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Deep-Sea Ice Crystals Stymie Gulf Oil Leak Fix
CBS/AP) ^ | 08 May 2010 4:16PM

Posted on 05/08/2010 5:19:56 PM PDT by Touch Not the Cat

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To: Frantzie

The average person has NO IDEA how alien and out of this world a mile deep is. It is totally dark, pressures beyond belief and life almost non-existent except for a few things that only exist down there. It would almost be more difficult to put a manned community a mile down than on the moon.

Working on the surface has all the advantages without any drawbacks if only the politicians had brains.


21 posted on 05/08/2010 6:41:26 PM PDT by George from New England (Escaped CT in 2006, now living north of Tampa)
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To: mapmaker77
at what point does methane gas freeze and thaw?

Here is the explanation of these crystals. Methane gas freezes at very low (cryogenic) temperatures, but "methane ice" can be solid up to +18C under high pressure (which is present down there.)

22 posted on 05/08/2010 6:44:07 PM PDT by Greysard
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To: omega4179

“Could they rig an explosive clamp to crush the pipe closed with explosives?”

I understand the Russians nuked there’s in similar situations.


23 posted on 05/08/2010 6:51:41 PM PDT by GGpaX4DumpedTea (I am a tea party descendant - steeped in the Constitutional legacy handed down by the Founders)
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To: Touch Not the Cat

I don’t understand why ice clogs up the dome yet it doesn’t clog up the hole in the pipe or wherever these three leaks are.


24 posted on 05/08/2010 6:56:14 PM PDT by plain talk
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To: mapmaker77

Melting point at STP (Standard, Temperature, Pressure)
is -297F. Hence the use of CH4 as “natural gas”.
The pressure at 5000 ft of water is 2165 psi, probably higher with the sea water column due to the increase of SpGr over “regular” water. I’ll have to figure out what the melting point is at that pressure but it is very low.


25 posted on 05/08/2010 7:01:36 PM PDT by TaMoDee
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To: Touch Not the Cat

Ice nine?


26 posted on 05/08/2010 7:02:48 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Let tyrants shake their iron rod, and slavery clank her galling chains)
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To: plain talk

For the same reason you leave a hose running in freezing weather. The flow dosen’t allow it to geather to clog the hole.


27 posted on 05/08/2010 7:08:10 PM PDT by TaMoDee
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To: Greysard

Well then, the next box that they build all they need to do is embed a heating element in the concrete, It may take awhile, but that should warm the environment down there marginally, the wild card will be what characteristics methane will exhibit as it thaws It will probably get a little lighter, so that should be taken into account. What about expansion?


28 posted on 05/08/2010 7:08:16 PM PDT by mapmaker77
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To: Bruinator
A direct quote from Schlumberger:

"Some can effectively close over an open wellbore, some are designed to seal around tubular components in the well (drillpipe, casing or tubing) and others are fitted with hardened steel shearing surfaces that can actually cut through drillpipe.

Don't you think you owe it to your competitor to tell them they are wrong?

In any event, despite, or perhaps because of your arrogance, (I don't know whose BOP failed, but I now have a suspicion), the BOP in this case failed to do it's job.

By the way, I've worn out more joints and rotary bits than you have socks. I got tired of midnight towers and learned how to engineer...

29 posted on 05/08/2010 7:10:39 PM PDT by jonascord (We've got the Constitution to protect us. Why should we worry?)
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To: humblegunner

Casing is not I repeat not drill pipe. Drill pipe has a much thicker wall than casing. Casing is used when cementing abd plugging. This is where an inherent gap in the process is acknowleged. It was during period that that methane gas bubble breached. The BOP would not have helped in any case.


30 posted on 05/08/2010 7:16:51 PM PDT by Bruinator (God is Great.... Beer is good.... Muzzies are.........?)
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To: Lucretia Borgia

LOL


31 posted on 05/08/2010 7:18:39 PM PDT by MikefromOhio (There is no truth to the rumor that Ted Kennedy was buried at sea.....)
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To: TaMoDee

exactly what i figured....velocity keeps it flowing


32 posted on 05/08/2010 7:19:10 PM PDT by dennisw (It all comes 'round again --Fairport)
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To: Lucretia Borgia

You forgot to close your tag. Here, let me help you with that.

< /Unix nerd>

;-P


33 posted on 05/08/2010 7:21:26 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (No Representation without Taxation!)
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To: rovenstinez

It’s also a function of pressure.


34 posted on 05/08/2010 7:29:16 PM PDT by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: USNBandit
Can somebody tighten me up with the academics on this. It's been 24 years since I took chemistry.

When they say crystals is this like crystals falling out of solution in the lab?

35 posted on 05/08/2010 7:31:41 PM PDT by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: Touch Not the Cat

In some ways to have this fix stalled by methane hydrates is quite ironic. Hydrates are so abundant they are be a greater energy resource than all our oil and coal deposits combined.

see this old report on methane hydrates:

http://marine.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/gas-hydrates/title.html


36 posted on 05/08/2010 7:36:01 PM PDT by theBuckwheat
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To: USNBandit

NO. Crystals come out of solution in a chemical due to the liquid reaching a saturation point at which it cannot carry a particular substance. Methane changes to “ice” like water changes to “ice” due to temperature.


37 posted on 05/08/2010 7:42:27 PM PDT by TaMoDee
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To: Touch Not the Cat

The ocean depths involved put this site in the ultra-deep range. We are drilling here because that is where the remaining reservoirs of oil exist. (The South China sea has too many political disputes over ownership to make it practical.)

As much as we would like to think there are untapped reservoirs just waiting on federal land, the reality is that most of the hydrocarbons in those locations are in the form of tar oils (where only the bitumen remains due to erosion) or oil shale, which is really kerogen, a precursor to crude oil. (In other words, the oil shale has never been exposed to the temperatures needed to convert it to oil, and some heat source - and energy - is needed to do that.)

The liberals are busy with derisive “Spill, Baby, Spill” comments, but if this incident shuts down off-shore drilling, we are in a world of hurt. Even if we found a new reservoir within the continental United States, it would take years to bring it on-line. This is why the military highlighted the lack of investment in oil drilling in its March Joint Operating Environment report as being a threat by 2012-2015. According to that report, we could be short 10 million barrels a day, or 13 percent of global crude production by that time. And that assumed off-shore drilling would continue as usual.

Keep pulling for those engineers and technicians at BP.


38 posted on 05/08/2010 7:54:59 PM PDT by Dark Fired Tobacco
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To: TaMoDee

Thanks. Sometimes it is hard for me to fire those synapses, when they haven’t been used for so long.


39 posted on 05/08/2010 7:56:25 PM PDT by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: Dark Fired Tobacco

Please don’t forget the Bakken Formation of western N/S Dakota and easern Montana. Estimates are of huge amounts.


40 posted on 05/08/2010 8:05:55 PM PDT by TaMoDee
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