Posted on 06/04/2010 9:18:54 PM PDT by GVnana
John Hofmeister and Nick Pozzi tell Fast Company how a possible solution to the Gulf Oil spill is sitting under BP's nose.
Underwater robots, containment domes, top hats, hot taps, junk shots ... the potential fixes to the Gulf Oil Spill sound like they come straight from a cringeworthy disaster flick (or a PR think tank). But what if the solution is right under our noses? What if it's already sitting in the Gulf? John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell Oil, and Nick Pozzi, a former pipeline engineering and operations project manager for Saudi Aramco, think it might be.
According to Hofmeister, oil supertankers could be used to suck up massive amounts of oil--possibly millions of barrels at a time.
In an interview with FastCompany.com, Hofmeister explained that a little-known Saudi oil spill from an offshore platform in the early 1990s dumped more crude into the sea than any spill in U.S. history (think hundreds of millions of gallons). But the government and local press kept it quiet. And that's why one of the big fixes in the Saudi oil spill--the oil-skimming supertanker--hasn't been publicized.
"[They] figured out how to deploy supertankers that had the ability to both intake and discharge liquids in vast quantities with huge pumps," Hofmeister explained. "The supertankers could simply suck in seawater and oil simultaneously--they can hold millions of barrels--and when full, they could discharge oil at a port into tanks where they could separate oil from water. The idea is novel in that you can get massive of oil amounts quickly." Once the supertankers make it to to the port, water can be treated and discharged, and oil can either be used or destroyed.
(Excerpt) Read more at forums.hannity.com ...
bttt
bttt
Well, if you want to gather the world's experts at working at a mile underwater, they're right there. As I said, virtually every deepwater submersible is presently at the Deepwater site. It would not surprise me if BP's not already contracted for another half dozen of them to be made, under the assumption that they're going to end up liable for them too.
The world's experts at undersea blowouts have already chimed in with their option: Just drop a nuke on it. Since Russia generally doesn't get hassled by Greenpeace, that is an easier solution for them. And I expect that BP's considered the nuclear option (or high explosives, etc), and was forced to dismiss it as an option. I suspect the reason for that is a great concern that all that would happen is rather than having a 20 inch hole to contend with, they'd end up with a vast area of the sea floor spewing oil. And who knows what else; tropical areas are suspected to have huge substrate deposits of frozen methane, what would happen if you actually did use a nuke on the floor of the gulf of Mexico is probably something that keeps someone awake at night.
As for engineering firms and schools - BP long ago opened the call to anyone who has a bloody good idea. They've also pretty much admitted the budget for this operation is upwards of five billion dollars. There's one big problem. This isn't something where you can cook the data like global warming, you actually have to come up with a real world solution, and there is just one effective one: Drill a relief well.
ANSWER: Why waste a beautiful crisis?.. and make America and American engineers look like idiots?..
Where did you see that? I need to know.
I read about that also, a couple of weeks ago ..can not remember where.
;(
The Saudi spill was bigger than this one, and supertankers can go anywhere. Functionally, regarding sucking up oil, the two spills are extremely similiar. You think there weren't massive spill areas or drifting underwater pools of oil in Suadi? Why not? On the whole, Saudi proves this method works.
I guarantee all their ideas have been considered, and dismissed not because of cost, but due to their being ineffective ideas. Because if it did work, you've got tens of millions of gallons of oil just sitting there for the taking - why not just go collect that free money yourself if BP’s too cheap to do it.
I guarantee you, you shouldn't be guaranteeing anything. Why not just go collect the oil? Because the Feds won't let you. Why won't the Feds let you? Because this gives them an ideal political crisis to 1) attack drilling; 2) attack burning oil at all; 3) push cap and tax; 4) give a rallying cry to environmentalists to get out and vote Democrat.
So am I saying the Democrats would actually blow up an oil well and potentially destroy the entire Gulf of Mexico and all of the Gulf shoreline ecosystems just for... votes?
Of course they would - and they wouldn't lose any sleep over it, either.
Greenpeace? ::snort:: Greenpeace is irrelevent - you hear them demanding to be part of the solution now? As well, what would Greenpeace say when the nuke stopped the leak?
And by the way, no one is talking about "dropping a nuke on it" or "using a nuke on the floor of the Gulf" - where do you get such tripe? The nuke would be placed into the bottom of an extremely deep shaft - like three MILES underneath the ocean floor - that was angled to approach the main leaking shaft, and then crush it sideways witht he blast impact to shut it off. No radiation whatsoever would make it to the surface.
Learn before you pontificate.
-the wellbore casing is damaged. Cap the top, and oil will probably blow right out the sides of the wellbore. This thing is blowing oil out at 10,000 psi.
-Problem is; it would take as long to drill a hole for the nuke, as it would to drill the relief well.
voraxial separator unit for oil spill response
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W8_GpMz9nI&playnext_from=TL&videos=dy_e3l1Vysg
The Saudi spill, at 800,000 gallons, was 19,000 barrels, which is the top end of the high estimates for the daily spill from the Deepwater accident. If you go by the lower official estimates of 5,000 barrels a day, that's 4 days of a nearly 50 day disaster. The Saudi spill was a drop in the bucket compared to this.
Functionally, regarding sucking up oil, the two spills are extremely similiar.
The Saudi spill was a near surface breach, in 100 feet of water. The Deepwater accident is in 5000 feet of water. By the time the oil reaches the suface, it has already broken down into component products. Simply by virtue of the depth, taking nothing else into account, it occupies 500 times the amount of volume as the Saudi spill.
These are apples and oranges you're comparing, every supertanker in the world would be required to simply clean 1/10th of the water just counting the depth to well head. The supertanker idea is appealing, but not going to work in this case. Though if you've a thousand miles of syphoning bouy line, I'm sure BP's in the market.
Saudi spill was 19,000 barrels, the Deepwater accident is spilling 5,000 - 25,000 barrels a day, depending on who you take numbers from. The Saudi accident was in a hundred feet of water, the Deepwater 500 times deeper at 5,000 feet.
Learn before you pontificate.
Sage advice.
Really? BP is likely to be sued out of business...I hope your comment was //sarc//
Once again...
Maybe someone knowledgable about the issue could answer this...
I suspect the oil is being allowed to escape because the well is producing at such a rate as it would affect the price of crude..
Why else would they let it flow rather than capture and sell it?
W
The problem is that BP is run by lawyers and accountants. If any real engineers were still in charge, this problem would have been fixed within the first couple of weeks.
One of the 1st. things I thought of.
Don’t forget, good old Shell is helping IRAN open their gas fields while BP refused. That’s why I have a BP card and tore up my Shell card. So this guy is not exactly a “hero”.
Source please. I’d love to pass that on.
Headline makes it look like BP is the one that turned down the assistance.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/05/gulf-oil-spill-bp-countries-offer-assistance.html
“The State Department said in a briefing today that 17 countries had offered assistance, including Canada , Mexico, South Korea, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland , Japan, the Netherlands, Norway , Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Vietnam.
BP added another two countries to that list, Brazil and Saudi Arabia”
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/bp-oil-spill-engineers-begin-top-kill-effort/story?id=10751007
“In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the government was still evaluating offers from 17 countries and organizations for such things as technical expertise and equipment. The Coast Guard hasn't yet accepted any of the foreign help, but BP has accepted booms and skimmers from Mexico and Norway.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/28/national/main6527386.shtml
etc - the gov’t is trying to deflect on this - to say it's BP and the Coast Guard who makes the decision on who they accept help from - but BP can't do one thing without permission from the WH
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