Posted on 06/18/2010 12:09:08 PM PDT by fso301
Forget the "top hat," the "junk shot," the diamond saws and the "top kill" — one Florida scientist says he's developed a simple solution to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico: a set of bone-crushingly powerful magnets.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Interesting idea to plug the Gulf oil spill by inserting powerful magnets and then filling remaining voids with iron filings. Original story and video on link at end of FoxNews article.
Thats a VERY good idea and stands excellent chance of working.
Cheap too!
“We have calculated what the flow rate and the flow velocity of the oil is. And we have calculated what the drag effect on the magnets is. And you can show that gravity still wins, even at these very large flow rates,” he said.
Wait, gravity wins? Where does gravity play a (relevant) part, or am I missing something?
Great idea. Except for the part where all the tools, and all the ROVs get stuck to the riser pipe.
I can think of no better experiment to see if it will work than to take a plastic pipe - stick it in the casing and inject about 10,000 of these - if it doesn’t work what is the worst that will happen? They stick to something else!
It is becoming comical that our government (the Coast Guard) is getting in the way of fixing this. Just DO SOMETHING! The hell with testing - test it real time on the leak.
Fools, nothing but fools!
If the casing is broken below the ocean floor they will have to find a way to do the plug below the spot where the casing is compromised.
That would be a neat trick considering the pressure of the runaway well.
Have you read this informative comment from the oil drum ?
It explains why they likely won’t plug the well.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593/648967
Yes. But when it seals off the ‘leak’, will the pressure cause more leaks? Will it blow the wellhead off?
The reason they have not ‘sealed’ off the leak yet, is because they are concerned that the rise in pressure would blow the wellhead, and then no amount of magnets will seal anything.
The relief wells are the best solutions and will take a few more weeks to be ready to finish this off, hopefully.
Total lack of comprehension of the situation by this crank. Plugging the well at the top will only make the leaks through the casing below worse and less controllable. Everyone paying attention has known that since Top Kill days.
Cover the end of the iron pipe with a clump of super powerful magnets. That might do the trick. Now the big challenge is how to get them down there. If the undersea robots have ferromagnetic arms, good luck having them let go of the magnets.
Or how about one step further, a ferrofluid (micro-pulverized magnets). One that would be so powerful that it would go into the pipe and stop it up inside.
I think we are missing something. The scientist is no crank. In the video, magnets are being shown dropped into a pipe. Perhaps he is saying the flow rate is weak enough that the magnets could be dropped in without having to insert them via a smaller non-magnetic pipe. Otherwise, something must not have been communicated in the story. He does have what sounds like a heavy German accent.
Here's the original piece containing the video. Hope this doesn't violate Fox's excerpt only rule by pasting the address:
http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/scitech/061610fighting-the-oil-spill-with-magnets
The original situation that started the disaster, the leakage of natural gas up to the drilling platform, seems to suggest an impending leak somewhere else in the system.
If the pull of the magnets is that powerful, wonder how far away any other ferromagnetic equipment has to be kept in order not to get covered in clumped magnets too?
Demos in fish tanks are, well, fishy.
The math comes from how far down the first leak is (an o-ring was left out early in the 9'' section of the riser) and natural branching and eddying.
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