion leading to the collapse of the blow out preventor. This erosion will continue and leakage rates will continue to increase until the whole oil field depressurizes. In other words: The very best anybody will ever do is to leave this pipe wide open. It will only get worse from here, and substantially faster if they do cap it. Our only hope is with other means to depressurize this (relief wells).
Was it some worker who made a mistake and hit the wrong button or something?
No, it's not possible that criminal blame lies in that direction. Gross negligence, in the case where the worker put himself in a position where he was bound to make such a mistake, maybe, but if it's a genuine worker mistake, then any criminal blame, if such exists, lies with those who created a situation where a single worker mistake can undermine the whole operation with such severe consequences.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
This robot must appear in front of a Congressional Hearing to be b%tch-slapped and ritually humiliated in a proper farcical manner.
Yeah, I think McDonalds would be far better suited. They know how to handle oil.
Dead cows don't give milk.
But they do give delicious steak.
The problem is the when government regulation does prevent a disaster from happening it becomes a non-event and no one pays any attention to it. It's easy for government to get the blame when things don't go well but they seldom get much credit when thing do go well.
The Niger Delta wetlands have been suffering oil damage for the last 50 years from BP and other US oil companies, perhaps the US government could ask the Nigerian government on how to deal with it.
so damaging the shareholder value does _nothing_ against the employees who screwed up.
No, but if we penalize the shareholders, the next batch of shareholders will be more careful about investing in companies without morals. We really need to realize that investing money in a company means that you're actually financially supporting them, it's not just a casino where you put your money into a magic number machine and it spits out some random percentage, hopefully above 100, of what you put in after a week.
No, they won't. They'll ask and receive bailouts, use those bailouts to pay bonuses to the CEO, "sell" all the assets to a "new" corporation and finally let the "old" one go bankrupt while the directors move to the "new" one.
Personal responsibility is for peasants, not for plutocrats.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Hello from 11 miles South of the spill zone.
We were actually expecting a lot more oil from this news, but the surface is still relatively clear, with small, 20-50 meter blobs of oil to be collected and a great deal of green water otherwise. Two task forces are out here skimming, and 500 bbls a day is a good haul for one of the skimmers. We've been hampered by several fronts passing through the area, but collection continues. There's been a C-130 dropping dispersant in the area, with good results on the oil (although it makes the remains too thin to skim).
Although many here will scoff at the daily take we're seeing on the skimming vessels, it's surprising how little oil you see around the spill zone. A lot, I hope, is burning in that giant fire in the horizon. I expected a spike in how much oil we'd see, but it's all going... somewhere, just not up here.