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New BP Insertion Tube Isn't Working
BP's new insertion tube inside the leaking oil pipe - unfortunately -
isn't doing very much.
Specifically, the Miami Herald points
out that - according to the Coast Guard - the spill is getting worse in spite of the insertion
tube:
The
massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill is growing despite British Petroleum's
effort to siphon some of the spewing crude from its ruptured deepwater
well, the U.S. Coast Guard official leading the cleanup warned Tuesday.
BP
doubled its estimate of the amount of crude being captured by a
mile-long recovery tube to 2,000 barrels per day - but what percentage
of the spill that is remains uncertain. BP has said it thinks that 5,000
barrels of crude a day are leaking from the well, but a video made
public Tuesday after the tube was placed inside the broken pipe showed
clouds of crude oil still billowing into the sea.
Another video
provided the first public view of a second leak much nearer the runaway
well's failed blowout preventer spewing oil, too. A BP robot took that
video on Saturday and Sunday.
The Coast Guard commandant, Adm.
Thad Allen, said that despite the siphoning, the spilled oil is
spreading and now stretches from western Louisiana to Florida's Key
West. The extent of the spill was straining even the substantial
resources deployed for one of the worst ecological disasters in recent
history, he said.
Kevin Grandia explains:
Two new videos
have surface showing footage of the BP oil leak at the source 5,000 feet
down at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
These new video are
important because they show footage (if the time stamp on the video of
May 17th is correct) taken after the oil company responsible for
stopping the leak - British Petroleum (BP) - had
inserted a tube into the leaking pipe in an attempt to
siphon off some of the oil and pump it up to an awaiting ship on the
surface.
Looking at this video there remains serious question
about the exact
amount of oil that is actually flowing from the burst pipe as well
as how much is being captured by the inserted siphon:
***
Another video has also been released showing the leak from the
riser that is described on US
Senator Bill Nelson's website as video footage of the plume "after
the intervention" - you can clearly see in the video a large kink in the
riser that is spewing oil. The first half of this video is marked May
15th - the day before the insertion tube was placed in the leaking pipe.
The video then switches (at about the 2 min. 30 sec. mark) to a
close of shot of the leak time stamped the next day, May 16th after the
insertion tube was put in place:
Compare
this to similar footage posted last week:
Indeed, BP either doesn't know or
won't tell how much oil is leaking. As the Miami Herald notes:
Under
sharp questioning from Nelson and other lawmakers, Lamar McKay, the
head of BP America, said the company was focused on sealing off the
spill but couldn't offer estimates of how much oil was flowing into the
ocean.
And see this.
BP has refused to let independent scientists inspect the site so that
they could estimate the rate of the oil leak.
BP's next plan is to try to seal the leak
using heavy
drilling fluids and then cement:
BP likely
will try to shut down the well completely late this week using a
technique called “top kill,” BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles
said at a news conference Monday. The process involves
pumping heavy drilling fluids through two 3-inch lines into the blowout
preventer that sits on top of the Macondo wellhead a mile underwater.
This would first restrict the flow of oil from the well, which then
could be sealed permanently with cement.
»
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I ride sometimes to the grocery store, to work, etc. You would be surprised that bike up keep involves more fossil fuel than you would suppose.
It's not nearly as bad as a car, and the oils and greases need not be petro-based. There are BioD alternatives that should be sufficient for anything other than a heavy use mountain bike
I wonder about the factory processes where bikes are produced, and the tires...Not as bad as a car though, that is true.
your probably right. i wanted to fight you tonight.
darn†
but i did get a new track bike and it is a whole new way of riding in life.
slow, fixed gear, no brakes. check out all the cool guys in town.
Like bumping around the town like when you're spinning a fixed gear velo ... I've got pegs through my hands and one through my feet
track bike is at least lower-maintenance, tho I've seen couriers now on freewheel versions of same
A huge percentage of Lima's (Peru) taxi fleet run on nat gas.
If they can do it why can't we?
What is that? Guns kill people, people kill people or something like that. I cant remember...
George, can you have someone there at ZH analyze this research paper from Columbia University, it describes this oil field in detail and the problems it presents. They knew back in 2001 that this was a beast.
http://leanenergy.ldeo.columbia.edu/docs/UltraDeep%20Prosp%2010-22-02.pdf
RS, thanks, I'll take a look later tonight...
Have you seen the movie There will be Blood? I think they captured the spirit of these yahoos that go after oil. Damn the consequences, those fuckers are addicted to the risk.
I was once one of those fuckers you refer to. None of the people I knew were "addicted to the risk." Done right there was minimal risk and you played very carefully and very, very slowly when you knew you were tickling the beast.
The 11 who died were just trying to put food on the table.
As for BP, somebody needs to get that company man under oath and ask him a few questions. The words "criminal negligence" may apply.
MsCreant,
No, I haven't seen it yet, but have you seen this???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9ClsOQdlUE
benverdroncos
so apropos, guilty, named my daughter Asia.
just singing, the hills are alive with the sound of music, days.
Cute spoof. The movie is worth while. Think I'm going to get Children of Men or something to fit my mood. Nah, too optimistic about the future, never mind.
guffaw
Frigging brilliant!
I see creativity like this and I weep that all I can do is type a few words while this type of genius exists in the world. It all works, perfectly. :>)
To someone who could probably stand on the "Pier" before ya had to pay to park. I was thinking of moving back there but not any longer. it's gonna be amess.
You are right, I did!! That upside down pyramid was this eyesore no one knew what to do with when I was a kid. We went there a lot! When I went back they had yuppiefied it. We had red tide from time to time, that was stinky enough.
I don't live in the state any more, but my heart does.
My understanding, from something I read and could never possibly find again, was that this was the outer edge of the deposit. The concern was that if they tapped into the body of the deposit that pressures might be too great. So the outer edge would let them bleed pressure off the main deposit to a point where the main deposit could be drilled.
Sweet PDF! This goes into my reading pile.
Cooter
Pressures of over 175,000 psi in the center of the deposit with existing natural gas seeps onshore from Texas to Florida... Exxon walked away from a 35,000 foot deep offshore well in 2006 because it's geologists considered it too dangerous to develop... BP? Not so much...
Hi,
Where is the source of that information?
thanks, steve
http://pesn.com/2010/05/02/9501643_Mother_of_all_gushers_could_kill_Eart...
Great work Zerohead. Before we act we must know the extent of the problem.
Putting together various comments it seems clear folks along the boundary of the gulf should move away soonest.
There will be a huge migration dictated by prevailing winds.
Overfished and polluted waters worldwide will die sooner and more hungry folks will compete for the remains.
Now for the bad news...I mean dont you just feel something else is just around the corner?
Holy crap... porosity of 30% in the oil bearing strata 400 feet thick... there is literally a sea of oil under there... I can understand why BP doesn't wish to cap and walk.
The oil bearing sand at 20,000 feet down is considered geologically 'recent' and thus the degree of compaction is low and porosity is high.
Damn... this could get ugly quickly... I mean uglier...
I read into your comment that you expect the sand to settle as the oil drains out.
In other words the next calamity will be compaction of the sea bed. Next question would be how fast will that happen. Since the weight of water is pushing it down to begin with. I am sure if sinkholes develop BP will have no responsibility. I hope with all my heart that i am wrong on this.
Is there a map of how far the oilfield extends?
Subsidence
— Some areas of the Gulf of
Mexico floor have experience several feet of
subsidence, or settling, related to production.
Usually, significant settling is found in
older platforms because it can take 20 years
to obtain 8 to 12 feet of subsidence. For
example a platform installed in 250 feet of
water 35 years ago may have been installed
with a deck height of 45 feet. But after 20
years of production from multiple wells,
there may be 10 feet of subsidence that
reduces deck height to, say, 35 feet — leaving
the platform more vulnerable to wave-indeck
loads never considered in the original
design.
http://www.libertymutualgroup.com/omapps/ContentServer?cid=1138356860744&pagename=LMGNews%2Fcms_document%2FShowDoc&fattribute=cms_attribute&fnameprefix=cms&c=cms_document
- there are reports of STALAGTITES being ejected from the bore hole, Stalagtites are found in caves and caverns, if it truly is a cavern, stand by for a major extinction event.
I'll see if I can find the link.
Sorry Rusty... that's simply impossible.
Stalactites and stalagmites form from mineral deposition originating from water dripping off the ceilings of above sea level caverns. You need to have an air chamber in the mix which is as we all know impossible below the water table... :)
That said... lets hope it's only frozen methane hydrates... anything else is very very not good! (Pieces of casing cement, fractured reservoir rock etc. )
Only methane hydrates? Check out the stability of those formations and the clathrate gun hypothesis
Calthrate hydrates = methane hydrates...
Things will have to get a little warmer first for a global event but yup... capital 'U' ugly when it happens...
Weren't they proposed as an alternative explanation for the Bermuda Triangle phenomenon once? (frothy water = boats sinking/crews gassed/airplanes falling from the sky... :)
"Things will have to get a little warmer first for a global event"
Please clarify ZerO, the temperature of the oil volcano?? If you are referring to the oil volcano, just what is the temperatures at 20,000 - 30,000 feet below sea level??
clathrate gun hypothesis has largely been debunked ... I hope
Hey Zero, I will look for it later tonight, but I did read a document somewhere describing stalagmites being ejected, you are correct about how they are formed, but, a cavern formed 400 million years ago may now be below the ocean floor, full of oil.
http://search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/BC7438BF-16BE-11D7-8645000102C1865D
There are also unconfirmed reports , that Jules Vernes', Arnie Sakknussen's remains were found ejected from the well head .
If the well casing or reservoir rock is being ejected then the clock is already ticking. Think of a giant continuous oil/gas sandblasting enema shooting up that well... that should keep anyone with a beach house on the Gulf up at night...
Thank you bunches. I wish i could put my finger in that dike.
Not worried about 'settling' and 'sinkholes' so much since the oil occupies the space between the individual sand(stone) grains... so if the oil/gas are gone the sand should still support the overlying seds.
If the oil/gas pressure below the well head and BOP are high however (20,000 psi or more) the posiibility still exists for an even larger blowout if the reservoir 'sand' starts to blow out with the oil/gas as it fractures... creating continually higher rates of pressure and flow which this insane porosity may be able to sustain.
Remember... we now know for certain that the well casing has been compromised... the question is will it hold? If BP can still kill the hole by pumping heavy mud into it as they speculate they can... well now would be a good time.
Junk shot then mudshot.
With high pressures and a sandstone formation there will be considerable erosion of all metals within the BOP and riser. This supports the view that the leak may be increasing.
The problem for BP is that they do not know the source of the blowout. I suspect gas channelling of the cement job which resulted in formation fluids rising in the annulus between casing and well bore. When they displaced the riser to seawater this resulted in failure of one of the upper casing seals so that formation fluids entered the well bore up near the mudline not down at the shoe. This would also explain the sudden nature of the blow out. The floor crew never saw the pressure until it blew in and at that point they had just seconds to live
As long as referee Obama is whisleing this game, BP get a never ending amount of strikes.
I wonder how long Obama can afford to wait much longer before the call this the Obama disaster.
When Gasparilla Island is awash in brown sludge.
How about President Obama when he talks about the BPOilSpill; sounds like a winning NASCAR driver pimping his sponsors... ha ha
Ahhhhh . Little Gasparilla Island . We (were?) looking to do a permament "castaway" there . No more . But perhaps RE values may drop precipitously ( a certainty )and we may yet enjoy basking in the crude soaked sunshine .
that's a very accurate analogy in general Henry
The 'experts' tell us that a 4 inch diameter, mile long 'capture' pipe, placed into a 21 inch riser pipe is not going to collect more than 10% or so of the oil emerging and probably much less. If they are already collecting 2,000 barrels per day as BP states, then it is certain that these two remaining leaks combined are leaking between 20,000 to 80,000 barrels per day into the Gulf.
When will everyone finally come 'clean' here?
OT... new volcano 'porn' from Iceland...
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KgIqQvYUs3I/S8skZz5uOQI/AAAAAAAAWxA/SxCoWJzPmH...
Almost as good as the stuff from Chile...
http://www.metlin.org/content/blog/ChileanVolcanoLarge.jpg
i am no expert, but going by simple math, a 4-in pipe inserted into a 21-in riser will capture no more than the square of the ratio of the radius of 2 pipes. So it will capture no more than 4% of the leaked oil, and if 2000 barrels is what it is capturing, then the daily leakage is 55 thousand barrels a day. At this rate, in 30 days, the leakage is enough to fill an average oil supertanker of 1.5 million barrels capacity. Not surprising the average americans can't do the math, but why can't the experts do it and tell the truth? The lying continues in this country.
I dont know. One flaw, I think, might be the hypothesis of proportionality in flow rate.
That is the flow rate outside the inriser is proportional to the flow rate within the 4 inch pipe.
At this depth and with this kind of oil (which might be subjected to pression and therefore a different behaviour), the hypothesis might not be valid. Therefore, leading to collect more through a 4 inch pipe than a direct simple calculation would tell.
Do the math .
Good post . I wonder same . Where are all the engineers posts on Blogs, Web and MSM . i.e. Pressure at vent (leaks) approx 2500psi , diameter size of one pipe (?) minus head pressure of 5000 foot of seawater equals flow from leak . But since mainstream mdeia and Americans in general are all math illiterate no calculations are seen . Its reall quite simple. MUCH MORE OIL IS SPEWING THAN WE ARE BEING TOLD . PERIOD !!
DO THE MATH , BP , DO THE MATH !!!!!!!!!!!
Then , please, go out of business and die.
Their genius solution , put a drinking straw in a fire hose and "steal" some of the flow . Total idiots !
I'm just guessing here but I don't think anyone involved from BP to the Obama administration want us to know how bad it actually is... and I can think of millions of dolla.. err... reasons why!
WOW...they actually kind of scare me. Can you add Lord Blankfein dancing around with a pitchfork and a long tail?
vulcano, oil leak, financial black hole, in each case we do not see the scale of the disaster.
I say the Earth is going Gault. It is quite done with us Human Doings
I can't watch this sh*t.... makes my skin crawl. I get so pissed off............. I'm at a loss for words.