Oil Spill - Not Looking Good - Continued

Gator Bait

 
I thought as the spill is still with us and a few people are still dropping in I would continue this thread. This thread has dropped off the page in the view I use.

This thread is continued from HERE.

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Todays image








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Desert Oasis Woman

So FREAKIN' unbelievable that they could drill without more than 1 backup plan....and that the US Gov. agent on board was high on meth

Gator Bait

 
Hi DOW,

I hadn't heard about the Gov. Agent being high. From what I have heard it probably wouldn't have mattered if the agent was sitting in a bar in Boston.
I agree about the back up plan. It's unreal that we have been drilling like this for so long and still don't have a clue as to how to handle an emergency. To bad we can't come up with a socio-economic political state that could heal itself before there was ever a problem. :huh:

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Jai-Bo

It's a discouraging action....News is forecasting it at Mobile by Wed. Mobile is a 45 minute trip down I10 fer me....Unfortunately it will probably hit Pcola's beaches by next week :pinch:

Spring Chicken

I used to fancy myself as an inventor and was even VP of the Houston Inventors Association for a few years. I had lots of ideas but never took any of them to the next level. Some who knew about them did though and made a few bucks.

When this Oil Spill thing happened I thought there was plenty of technology available to get it under control. Obviously I was wrong.

So I reverted to my 'inventor' role and tried to come up with something that might work. Of course I was just one of many thousands of people doing the same thing so I didn't give it the attention I normally would.

But then one night a thought came to me that just might work. I pondered it some more and the more I pondered the more it seemed like an easy solution, or at least partial solution until something better could be devised.

So I ran the idea by my retired petroleum engineer brother-in-law and he thought it had merit.

So this morning I called BP's Idea Hotline and ran my idea by them. Of course I was only talking to the front guy who took down the idea along with contact information. He said he would forward it to people who review the ideas and if they had questions or wished to use my idea they would contact me.

I actually feel like I'm doing something to stop this monster of a problem.

Spring "Leak Plugger" Chicken
Spring Texas USA

Gator Bait

 
I know how you feel Jai-Bo, I fear it is just a matter of time before it reaches our beaches also. We have been lucky so far and the weather and the currents have favored us but the dark tide grows every day at an alarming rate.

Gator

 

Gator Bait

 
My hat is off to you Spring, I pray your ideas are smiled upon and are met with only the greatest success. I wish I was in a position to be of more constructive help.

Good luck Spring and Thank You for your efforts,

Gator

 

mad max beyond eggdome

good for you leroy....so here is my stupid question ....why can't they just somehow "pinch" that stupid pipe that is spewing out most of that oil??...go down there with some sort of giant paper clip thingys and/or hammers and pinch that damn thing tight ...may not stop the flow completely, but at least slow it down a good bit....

Florida Grillin Girl

I agree with you, Gator. Just a matter of time before it get's here too. You saw my sunset pics out at the beach this weekend and I was thinking of the oil spill while taking them, and what a shame it is for everybody effected.

Faith

Gator Bait

 
I have wondered the same thing Max. I have also wondered why our Navy we pay so dearly for can't do something?

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Little Steven

Max,

It is my understanding that the backflow preventer, which is like a giant check valve is still partially working and anything they try and do with the pipe runs the risk of losing it which would release a lot more oil than is getting out now.

Steve

Frank from Houma

You can go here and look at their next attempt

http://bp.concerts.com/gom/kentwellstechupdatelong053110.htm

I know loads of people this is affecting in South Louisiana and many more will be affected by this disaster in the Gulf States and beyond.

Gator Bait

 
Below are some of the resources I have found in no particular order.

NOAA Office of Response and Restoration | Emergency Response | Deepwater Horizon Incident, Gulf of Mexico. This site has maps updated daily.

MODIS Rapid Response System | USA7 Subsets
This where I get todays image. They are posted late in the afternoon if all goes well.

Oil Spill Academic Task Force (OSATF) "is a consortium of scientists and scholars from institutions in the State University System as well as from four of Florida’s private universities working in collaboration with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The OSATF brings together expertise and resources to assist the state of Florida and the Gulf region in preparing for and responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill." Some very interesting links here.

Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation
The Official Site of the Joint Investigation Team

LSU Earth Scan Lab
Can be a source of very interesting images such as animations of the loop current.

Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS) | Deepwater Horizon Images - Chronology "at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science continue to actively collaborate with several international satellite data providers to acquire critical environmental imagery for the Gulf of Mexico." This site can be and often is very slow to load but can have images you will not find elsewhere.

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mad max beyond eggdome

well, that makes a lot of sense steve ...see, this is why we keep you cannukians around!!

Little Steven

Max,

I just watched the update that Frank posted. Quite interesting.

Steve

Gator Bait

 
Thanks for the link Frank, that's a very interesting video. My first thought is I wish he had mentioned cleaning up what has already spilled and the probability of their plans working.

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Todays image. Sorry this is so late, it is not the usual image. The usual image is a MODIS Tera True Color image this is a MODIS Aqua True Color image and doesn't get posted until later. It is sometimes the image that is displaying the spill but I don't know until both are posted. Anyhow, here it is. Please pretend that there is no seam between the last two images and look at it as one. I am trying to work around the forum limitations on picture sizes and this is the best/only way I can zoom in this close.







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Spring Chicken

Ha... That was my suggestion exactly. Only I suggested they do the crimps a little at a time: 30% at first, move out some and crimp that one even more and finally pinch it shut or at least almost shut so their other efforts can catch up and fix it.

We Eggheads must think alike.

Spring "Pinch Me" Chicken

Jai-Bo

Just talked to 1 of my fishing partners...He said he is going out tomorrow but word is----Friday, the majority if not all of the gulf will be CLOSED...
Prayers go out to all those who feed their families from working in the gulf and inshore...It is merely an inconvenience for me not to be able to fish...thankfully I am not dependent on it!

Boilermaker Ben

Gator Bait wrote:

 
Thanks for the link Frank, that's a very interesting video. My first thought is I wish he had mentioned cleaning up what has already spilled and the probability of their plans working.

Gator

 

This was not the first technical briefing. There are other briefings that have talked about cleanup, and to my knowledge, the cleanup tactics haven't changed much (with the exception of which dispersant is being used). http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9033572&contentId=7061710

I doubt you'll get any odds of success from anyone at bp...and if you do, they'll be very cautious. They've already seen several attempts fail, and everything being tried is experimental at this point (and at this depth). With the top kill procedure, some people were already trying to claim victory after 24 hours, while bp was cautioning that it would take another 48-72 hours to see if it would work...turns out it didn't.

Gator Bait

 
Todays images . . .







I have overlayed the two closeup images on to Google Earth.


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I don't know Tweev, pointing fingers and appointing blame might be OK in hind sight but when the crisis is staring us in the face on a daily bases with no end in sight I fail to see anything constructive in it. I think at some point in time we need to face up to it and point those fingers at ourselves. It is our greed and need for oil that got us here, I pray we can find our way out and better sooner than later. Just my .02¢ worth.

That's 2/100 of a cent. Right?

Must be the abridged version.

Gator

 

Gator Bait

 
To quote you, "Yes and no.. I think." LOL, Boy, I can agree with that! I agree with what you say, I think, but I also think this crisis is part of the price we pay for being who we are. I think this crisis has been in the works since the first white men settled on these shores if not longer. This is who we are! The type of government we have, the type of economy we have, the type of schools we send our children to, you name it and it defines us, "the good, the bad and the ugly." We are a dominant force - we are the cause of the effect! Maybe. :laugh:

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Gator Bait

 
Hahahaha, at least we can agree not to agree. I don't think of it as fatalism, it's just the way we are. I disagree about us being bad, I see us as inherently good. We just haven't grown . . . evolved . . . developed to a point where we can govern to our own good all the time. Are we getting better??? I hope we are, at least at a rate that will prove fast enough to save us from ourselves. LOL. I sincerely believe that we are getting better. There are far more people caring about environmental issues like carbon footprints and global warming just to name a few. We have learned some lessons and responded intelligently. I pray that we learn from this oil spill. We aren't going to make any great reform over night, the rich and poor alike are still going to look for short cuts to save/earn a few more peso's and if innocent bystanders get hurt along the way that's an unintentional byproduct and very unfortunate. Can we all win at this game we call Capitalism?
You say "I really hope that people will realise that profits cannot stay at current levels because they are artificially high because risk is being offloaded onto the taxpaying public." But isn't part of our capitalistic system to try and maximize profits at a calculated risk? Isn't risk all part of the game? Are we to expect a system like ours to have a conscience? Wouldn't a conscience in an economic system be leaning toward socialism? :blink:

Hahahaha I haven't clue!

We can put a man on the moon (yes I think we actually did it, LOL.), we can make a car that can park it self!, we can put pancake batter in an aerosol can (why I haven't figured out yet), now if we can just figure out how to turn the damn oil off.

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Todays image . . . cloudy.











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Little Steven

Gator,

For the life of me I can't understand why they wouldn't have used a rotary pipecutter to clean the pipe off. I work in the tube and pipe industry and that is what they use off the mills. A chamfered cut would have been the easiest way to mate it up.

Steve

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Hi Steve

I'm sorry I don't know more about the situation and the application of the tools needed. There is some good information HERE.
I know they are striving for the best seal between the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) Cap and the stub of the old riser. From looking at the graphics on the page I linked to above I can only wonder if a rotary cutter might have run the risk of distorting the stub of the riser? The diamond wire saw may have given them a cleaner cut with out a chamfer that may not have fit into their plans for achieving the optimum seal. I agree, a chamfer, you would think, would simplify mating the cap to the stub of the old riser. I am guessing that it all comes down to what they thought would give them the closest match to the cap. Their choice may have also been swayed by what they had to work with and how they could manipulate it around the geography of the wreck site. The way they work those ROV's from a mile overhead is amazing in itself. I think that would be interesting work.

Hopefully someone with much more knowledge on the subject will chime in, I'm just shooting in the dark.

Gator

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Todays images . . .
Sorry to be so late, a busy day.




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Todays image . . . not showing anything much.


The full sized image is HERE.

NOAA has some very good maps HERE for those interested.

The New York Times has a very good animated map HERE.

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Todays image . . .









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