Friday, June 04, 2010

Plug That Hole!

Today's Plug

Boned Jello

Wesley Pruden today: Trying to plug a hole with rant and rage.

Spike Lee, the moviemaker, says it's time for the president to "go off," to start jumping up and down and show some entertaining fury and frenzy.

Which is what the Administration has been doing a grand job of.   The only real leadership, it seems,  is coming from unlikely places.

A child prodigy in New York, still working on her Ph.D in engineering, says she got to cogitating about the problem and told the New York Post that she figured out what to do in less time than it takes most people to work a crossword puzzle. She would sink flat tires into the well, then inflate them to squeeze a seal. "I figured experts would know more about it than I did but their ideas didn't work," says Alia Sabur, 21. "So I started thinking about it." Miss Sabur read novels at 2 and played the clarinet in a symphony orchestra at 11, so plugging the hole would be child's work.

David from Athens, NY called Rushbo on Wednesday (2nd hour). 

...  have a degree in environmental science ... the  seepage could have been stopped weeks ago ...   by drilling another hole into the bedrock below the sea floor, not that far;  ... or a low yield nuclear weapon would have closed that off within an instant. (Audio)

David went on to surprise us all by citing that the Soviet Union did exactly that back in the '60's.  A quick Googling verified that assertion, and yielded another surprise -  Russian advice: Nuke the oil spill, that’ll fix it!  Yes, I understand the hysteria the media would manufacture with this idea; but its an idea that should be part of the public debate. If these pecker-hads won't use a baby nuke in this instance, forget any self defense usage. Sheesh.

Finally, Limbo reflected  about why it is that the Obamacy's been foot-dragging, suggesting that, maybe, Obama has secret polling data showing this is helping him.  I agree, in the abstract.  The Boy Kenyan has already cynically used  to stop 100% of our drilling, or even exploring for oil.  Obama is dead-set on getting the  climate bill  passed. and as noted yesterday, that appears to be what's happening.


15 comments:

TimO said...

A nuke? Are they crazy?

Use a tool that has no precision and instead of a pipe that we can do something about we could have a fractured sea floor with a gaping hole several hundred yards wide that would unstoppably pour out oil for hundreds of years.

'Ya don't use a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito.....

Anonymous said...

The tire idea the girl "genius" (I'm not convinced, from her bio, that she deserves that title, really) had has some merit, but isn't feasible with a standard tire. Given the depth of the leak, and the amount of heat produced, no tire would survive being inflated in that way. I'm a bit dubious at her idea being worthy of national attention, given she hasn't considered these problems.

However, I imagine you could create a specially constructed tire-like device which would do the job. Hm....

Rodger the Real King of France said...

Read Pruden's article, and the vein in which this was written. Hardly national attention, but thought provoking.

TimO of course is one of the Barn Army's great scientists, but I'll wait for more opinion on this one.

prole said...

The inner tube idea is charmingly naive. Inflate inner tubes under 5,000 feet of water in a greasy pipe to stop a gushing flow of oil. Right.

The nuke idea has merit, but consider two things: 1. the Soviets only used it on land, and on gas wells. 2. If we did use a nuke, Iran, Venezuela, etc. would use it as an excuse to develop nuclear weapons. They produce oil, too. They just might need one someday.

Not to mention that it would violate our treaty obligations and establish a dangerous precedent.

Anonymous said...

Tampons, every father knows how they plug up pipes.

Casca

pdwalker said...

The Russians have balls, something sorely lacking in the West these days.

Anonymous said...

This is essentially what a relief well does cept you don't contaminate the well and can happily produce the formation till it is depleted.
BTW I don't think we have 13,000psi rubber yet

Anonymous said...

Water pressure at that depth is about 2400 psi, well pressure about 8000 psi. I suspect the strength of that jet would shred the tires, not to mention it would be like flying a kite in a tornado.
Capping that thing at that depth has to be a bitch. Ever try to screw a nozzle on a running hose?
Lt. Col. Gen. Tailgunner dick

An ignorant dickweed said...

Oh, I was wondering what Chrissie Hynde was up to.

JMcD said...

Fill it with inflatable sex toys and dildos....If that don't work...
F*ck it.

DougM said...

Have they tried turning the OFF valve handle the other way?
I mean, what if they installed a hot-water valve instead of a cold-water valve?
Sure, you laugh, now; but mark my words ...
<'/crazy old coot talk>

JeremyR said...

There are a lot of inflateable O-rings, essentially tire inner tubes that can withstand enormous preasure. One way to do it is to insert a fairly large pipe that allows flow to continue, that has a sleeve system on the outside that can be expanded. Not necessarily by inflating, but possibly something that squeezes much like the connections on a drain line under a sink. The repair hubs, they have a sponge washer that expands out as the nut is tightened. Another option, now that they have cut off hte debris, weld on another hub, then connect a valve system to it. say, six or seven seperate pipes with valves. Close one valve, attach a pipe to the surface. Open the valve. close the nex valve and repeat until all lines are connected. That makes it where you don't have to deal with the entire ammount of preasure at once.

Anonymous said...

HFS...I'm a genius! I thought of the inflatable plug, too. If I weren't too damn old, I'd get an engineering degree.

-Guncrazy

Gabby said...

In the oil bidness, those inflatable things are referred to as "packers", and they get used all the time when feasible.

Kristophr said...

+1 Gabby.

They already tried the simple stuff that this "genius" thinks she invented.

BP has cut the wreckage off the wellhead, so they can now get started in trying to cap it. They have already got a pipe in the well that is diverting 20% of the flow to where it was supposed to go.

I think we should stop jogging elbows, and let them fix this, then present BP with the bill for the cleanup.

And maybe allow drilling nearer shore, where you can actually send down divers to fix things?

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