The 98 Ton Band-Aid
Posted by LK on 5/07/10 • Categorized as Blog, Energy: alt and conventional, Environment, Featured
Let’s see if I understand this correctly:
The best idea the consortium of industry, government, and environmental groups can come up with to contain the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico is akin to that which a bright 10 year old might think of: Let’s cover it!!! Alright, I can buy that; sometimes the simplest solution is both the most elegant and the easiest to overlook.
Drilling a new well a mile down and then miles across to intersect the current well will take at least 3 months, and then the new tunnel would need to precisely meet up with around a 7 inch section of the old well. When they tried the same procedure in Australian waters it took 10 tries, once the drilling was done, to find the X that marked the spot.
So the cap makes sense as a temporary stop-gap.
What confuses me is the lack of surety, and caveats galore, emanating from the people involved in the capping. They don’t know how the 98 ton container’s going to hold up under the pressure a mile down. They don’t know how maneuverable it’s going to be.
Why the lack of confidence? And why is up so much easier than down? Why can we send vehicles, manned and unmanned, into space, at planetary distances, and be able to precisely intercept a moon of Jupiter, or, decades ago, land and retrieve men on and from the moon? The physics of increasing water pressure at greater depths isn’t a big mystery; it’s the same science that was used to drill the damn well in the first place, with what I’d guess were far more precise tolerances than are required to place this Ironman like barn on top of the deep sea gusher.
Something smells, well, fishy. Sorry. If BP, federal officials, and the rest of their oily comrades are setting a low bar they’re giving us even more vague misdirection than they gave us when they swore the safety measures they employed were more than adequate, from the rig’s ability to deal with rough seas, to the fire prevention and containment methods that were in place, to not needing a back-up, remote, shut off valve.
For now, we wish them luck. Ultimately, an attack on their persons mimicking some of the more violent scenes in Hitchcock’s “The Birds” might be poetic justice.
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This whole thing depresses me beyond words.
Although, I try not to worry about it. I figure “The Markets” will fix the problem.
This article was pointless. You didn’t provide any new information. Poor writing style. It sounded like the rant of a 12 year old.
re the above:
disgruntled English major who never completed his masters thesis or oil company hired hand specializing in blogosphere damage control? you decide.
I don’t care what happens if there are ten more spills we have to become self sufficent on our own oil. The drastic drop in prices, rise in living conditions and new job (plus the influx of money from all the life insurance claims) will help us out here exponentially. Environment be damned.
normally I would totally disagree…but in this case…agreed! The states owes too much money to China and relies to heavily on the Middle East’s oil. We need to use what we have, and start using alternative sources.