ATS: Do you have a Novel Solution to the Gulf Oil Spill?

Originally posted by hawkiye
Someone posted it on another thread so it's not my idea but is logical and makes sense. Drill a side hole into the main hole to relieve pressure. Permanently cap the main hole then turn off the side hole. this is the standard method for this sort of thing I understand?

Only problem is it has never been done before with this kind of pressure so building all the valves and pipe for the side hole big enough to contain the huge pressure will be a new thing.

They are drilling a second hole. But it will take 2 to 3 months to drill it.

Originally posted by DaddyBare
well just to play along I'll say air drop millions and millions of kitchen sponges over the site....

Of course if you want to know what their really doing might want to go read this thread
www.abovetopsecret.com...

It'll soak up the salt water before it'll catch the oil.

think of your dish sink when you cook something greasy.

reading this diddend make me optimistic

pesn.com...

This is a time to see how the resources are pulled and pooled, together.
It's obvious that no plan is in place or has even been studied for such a problem so trying anything at this time that makes some type of sense would be as Martha says, a good thing.

A: send every available empty tanker to that area with every available large pump and and start sucking it up into HALF of the tankers there.
Allow the oil and water to seperate and then pump off the top oil into half of the remaining tankers.
Begin sucking more oil with the remaining empty tankers and transferring the gathered oil into oil filled tankers.
A giant bucket system more or less.

Originally posted by hawkiye
Someone posted it on another thread so it's not my idea but is logical and makes sense. Drill a side hole into the main hole to relieve pressure. Permanently cap the main hole then turn off the side hole. this is the standard method for this sort of thing I understand?

Only problem is it has never been done before with this kind of pressure so building all the valves and pipe for the side hole big enough to contain the huge pressure will be a new thing.

well for someone who's not an oilman you got it right!
in fact they started drilling yesterday... not one hole but three to five will be needed, then they pump in what they call "Kill-weight fluids" and it has been done before on land and at sea... I spent a month working an a snubbing unit tripping pipe for that kind of operation, company pulled me off that job before it was finished though...
BTW again your right, but its gonna take a couple months... this cap their building is a temp measure until the relief holes are in...
give yourself a pat on the back

reply to post by Aeons


I know was just messing around... truth is they have skimmer ships but the seas have been so rough they haven't been able to use them...
Booms are working but even they fail if it gets to choppy
edit to add... its far more complicated than you think , me too for that matter... but there are folks that do know what to do
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/967f262876fc.jpg[/atsimg]

[edit on 3-5-2010 by DaddyBare]

fire un-armed(blanks?) torpedo's (enourmous ones)into the hole. We must have some decent enough military tech to be able to be somewhat accurate. If not so accurate just keep firing them until we hit it.

Or maybe

Drop a huge circular canvass sheet (like a huge flatened parashute), but filled with sand. Attach some kind of weights to the edges say every few feet or so. The water would filter through the canvass and allow it to sink. Once it hits bottom. The weights would hopefully hold it fairly well in place. The canvass may not stop the leak but it should "break" the pressure and allow us to drop something else ontop of the shute, perhaps tons of smaller sand bags. Sand should also help soak up some of the oil.

Or perhaps stuff the hole with oil execs?

Not much can be done at this point. IMO the best course of action would be to nationalize all BP related stuff in the USA. Let it be a warning to all other evil companies. If you destroy the environment (even by accident) you seize to exist in the region. Also it would probably fund your brand new health care for some decades at least..

[edit on 3-5-2010 by rhinoceros]

reply to post by PowerSlave


oil comes out th pipe with 70,000 psi pressur...how to get somethimg in it????

Step one:

Get a 25 KT nuclear weapon.

Step two:

Place and detonate nuke right next to the hole, fusing the seafloor into a hunk of glass that closes off the pipe.

reply to post by DaddyBare


They gave complete details in an interview yesterday. I'd imagine they will have this under control before long. The best thing the government can do is stay out of the way other than volunteering resources.

I worked as a Roughneck during the 1970's between construction jobs. The old diesel rigs before the quiet new diesel electrics. It was rated the most dangerous job in America back then. They have come a long way.

Sticking a sleeve with a blowout valve on that is not a problem. It's the depth that is at issue I'd think. As I'm understanding it the blowout would have been stopped right away had not the rig fell on top of the hole.

From what I got yesterday they are planning on siphoning the remaining flow to a container after the relief holes are drilled. Then they will likely use the traditional method of closing off a blowout.

I had the pleasure of helping place a sleeve once while pulling a wet string under pressure so the valve could close. You have not lived until you have clamped a sleeve around a gusher of mud and oil, while at the same time keeping the drilling pipe from becoming missiles. Working in oil and mud up to your shins while trying to tighten the bolts on the side of the sleeve.

Nothing like tripping pipe to make you decide to return to pursuing academics.

Now I hear its an easy job. No more deafening roar in your ears all day. No more Worms Corner or Chain Hands getting their heads or hands cut off from loose chains or cable off the Draw Works breaking. Pays less now though.

If any of you think that the Oil Companies don't know what to do, think again. Keep the government out of it as it is them who does not have a clue.

What troubles me is the timing of this. Outfits like Green Peace and other eco-terrorists groups are plenty sophisticated and have huge money behind them. Or even a Islamic Terrorist group for that matter. A couple of spies in key positions on a rig??? They were plenty pissed at Obama and what better time for this? We may never know.

What I do know is the drilling companies I worked for were the most environmentally conscious people I've ever seen. You could not even tell a rig had ever been there within a few weeks of shutting one down. That was way back in the 1970's.

[edit on 5/3/2010 by Blaine91555]

Originally posted by downtown436
Step one:

Get a 25 KT nuclear weapon.

Step two:

Place and detonate nuke right next to the hole, fusing the seafloor into a hunk of glass that closes off the pipe.

Step three: Start shoveling up all the dead fish off the beaches and watch the reefs die off.

reply to post by Blaine91555


From what I heard the Christmas tree is intact but all attempts to close the BOP has failed...???

On land those valves are hydraulic, couldn't say what they do out to sea I never worked the offshore rigs...

Don't know if the water is clear enough to steer an ROV in there close enough to do anything with the Christmas tree???
but I'm betting someone is on standby just incase they get a shot

How about build a HUGE steal funnel and drop the large end over the hole. Since the funnel is open on the other end, the resistance from the oil pressure should be slightly less because the oil passes right through the funnel. This will make it easier to get the funnel all the way to the ocean floor than it would for large rocks or plugs. So a funnel has an advantage.

Once the funnel is over the hole, you would then somehow fasten it to the sea floor. Maybe make tabs on the bottom of the funnel where you can put large rocks or boulders on top of to keep the funnel down.

Once the funnel is fastened to the floor, there is multiple things you could do (but should plan before hand):

A: Before dropping the funnel you could attach large hoses to the small end of the funnel and route them into containers on land, or on sea, or anywhere other then the ocean water.

B: You could build a hydraulic controlled butterfly valve (control valve) on the small end of the funnel, and close it once the funnel is attached to the ground. This will seal the hole and stop the flow of oil.

If you were creative you could attach a generator to the tip of the funnel and use the oil pressure to spin a generator and make some electrical energy which could be used to drive pumps which suck the oil straight out of the ocean. That is wishful thinking though, as you would need very powerful pumps.

I can think of other ways...

I would NOT use explosives, that could possibly just make the hole bigger.

Stick a golf umbrella in it

Throw Kim Kardassian arse first into it, or J Lo

Stuff it with all of the employees of Goldman Sachs and Wall Street

Draw a picture of mohammed next to it and the muslims will make sure it is bombed closed

Build the worlds biggest cork

The list goes on

I'm happy I dont have to be the one to solve this.
However, if I was I'd probably go with the long but working plan, while trying some alternative methods to help the situation that exists already.
Heck, if I was rich enough I might even make a huge bowl or something, get as much as the oily water as I can, get it to wherever it might be treated, then return and do it again.
Wouldnt solve anything, but I guess it should buy us some time.
And that's just my first-thing-that-came-to-mind-plan.

You can't stick a funnel on this - that will increase the pressure.

I'm not dragging out my old engineering and physics textbooks. I'll leave it up to the less lazy to do that.

But as a simple example - what happens when you put a nozzle on a garden hose?

Originally posted by Common Good
Another Idea... Cone It.

Picture a cone(A big ass cone) with a hose(big ass hose) attatched to the top of it. It will automatically keep the oil from getting to anymore of the water, and we could probably salvage a lot of it in the process.

[edit on 3-5-2010 by Common Good]

Good idea! Assuming its 5000 ft deep, why don't they weld a larger diameter pipe into/over the gusher and direct the oil flow upwards where it is easier to contain rather than having it disperse all over the place?

Is it too deep to weld down there, even with robots? How many pipes will it take? How long? Has anybody else thought about it?......

Detonating H-bombs at that depth seems dangerous, not so much for radiation but for the shock wave effect and potential tsunami it may cause....

reply to post by Whiffer Nippets


I'm not dumb, no duh it will increase the pressure at the tip of the funnel when exiting, like a nozzle. However the force required to put the funnel over the hole would be less than if you tried to just plug it or cap it with anything else. This is because the oil will still be able to pass through.

Heck you don't even need a funnel, you can just use a cylinder with a built in butterfly valve.

But if you want to route the oil directly to large ditches on Earth for storage you would want a smaller diameter pipe that you can float along the surface of the water with barges and enough oil pressure to push itself to land.


[edit on 3-5-2010 by ALLis0NE]

reply to post by Common Good


Wow, I should have read all the replies before posting. Your cone and my funnel idea are... exactly the same.

Good idea. I agree.