Crewmen aboard the motor vessel Joe Griffin look on as the mobile offshore drilling unit Q4000 lowers a pollution containment chamber into the Gulf of Mexico over the site of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill May 6, 2010. The chamber is designed to cap the oil discharge that was a result of the Deepwater Horizon rig fire and collapse. Picture taken May 6, 2010. REUTERS/U.S. Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley/Handout (UNITED STATES - Tags: ENVIRONMENT BUSINESS DISASTER ENERGY)
That’s quite a contraption. I hope it works.
Strange pic - it certainly doesn't LOOK like a "giant 100-ton concrete-and-steel box " - it looks like a couple of plastic phone booths.
Must be farther away than it looks.
At one point I read that there is 1000 cf of natural gas vented with each barrel of oil from this leak. The expansion of this gas causes so much cooling that the design has to have a double jacket pipe with oil in the inner pipe and the gas/water/alcohol antifreeze comes up in the outer jacket.
1000cf of gas per barrel seems like a huge number but if what I heard is true then the alcohol is probably a pollution source too.
Thanks for the post. This is going into running account on this engineering feat by BP in http://www.theusmat.com/