As far as the blow out all I have are field rumors.
1) They pumped a poor cement design that was pumped while the well was basically already blowing out although it had not hit the surface.
2) They didn't change out the pipe rams to the 7". Pipe rams are slotted to wrap around the diameter of pipe in the blowout preventer. The diameter of the drill pipe was 5 1/2" to 6". Prior to running the 7" casing the rams are supposed to be changed out to the new diameter. There has been talk about the BOP shear rams and others, but no one has mentioned the satus of the pipe rams.
3) Unless you could get the nuclear weapon way down the hole, I can only surmise it would crate a bigger disaster.
4) The bottom kill is easier once you are there and have a pipe to pump mud & cement through, I didn't mean to imply hitting the target is easy. I've taken "kicks" and seldom got hysterical if I had pipe on bottom, because I can take pressure measurments and calculate what it takes to kill the well and can control circulating out the "bubble".
5) I need to emphasize that all of the kill procedures must be accomplished with out exceeding the burst pressure of the casing in place. This is waht happened in Santa Barbara in 1969. That idiot Red Adair instead of taking measuements just tied onto the wellbore and started pumping in & exceeded the burst pressure of the casing. After that happens the only solution is the relief well.
6) Again, we don't need to worry about the earth moving. Oil comes from the tiny pore spaces between sand grains. This reservoir is 18,000' deep, even if there is slight compaction due to reduced bottom hole pressure causing the sand grains to get closer together it will not effect the seabed.
7) The large spill in the time frame and concentrations we are seeing is comparable to the one in Mexico from Ixtoc. I'm not aware of the long term effects, however oil naturally seeps into the gulf. Roberto Debaca recaulked his ships from the tar on the beaches in Port Isabelle in 1519.
8) I have no way to estimate what rate the blowout is occurring. We do measure rates accurately when we know the diameter of the pipe and have a pressure up stream, then we can calculate. With irregular diameters of escape and no flowing pressure estimates its anybody's guess. The area of the spill on the surface is no help. A quart of oil on your swimming pool will look like the Exxon Valdez.
9) The experts comments that are mindless prattle are many. Bill Nye really galled me when he proposed that the drilling mud will plate out closing the diameter of the pipe. Drilling mud is a highly sophisticated fluid. What someone told Nye was about a property of mud where it forms a filter cake against a permeable membrane. The clay particles in mud are too big to go into the tiny spaces between sand grains and will not penetrate into the formation and will plate out forming an impermeable barrier to keep the mud from dehydrating. If there's no permeable barrier the mud will not plate out. Since he didn't understand this he postulated that the mud would plate out against impermeable steel.
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http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread576723/pg3
Continued:
MSNBC had Matt Simmons & some guy with a pipeline consulting firm. Both have enough knowledge to be dangerous. One is a journalist and the other an MBA, in short neither has ever drilled a well or been on a location and handled a kick and I'm sure neither has taken differential equations.
Somebody asked why they displaced the mud in the riser with seawater. They were about to temporarily abandon the well & disconnect the riser so they didn't want to dump the mud in the ocean. They didn't know that this 5000' of mud was the only thing saving them from disaster.
The explosions were set off when gas hit the rig floor and the carburators of the diesel engines sucked up natural gas and ran away. Put your car in park & floor the accelerator, it will finally blow the engine. Do this with 2000 hp diesel engine and the effect is devastating.
A cement bond log is used to evaluate whether there is cement behind the pipe. I would be flabbergasted if they did not intend to run the log at some point, but it blew out before they had a chance. CBL's are pretty good at establishing if you don't have a good cement job, but are not completely dependable to establish that you do.
I am as frustrated by BP as anybody, because these kind of disasters effect everyone in the business. Like any large corporation, I am sure thay are very bureacratic and back to the opening paragraph their technical people are still mired in trying to save money. They are finally reporting that they are going to cut the riser out of the way. I really don't understand why this wasn't step one. With the riser gone at least they have a clean opening to work with and the spill is not spread over a mile in three parts of the riser. I'm not sure that if they just close the blow out preventers the casing is strong enough to withstand without bursting. If they can get vessels to float near enough to the wellbore, I'd get a coil tubing unit with a tubing conveyed perforating gun and stab into the well, go in to 15,000' & shoot holes in the 7" and start pumping mud to do a bottom kill. Sounds too simple so there must be something I'm missing that prohibits this far under the ocean or the lack of buoyancy of the ocean doesn't allow them to get close enough to the wellhead.