Posted on 05/27/2010 2:03:28 PM PDT by moose2004
HOUSTON — BP had to halt its ambitious effort to plug its stricken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday afternoon when engineers saw that too much of the drilling fluid they were injecting into the well was escaping along with the leaking crude oil.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I just read a comment about that on the Oil Drum live thread:
Found out much more about IXTOC disaster. It went on for almost a year and spewed this amount that damaged the Gulf and Texas coasts. They were finally able to cap it. I don’t even remember it being on the news!
IXTOC
On June 3, 1979, the 2 mile deep exploratory well, IXTOC I, blew out in the Bahia de Campeche, 600 miles south of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico The IXTOC I well continued to spill oil at a rate of 10,000 - 30,000 barrels per day until it was finally capped on March 23, 1980.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6516#comment-631410
1979? Wow, I was really off; I thought I was younger when it happened. But now I know why I heard about it. I was working at a very large engineering and energy construction company at the time; so it had to have been there I heard the engineers discussing it. Heck, maybe some of them were loaned out to help fix it.
Butt,
I think you nailed it. He can’t say he was born in Hawaii. This should be the very first question at his next press conference (if he ever has another one).
Mr. President, can you confirm to the nation that you were born in Hawaii. You’ll see more evasive manuevers from Dancing Barry than you would in an Ultimate Fighting Championship event.
Good catch.
No Problem I saw that Obama is in charge now so things will get fixed.
hahahahah
I had to pick myself up off the floor after you called me Butt. rofl. I haven’t been called Butt since I was a girl.
It was a term of endearment then and I’ll accept it that way now too. =)
What Obama and the country need to become aware of is that it is a federal crime to try to deceive Congress - the same Congress in charge of certifying the electoral vote. Obama doesn’t have to say a word to be guilty of deception, by what he DOESN’T say - like when he DOESN’T say that somebody put up a forged COLB on his own campaign website.
See page 12 at
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/98-808.pdf, which describes the federal general
false statement statute, 18 U.S.C. 1001 .
The only out I see for Obama is the same out that Murtha relied on when he slandered the Haditha Marines: that Congress critters can say whatever they want in a press conference because holding them to the same standard as us peons might dampen their “dialog”. But I don’t think that gives even Congress critters the right to NOT say something that must be said to correct a lie.
Maybe the legal eagles here can say more about that.
I keep throwing this idea around. What would happen if they tried to pour semi hardened lava or liquid metal into the hole? Any chance that it would harden or would it be an explosion hazard?
Ixtoc was in 50 feet of water. This is under 5000 feet. It’s different:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/excerptfrom2003report.pdf
According to the administration, there’s an Apollo 13-type operation they’re running to shut it down.
Except there’s no one in charge of it and nothing being done.
What would Superman do? Why build relief wells of course.
Sadly you are correct, too much mud is escaping (carried by the oil/gas) out of the BOP. Now BP will attempt to mix bridging materiel and mud. Then pump that down to the BOP in the hopes that the bridging material will seal some of the leaks and allow more mud to go down the hole. Let's all hope and pray that works.
why not tap onto/over the leak and divert it to the surface where the product can be separated and loaded onto tankers
why not:
1. divert the flow to the surface
2.separted the mud, water , gasses, usable product
Yup, it's different. A release in shallow water is more environmentally dangerous than one in deep water. Formation of smaller oil-in-water drops and emulstions means that the natural bacteria can dispose of the oil faster.
They were doing both, but can't do the "pump and capture" while the "top kill" attempt is being made. If the "top kill" fails, they will go back to (and probably expand) the "pump and capture" process while waiting for the relief wells to be completed.
whateve happened to the bent pipe (looked sort of like a periscope) that we were originally seeing when they first started showing us a live feed weeks ago? Haven’t seen that one in awhile.
Does anyone know the latest on this story?
The MSM seems to be silent on it today.
Another thing - we were being led to believe yesterday that it was going on all day when it now appears that it was NOT going on yesterday as it was stopped for at least 16 hrs.
Yesterday afternoon saw one conflicting story after another. MSM reported it worked. Obama took credit. THen it wasn’t working. Then we find out it was down for 16 hrs. Then they started talking junk shot.
What is going on? Is mud being pumped right now?
Uh, during the "top kill" they aren't capturing oil, because no oil is coming up. If they turn off the "top kill" (assuming they aren't successful with it), then oil will again be pumped up and captured. Nothing I said implies that they aren't running the "pump and capture" line.
If "I" was running the system, I'd slow down the "pump and capture" flow during the "top kill" to save wear and tear on the pumps, but at the first sign of gas/oil, ramp them up again.
Source please.
No source, just obvious. Spill the same amount of oil in deep water vs shallow.....the deep leak has more time to disperse, so its impact will be less. Also, shallow waters are much more bio-productive than deep, so there is more "life" there to be effected.
Now, now, no reason to be catty -- he's doing his very best to walk on water.
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