[NYCR:Microcontrollers] How To Stop Gulf Oil Leak?

[Robert L Cochran]

I'd like to ask all of you: how would you try to quickly stop the the
Deepwater Horizon oil leak, if you were in the shoes of BP's engineering
teams? Does anyone have ideas? I'm convinced that someone, somewhere in
the world, or some group of people, has an untried idea that might work
and stop the ruinous flow of oil into Gulf waters.

Thanks

Bob





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[Matt Joyce]

Bob the engineers working on this are doing the best I can percieve of in response.  The issue here is that there was no subterranian automatic cut off.  We really need to be looking at putting in better mechanical safeguards.   Sad to say it, but we've really put ourselves in a pickle here.

=/  a better under water robot maybe... but they've tried that.

please excuse brevity, sent from cell.

[Rob Graham]

Russian engineers have used tactical nukes 4 times to successfully stop underwater well leaks, and additional attempt was unsuccessful.  I believe the last attempt was some time in the mid-1970s.  While explosive are frequently used in land-based blowouts with fires, the explosives just stop the fire so that a team can approach the blowout and cap the existing wellhead.  The real problem comes in when the well head and/or housing is blown out, since there's nothing to attach a valve to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_&_Coots (unfortunately, Coots died last month)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Adair  (the basis for Hellfighters with John Wayne)   
http://www.wildwell.com/index.php  (These are the guys making the "coffin" discussed below)

BP has successfully capped one leak with a valve, but 2 leaks remain.  The outflow rate is the same due to the bed pressure, but once they cap the 2 remaining leaks, it should stop.  BP and Wild Well Control are preparing a "coffin" to be lowered over the leaks and secured, so that the leaking oil can be captured and drawn off to waiting ships.  That doesn't fix the leaks though. 

What I'd do is drill a slant well into the side of the existing well shaft, open it up to relieve the pressure on the leaking side, and then use hydraulic cement to cap the leaking side.  The problem is trying to hit a 12-inch wide well casing with a 12-inch wide drill bit while drilling several hundered feet into a sea floor a mile below the water's surface.

I knew all those years of elementary school geology and trips to the Petroleum Museum would come in handy one day.

---

From: Robert L Cochran <coch...@speakeasy.net>
To: nycresistormi...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, May 5, 2010 8:17:59 PM
Subject: [NYCR:Microcontrollers] How To Stop Gulf Oil Leak?

I'd like to ask all of you: how would you try to quickly stop the the Deepwater Horizon oil leak, if you were in the shoes of BP's engineering teams? Does anyone have ideas? I'm convinced that someone, somewhere in the world, or some group of people, has an untried idea that might work and stop the ruinous flow of oil into Gulf waters.

Thanks

Bob





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[Rob Graham]

The blowout preventer failed.

---

From: Matt Joyce <mdj...@gmail.com>
To: nycresistormi...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, May 5, 2010 8:54:40 PM
Subject: Re: [NYCR:Microcontrollers] How To Stop Gulf Oil Leak?

[Matt Joyce]

They've already begun drilling relief bores but they will take considerable time to complete safely.

please excuse brevity, sent from cell.

On May 5, 2010 9:57 PM, "Rob Graham" <rgrah...@yahoo.com> wrote:

The blowout preventer failed.

---

From: Matt Joyce <mdj...@gmail.com>
To: nycresistormi...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, May 5, 2010 8:54:40 PM
Subject: Re: [NYCR:Microcontrollers] How To Stop Gulf Oil Leak?

Bob the engineers working on this are doing the best I can percieve of in response.  The issue here...

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[Mike Shapiro]

Aren't they trying to put a 100 ton concrete box with a pump attached over the well head to try and stem the flow? In therory this should work but the logistics of it sound nightmareish to me to get that bad boy into position 

[David Neff]

how about a really big long tapered cone made of steel... really slow
taper and really heavy.... I'm sure someone can calculate how many
tonnes of steel it would take to cork the pipe sufficiently enough to
get down near it and weld it on or put a collar on the two to seal it.

and if that isn't enough, have a hole bored through the cone, run
cable through the center and first feed in an expanding anchor like a
scissors jack that could be used to pull the cone down into the
borehole.

I assume the first problem on the above might be that you don't really
have a nice clean hole to drop something into but more or less a
tangled mass of really big pipe a mile below the surface.

David

--
David Neff Photography
www.davepix.com
ne...@davepix.com
212 243-1895
130 7th Ave #123 NY NY 10011

[rma...@msn.com]

What if that cone/rod has a hollow core with the right amount of explosives so that once in place it is detonated. This would probably expand the cone/rod and seal it tightly against the pipe...... Kind of like a rivet......

[Andy Leviss]

On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 10:49 PM, <rma...@msn.com> wrote:
> What if that cone/rod has a hollow core with the right amount of explosives so that once in place it is detonated.

Okay, so we get Bruce Willis, Michael Clarke Duncan, Ben Affleck...

Sorry, couldn't resist, it's been a long couple weeks :-)

--Andy

[Matthew Sparks]

Remember at that depth/temperature/pressure
The metal pipe is extremely brittle

Sent from my iPhone

[Mauricio Alarcon]

I'm sure that the bell contraption has a convenient valve so that they can hook up a rig at a later date.

The last I checked, BP does not exactly stand for Better Planet.

What about imploding the thing from within? perhaps some boreholes in the periphery of the pipe/leak at various depths, detonating the deeper charges first could make the whole thing implode. Any demolition experts here?

There's gotta be plenty of "destructive" ways to take care of it.

Not to speculate too much, but as much as they are concerned about the environmental impact, a solution that facilitates the installation of a rig in order to bring the operation back online ASAP has to be high in their list. Perhaps if the leak was in front of the British Isles, they would be thinking more of stopping the leak ASAP.

A year from now, the environmental impact will be yesterdays news, but the loss of revenue will be present.

[Lou Klepner]

Just noticed Innocentive is formally soliciting ideas on this topic -

Emergency Response 2.0 : Solutions to Respond to Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico  Recently, an explosion on an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico caused both loss of life and a sizable and ongoing oil spill. We are asking Solvers worldwide to respond quickly with ideas and approaches to react to this very serious environmental threat. Can you make a difference? Yes, InnoCentive's work with the Oil Spill Recovery Institute a few years ago is proof positive of this. We encourage you to get involved. Note: This is not a competition. This is an urgent call to action to help respond to a dangerous situation affecting the environment, wildlife, and human health of the world. There will be no award made for this Challenge. You can try our new Team Project functionality on this Challenge. (#9383447) Deadline: May 30, 2010

https://gw.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9383447

[Justin Day]

Apparently the Russians used to use nukes for this back in the Soviet days.

http://trueslant.com/juliaioffe/2010/05/04/nuke-that-slick

[Dan Lavin]

Channel the oil to the surface in one location so it can be recovered in
one, spot using a canvas or other flexible tent-like enclosure rather
than the rigid box BP is using. Internal pressure from the oil leak and
the low density of the oil relative to water will keep it inflated. The
issue is weighting and fixing the tent to the ocean floor, but this has
got to be easier than placing the rigid structure BP is planning.

Robert L Cochran wrote:
> I'd like to ask all of you: how would you try to quickly stop the the
> Deepwater Horizon oil leak, if you were in the shoes of BP's
> engineering teams? Does anyone have ideas? I'm convinced that someone,
> somewhere in the world, or some group of people, has an untried idea
> that might work and stop the ruinous flow of oil into Gulf waters.
>
> Thanks
>
> Bob
>
>
>
>
>

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 9.0.814 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2856 - Release Date: 05/05/10 14:26:00

[David Neff]

Anybody out there interested in doing a 3D sketch of an idea to
submit? I did some pencil sketches of a reasonable version of what I
described above... likely the leak is already sort of capped with a
giant cement mushroom cap but I still think I have something feasible
though I'm pretty lame at Google Sketchup.


David

--
David Neff Photography
www.davepix.com
ne...@davepix.com
212 243-1895
130 7th Ave #123 NY NY 10011

[Justin Kelly]

do we even know where to send these Ideas to?

[David Neff]

Look at Lou's message above...

[Revel Woodard]

I could help you translate to 3D. I'm pretty good with sketchup.
who's to say whether it's in the bag yet. Nobody really knows if that
cofferdam solution will be of any help at all.

-{[::o::]}-

On May 7, 2010, at 12:04 AM, David Neff <davetake...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[David Neff]

Hey Revel,

okay, here's my starting point and what you can attempt...

The large taper would likely be a steel skinned cement construction,
it would be a gradual taper and rather huge to have enough weight to
overcome the hydraulic pressure of the wellhead. The pink channel is
a relief tube for oil flow. The number of channels would need to be
worked out by engineers but for the concept say four or eight channels
arranged radially around the central Y axis would keep the oil
pressure from blowing out the plug as it was inserted. The White tube
would be a threaded plug, this would be a simple valve that blocks the
flow through it's respective channel to staunch the flow in order to
be able to hook up pipes after installation and resume drawing oil
from the well.

Of course all this assumes it is possible to access a vertical clean
cut pipe and then there is the issue of the pipes being coaxial...
but then they may not be above the blowout preventer on top of which
this may be able to be installed.

Once insterted, the plug would be either welded to the wellhead or a
large steel band could be bolted around the two.

To guide the plug, I had considered having another channel in the
center where steel cable would feed. At the bottom of which would be
a long taper that could be fed into the shaft and electronically
welded to the inside of the pipe to provide an anchor to pull the
larger taper into place.

So, think it's worth submission?

David

[matthew crouch]

I think this is a great idea. The devil is in the details, though:
which materials which would be most suitable, taking into account all
of the engineering requirements (pressure, temperature, etc) ? Once
they have it going to the top in one location, they can suck it off
using some big tanker boats.

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 11:12 AM, Dan Lavin <dan...@verizon.net> wrote:

[revel]

I'll get on this, I am still unclear on the mechanics though.  As of now the riser sits proud of the seabed, with a tangle of kinked pipe attached to it, which is apparently leaking in 3 or more places.  are you proposing that the riser be cut at the top of the wellhead and BUP valve, and this contraption be inserted into to pipe?   is the drawing to scale?  I am assuming it isn't.  My main concern is: for this to be heavy enough to overcome the pressure, it would need to be big enough to require some kind of lateral stability, lest it shear the wellhead and create a much bigger problem.  How would that lateral bracing be achieved, how would this contraption be guided into the gushing well head?  Or do I have it  wrong?  Can you perhaps sketch or describe the other components (ie wellhead, seabed, etc) and how they interface with this one? 

--
-{[::o::]}-

[David Neff]

Hey Revel, no, it's not to scale and though I have a concept, I am in
no capacity an engineer... the thought behind it is that even if it is
heavy enough to overcome hydraulic pressure to be inserted into the
pipe, sealing it completely would be impossible without having some
pressure release. That is where the channels bored through the taper
come in, they allow escape of perhaps 50-60% of the unrestricted flow
and can be turned off one at a time once the taper is bolted/welded or
clamped to the wellhead so that they can have pipes to the surface
attached.

The weight would be significant to be able to be lowered into the
wellhead and would likely have to be stabilized with more external
structure once attached. Chances are the best place to insert it
would be immediately above the blowout preventer. The riser could
probably be sheared off there and the structure of the blowout
preventer should be stable enough to take the weight considering it
had a mile of pipe above it two weeks ago.

So here is another crude sketch... missing elements, a band to secure
the inserted taper to the wellhead or riser, any bracing but then with
no knowledge of the specifics of the wellhead, riser or blowout
preventer there isn't much you can do here. The cone or taper would
likely be made of steel, the plumbing or bores would be welded into it
and the whole thing filled with cement or lead or whatever they could
fabricate with in a rush.

I had mentioned the possibility of using a smaller long heavy steel
taper with a cable at the end that could be electronically welded to
the inside of the pipe also. The cable would go through a center bore
in the large taper and be used to guide or winch the large taper down
into the flow.

[P Leiby]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-08/bp-s-oil-spill-hive-buzzes-with-new-ideas-to-stop-leaky-well.html

BP’s Oil-Spill ’Hive’ Buzzes With New Ideas to Stop Leaky Well

May 08, 2010, 11:26 AM EDT

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:43 AM, revel <revel...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Ian Rubenstein]

Pretty early on i thought I heard that there was a giant shut off valve on the 'spicket' that sits on the ocean floor  digging into the earths crust. Its the tube that rises from that, that has three holes in it. I think they sent subs down to close the valve on the ocean floor, but just failed. I think if that it the case there should be other ways to achieve the spacial sensing problem and just close the main hole, if you guys have noticed ever solution [described on television] that has been attempted has the feel of a giant cartoon.

I am shocked that there were elements of the solutions that reflected desires to possibly be able to cleanly harvest some of the oil. 

I think at this point methods of separating it from water into collection containers, to be replaced with empty containers is most important now - from floating/slow moving vessels. There is so much oil that has been released into the ocean, that, just as there has been a need to desalinize water to make drinking water available - without adding to the volume of the oceans further, the oil should be separated from the sea water and removed. Not only is this an approach that looks to have long term effects, it is also an approach that appeals to both ecological and economic concerns; the oil is removed from the ocean, and it can potentially be sold by the party that can remove it, and should BP be charged with the responsibility of remedying the effects of this accident to the best capabilities of technology, then this would be an excellent endeavor from many perspectives and could be paid for a variety of different ways. Being that water such a different density than oil, this does not seem too hard; even if this is done somehow through billions of filters, of a few really expensive 'filters' this seems possible, and obligatory of BP. 

Im thinking solar/crude powered filtration/storage vessels, whose containers are replaced ever week, and filter elements every month to 6 months. A little hive programming and these things can be programmed to cluster based on density aside from underlying rules of proximity and strength - so none crash or become stranded. 

all i ask is that when designing the system, please use the acronym RYAN or MIKE -doesn't matter what it actually stands for to me

thanks,

Ian Rubenstein

[revel]

Ok, That clears things up, I'll try and work on it on my flight to california tonight, thanks, talk soon

[revel]

here's what I have so far.  Please let me know if its in accordance with what you were thinking before I proceed too much further. talk soon.