Why Take "Weeks" To Cap Louisiana's Oil Leak? Why Won't Concrete Work?

Many will beaware of BP's latest "maintanence problem", the Louisinana oil leak www.huffingtonpost.com...

But here is about as much "news" info as I could find about why it's going to take weeks to cap the leak...

"The object of this game is to shut off the flow," he said.
Engineers are believed to be working on a dome-like device to cover oil rising to the surface and pump it to container vessels but it may be weeks before this is in place.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk...

CONCRETE IT: Did you know...

Some (commercial) concretes are known to set under water.
Here's how to do it: imgs.ebuild.com...
There's even a whole forum discussion about it: www.answerbag.com...
So why can't a few (massive) shipments of concrete be dropped onto the oil leak, on the pipeline?

Maybe the whole pipeline would become intombed in concrete, but who gives a damn? Espically given the other costs (like BP's furute litigation being one of them)?

Espically when "Directional Drilling": en.wikipedia.org...
www.enermaxinc.com...
could easily be used to tap into the oil source at some future date. (and so extracted until depletion)!

But surely BP isn't "too big" to hire the right people, in the right places, for the right kind of creative thinking? Or is there some other explanation? Conspiracy, but to do what, for whom?

I know oil will interfer with concrte setting. But surely that would only remain a problem, if you didn't dump the right number of concrete shipments?

I'm amazed the technological total mankind is to just let the leaks leak a few more thousand thousand barrels, days, for a few more weeks!

You can't just drop concrete on it and expect it to seal the leak.

Firstly, there is the pressure of the oil as it is seeping out, it will just wash out the concrete before it sets.

Then If you actually get it to set, there is no way in guaranteeing that it will seal itself the ocean floor, the oil will continue flowing until it finds another way out.

reply to post by Liberal1984


What about stopping it up w/ chewed bubble gum?

Seriously, how would one get the thousands of pounds of concrete 5,000 feet below the ocean and then get it to set, in water, over the pressure of oil gushing out at the rate of 210,000 gallons per day.

Best,
SN

reply to post by skunknuts


Not that I agree it can be done but I understood the OP to mean helicopter in a premade block of concrete (I was imagining it looking somewhat like a Borg cube) and dropping it on top of the leak.

I makes me pissed that after all this time they (the big companies that take the oil from the land AND the governments) do not have any solution when this happens...

C'mon people, what about culpability or responsibility to the environment. Jail the S.O.B.s for not having the plan for this crisis. Don't let them buy their way out with your money!

I think that in situations like this, it should be more than the public paying for the damage control and cleanup- there will be other companies waiting in the wings to take over the business after the companies responsible for this, lose their companies after they spend all they have on environmental repair rather than pay the CEOs...

0. Boats filled with concrete
1. You use flexible pipes to deliver the concrete from boats (thereby preventing it dilute on the way to ocean bed)
2. You use enough concrete to create a level, ocean bed, surface, engulfing the leak
3. You lower (pre-fabricated) concrete slabs onto this (level) concrete surface (which is directing the oil upwards, the place about to be "slabbed"

At least that's how I'd do it, with a few minutes of thought!!! Surely it's just a case of moving large quantities of matter to bury the leak, until a more permanent solution is constructed?

the oil will continue flowing until it finds another way out.

Thanks for pointing it out. So do you think the large, concrete slab, suggestion would work?

[edit on 090705 by Liberal1984]

reply to post by Liberal1984

flexible pipes to deliver

Sounds like a good hint. If they anchored a simple huge tarp device on 4 corners and pumped the oil up through flexible piping they could recover 99 percent of the flow. The doomsday story doesn't make sense.

Why not drop a bunker buster on this god damn thing? I mean come on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

reply to post by Bordon81


I was thinking of something similar. You could make a large funnel out of vinyl coated nylon. It's flexible and watertight. Anchor the inverted funnel over the the leak. Then you could syphon off the oil as it rises to the top of the funnel.

Of course, it's just a stopgap measure. Eventually, the leak would have to be capped and valved until a new rig could be put into place. But I know of a couple tent making shops that could put together a pretty large funnel in a couple of weeks.

For the sake of expediency:

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