Posted on 03/03/2011 12:00:14 PM PST by Nachum
For 48 days and nights, the Deepwater Horizon well spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico, when it could have been shut down. We now know this:
It is very likely that if the top kill had been designed to deliver more than 109 bpm of 16.4 ppg drilling fluid below the BOP stack for a sustained period, the Macondo blowout could have been stopped between May 26-28, 2010. Given that the well was successfully shut-in with the capping stack in July, and that the subsequent bullhead (static) kill was successful, certainly a higher rate top kill would have been successful at that time.
That is the pull quote from a research paper submitted to the President's Oil Spill Commission by Dr. Mayank Tyagi et al. of LSU. The Commission's Chief Counsel's Report 2011 puts the onus on BP for discontinuing the top kill attempt. Dr. Tyagi uses a New York Times illustration as his figure 2, indicating some faith in their reporting. The New York Times reported that Energy Secretary Steven Chu was responsible for stopping the effort against BP's wishes.
His role gradually deepened as he assembled a team of scientists from the Department of Energy laboratories, universities and other government agencies. By late May, his confidence had grown and he was giving orders to BP officials, including his demand to stop the top kill effort even though some BP engineers believed it could still succeed.
"A lot of us said ‘don't start it,' and he was the one who said ‘stop,' " said a BP technician who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company. "But having done all we had already done, I thought we should have completed the final two operations. He was not keen to listen. BP people said, ‘Let's try these last two steps,' but he said, ‘No, stop.' "
We know from the factual record that the last joint National Incident Command - BP press conference was held on May 27. The next press event by the NIC did not occur until June 1 and BP was not invited. Somebody has some explaining to do!
The relief well was essentially sure thing, but a slow process. The other attempts were just money spent in hopes of getting something new to work. Worthwhile attempts in my opinion.
Correct. And Jindal should have gone ahead and violated the federal laws. Let the Feds try and explain why they are prosecuting a state for protecting its shores from the spill.
The fact Jindal did not stick his neck out for his state is why nobody is talking him up for a 2012 Presidential run. That and the miserable response he gave to the 2010 SOTU address.
Correct. And Jindal should have gone ahead and violated the federal laws. Let the Feds try and explain why they are prosecuting a state for protecting its shores from the spill.
The fact Jindal did not stick his neck out for his state is why nobody is talking him up for a 2012 Presidential run. That and the miserable response he gave to the 2010 SOTU address.
More Obama Engineering. It not his not his fault. He’s the first Black President, so he can’t be criticized. Move along. He cannot be disturbed at this time. Can’t you see that he’s got a deficit to raise? Besides he has the delicate condition.
I was actually thinking about the clean up methods. My husband is involved in the clean up, the aftermath of a spill. BP was in charge of the rest, with a little interference from the feds.
but that wasn’t what the great asshole wanted.
Does anyone know whether we learned something valuable during the spill, I mean other than keeping the Feds out of it?
The pontoons are already underwater. The are connected to the upper decks via piping and valves to control air and water into them that raises and lowers the rig.
Prior to the fire, the valving was all closed up because the platform was in a stable position. You could have tripled the fire fighting boats and not affected the water into the pontoons.
But once the fire got so hot that piping and valving started melting, that rig was going down with no fire boats.
The only hope was to put out the fire (nearly impossible) and then try to fix the leaks.
In a fire that big it is almost certainly a lost cause. But fighting the fire is the only hope. Without all that water the temperatures would have been hotter, it would have melted sooner and sunk faster.
I still wonder if the buoyancy is controlled by pumping water in and out of a sealed pontoon or by air pressure to force water out of an top sealed only pontoon. If water is pumped, it still seems unlikely to me that the fire could heat and melt pipe all the way down to the sea level to allow water in.
OTOH, if air pressure and pipes melt up top, I see it would be sinking very quickly. Of course that would seem like a very shortsighted design that an air leak could send the rig to the bottom. Surely that would not be the case.
I don’t see how a huge roaring fire with no controls in the amount of heat produced, tens of thousands of barrels of crude oil spilling on the deck every day was going to end differently if no fire fighting was done.
Well, you cleared that up for me. Thanks for the correction. sd
This may help give some perspective on the melting of the steel.
http://www.jwco.com/technical-litterature/p09.htm
The pressure-feed fire of a blowout will totally destroy the surrounding steel structure in minutes. Derricks have fallen-in less than 30 minutes after blowout ignition. The core temperature of a low-GOR 28 deg. F API crude oil blowout in Kuwait was measured at 1,677 deg. C (3,051 deg. F). And a radiant heat temperature of 510 deg. C (950 deg. F) was measured at ground level, 15 m (49 ft) from the base of this large vertical fire, which was estimated at 30,000 bopd. Oil well firefighters commonly see surrounding sand and stones melted and fused on large fires. Steel loses most of its strength at 500 deg. C (932 deg. F) and melts at 1,500 deg. C (2,732 deg. F).
...
Water.
The most important method to limit fire damage to structures from a blowout fire is application of water.
Thanks for the info and sharing your knowledge
I’ve done the repair/replace engineering on petroleum and natural gas fires with far less fuel feeding the fire.
It is amazing how much damage can be done in a 4 hour burn. Steel structures that were coated with fire protection that now simply don’t exist.
(The fire protection material does work, the equipment or valving last long enough to get the shutdown procedures accomplished so the fire doesn’t continue to burn new sources of fuel.)
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