Posted on 06/02/2010 3:31:54 AM PDT by Scanian
BP's engineers can't stop the gushing oil spill, but a young genius from Long Island says she found the solution in less time than it takes most people to finish a crossword puzzle.
Since the "top kill," "junk shot" and "top hat" techniques failed to end the environmental nightmare, Alia Sabur -- who started her engineering Ph.D. at age 14 -- is pushing for a more radical idea.
The Northport native, who started reading before she could walk and who at 18 broke a 300-year-old record to become the youngest-ever college professor, proposes surrounding a pipe with deflated automobile tires, inserting it into the leaking riser, and then inflating the wheels to form a seal.
She calls the plan the "seabed retread."
"It's not completely out there, considering that tires are used for everything and they're expected to withstand a lot," Sabur, 21, told The Post.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Amazing. I had roughly the same idea, with used condoms.
No really, I hope she’ll be listened to ASAP, and it’ll work.
Actually, it’s not a bad idea...just call it a temp, and once you get things blocked (even just an hour)...you dump in the mud and stuff behind that blockage to concrete things down permanently. My suggested name for the idea: “The Goodyear Block”.
why don’t they use Liquid Nitrogen?
In the meantime, can we get a few hoses at the point of the leak to intercept some of the gushing oil for now???
The trick would be getting the pipe ‘n tires down into the well, wouldn’t it?
It’s more similar to a gigantic tampon actually.
If it’s stupid and it works, it’s not stupid.
How many thousands of pounds per square inch can a 40 psi tire take? Not to mention the concrete cap wouldn’t settle because the air lines froze. Maybe a doughnut shaped sleeve with a not so highly compressible gas that has a super low freezing point might be an idea.
Genius????? If this is our newest and “brightest”, then we are in deep shit!
She should know that it is not only futile, to use a device that is only meant to withstand less than a hundred pounds of pressure, to stop pressures exceeding 10 THOUSAND PSI!
But then, like our Boy President, they are THE smartest people on the Planet. What ever they think of has to be correct by proxy.
Excellent Post, and article on the other end. I wonder if someone who might break this, like Beck, has this info...?
sounds similar to something I said here last week. ALthough I think she’s referring to inner tubes, and My suggestion was to inflate them with that mud they use rather than air.
Exactly. Why does everyone think the oil is trickling out like a bubbling stream? If it were so easy, I’m sure BP, losing millions and millions of dollars per day, would have thought of that.
Your first link - oil dispersant companies blocking capping the leak? All righty.
She has no idea of the pressures involved here. If it were that simple to insert something into that pipe, they would have driven a conical plug into it a long time ago.
I think this idea would stop the leak better than trying to jam tires down the shaft.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpPNQoTlacU
Withstand a lot!? Deflating, inflating wheels one mile under the sea? It looks like some crucial details have been left out.
How much is "a lot?" ...sounds naive.
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