Current timeline to shut down Gulf of Mexico oil spill: three months

Yahoo ^ | 5/3/10 | The Christian Science Monitor * Buzz up!0 votes * Send o Email

[Nachum]

Federal officials speaking about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill Sunday morning appeared to be steeling the Louisiana coast – and the nation – for consequences that could be “catastrophic.”

The officials, who run the agencies charged with mitigating the impact of the spill on America’s Gulf coast, used unusually stark words to describe the situation and the difficulties of the remedy.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said it was the federal government’s job to “keep the boot on the neck of BP,” which is running the cleanup effort.

[dblshot]

This is bad and getting worse. The flow of oil is estimated at 5K barrels a day through a failed Blow Out Preventer(BoP) and still connected but twisted and kinked riser. THe riser has floatation around it to keep it at neutral buoyancy when connected to the rigs draw works. Thus the riser is being moved back and forth by currents, how much I don't know. But the riser is not designed to be bent around like this and could over time break off the BoP. It is assumed the riser is at least acting as a choke to slow down the flow of oil so if it goes and the BoP valves are completely open it could conceivably allow 50K barrels of oil to flow out of the well. Best chance of controlling this is a coffer dam lowered over the BoP and a riser from that to direct oil to tankers on the surface. Also drilling relief wells to plug the leak below the BoP could work. Estimated time for a coffer dam, best case IMHO is 3-4 weeks from now. Relief well could be 2 - 3 months. In the meantime clean up is the name of the game. Massive cleanup will be required costing a lot of money which BP is on the hook for. All available boom and skimmers etc are probably being contracted now. The Federal Government has some clean up vessels under and Coast Guard buoy tenders have some oil spill clean up capacity but there is not enough to cover all the coast line and weather conditions are critical in oil spill cleanup. Think about the last time you spilled a little vegetable oil on a slick counter top, took a bunch of paper towels to clean up didn't it. Consider that oil being whipped around in your washing machine. A little hard to separate. So it is a bad thing but pointing fingers and political posturing aren't going to help one little bit. The administration should shut up and help and worry about blame latter. But noooo, It's not my fault says the government. It's the well owner fault, but who owns the well really. Why the guy who leases the land to BP is. golly gee, the US government, but they only take the money, none of the risk like a business does.

[dblshot]

“When a fail safe system fails it fails by failing to fail safely.” John Gall Systemantics, how systems act up.

[Nachum]

Question: Is there any way to pump oil right from the spill into tankers? While we are trying to cap the hole, the oil itself has value.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

This seems incredible to me, that anything which can be done in 90 days can’t be rushed and done sooner.

Kirk: “How long to re-fit?”
Scotty: “Eight weeks. But you don’t have eight weeks, so I’ll do it for you in two.”
Kirk: “Do you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?”
Scotty: “How else to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?”

Kirk: “Your reputation is safe with me.”
– From Star Trek III

[reagan_fanatic]

Current timeline to shut down Gulf of Mexico oil spill: three months

Must be a union job.

[dblshot]

Usually they burn the mops and absorbent material I think. Oil that is skimmed is recyclable but doesn’t come close to the cost of skimming it up. All the boom has to be washed and the oil from that goes into settling tanks and can be recovered latter. Tyveck suits workers wear get contaminated too and are burned. You can’t really get enough oil sucked up and pumped into tankers because the oil depth on top of the water is fractions of an inch deep and you get more water than oil vacuuming it so there has to be some separation process in between. Skimmers try to get as little water as possible but they still have to separate the oil from the water. One way is to pump in to barges and let it settle. Takes time though. Oily water separators are not big enough or fast enough to handle these unprecedented volumes.

[cpdiii]

If we are going to drill in ocean water, there must be a fail-safe plan in place to prevent this from happening-—some sort of valve that can be shut off at the source. I am surprised that an accident like this could happen

They do have this. The system failed for reasons that are not known at present.

[RushingWater]

The exact cause will be interesting to know so we can forward from here.

Big oil, as much as I appreciate their service to the economy, is notorious for laying off older experienced workers. I wonder if this is a factor.

[Nachum]

That is too bad. There are enough oil spills world wide that one would think the recovery technology would be developed. If there were a way to do it inexpensively enough it could be profitable.

[gundog]

How long before the enviros sue to shut down the rest ‘til this can be addressed?

[Windflier]

is that old windbag still on the air ?

Yep. And, his ratings are as high as ever. He's still praising American exceptionalism and singing the praises of our great and patriotic people every day, while dissecting and excoriating the left, non-stop. Seems folks can't get enough of it, either. He's more popular than ever.

Go figure...

[beckysueb]

Nearly the entire city of Nashville and surrounding counties is underwater today. Its nearly as bad as NOLA was and not a peep about it anywhere. These people are suffering but the oil spill gets all the news. I guess we aren’t complaining loud enough.

[Nevermore]

3 mile island didn’t stop nuclear power

(1) It certainly did put the brakes on nuke investment;
(2) It was contained. If TMI had gone the way of Chernobyl, could be a whole different attitude & still-lingering reservations about nuke power.

[Nachum]

Nashvulle doesn’t have any news value....

[DryFly]

Looks like their prayers are being answered. This isn’t just a local matter for the LA fishing fleet to worry about. It has all the markings of something that will devastate the entire region and have a global impact financially and ecologically.

[HighlyOpinionated]

The Puppet Masters’ plan to decimate the USofA is coming along quite nicely for them.

We The People can Volunteer to help with the cleanup. Some of us too ‘old’ or whatever can bring cookies and water for the Cleanup Crews.

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/05/03/1919395/army-of-volunteers-needed-for.html

http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/gulf_oil_spill/wala-oil-spill-volunteer-opps-lr

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/army-of-volunteers-needed-for-gulf-oil-spill-cleanup

http://www.wtoc.com/global/story.asp?s=12413680

http://www.wlox.com/Global/story.asp?S=12407331

[beckysueb]

Exactly. Since we voted for Sarah, he is teaching us a lesson, just like Kentucky durring the ice storm. I got news for his @$$. We take care of our own. We don’t need gubmint. But I figured since the media loves these stories about suffering people maybe they would have took a look but they didn’t. I’m not surprised.

[Nobel_1]

First-hand account of accident on WBAP / Dallas
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?hpf=1&a_id=92765

[HereInTheHeartland]

“If we are going to drill in ocean water, there must be a fail-safe plan in place to prevent this from happening-—some sort of valve that can be shut off at the source. I am surprised that an accident like this could happen.”

Agree.
If the capability doesn't exist; then it needs to be developed quickly.
A way to get down there and fix just about anything.
We need the oil and we need a way to fix something like this.

Otherwise the Sierra Club will dictate our energy strategy. They may already be in that position