An 11yr Olds Solution to the Oil Disaster...

[Noah930]

Originally Posted by red-beard

Basically a stick with a series of rubber tires.

Why even use a stick? Instead, make your stick a straw. Keep the inflatable bladders around it. Insert straw, inflate series of bladders, and allow the straw to channel the exploding oil to the safety of some surface containment.

Your inflatable bladders don't have to withstand thousands of psi of pressure. They just have to offer a seal from the ocean water. The oil can still eject itself upwards through the straw. Have some sort of expandable metal ring (like a shutter in a camera, but in reverse) incorporated to protect the delicate rubber seals from the onslaught of rocks and grit ejected up by the plume of oil.

The top hat idea is a "female" connector on top of the "male" spewing tube remnant. Do the reverse: make the spewing tube remnant the "female" end and insert a smaller "male" device (in place of the top hat) to capture the oil.

[alf]

So what is filling in the void that is left by all the oil that leaked out?

Seawater? Is the seafloor closing in? Would the whole oil pocket rupture/collapse if it was under enough pressure and not stable?

[URY914]

Originally Posted by Aurel

How big is that hole anyways?

I asked the same ? on page one and have not received an answer. All these guys are talking about filling/plugging the hole and they don't know the size of the hole. Do these guys go into a parts store and ask for a bolt and when the counter guy says "what size?" they say "I don't know?"

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by Aurel

How big is that hole anyways?

The pipe is 9" in diameter. At 60,000 barrels per day, the flow rate is about 30 gallons per second (120 liters per second) and the velocity is around 9 feet per second (3 meters per second).

Somewhere down the pipe, the diameter is reduced to 7".

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by Noah930

Why even use a stick? Instead, make your stick a straw. Keep the inflatable bladders around it. Insert straw, inflate series of bladders, and allow the straw to channel the exploding oil to the safety of some surface containment.

Your inflatable bladders don't have to withstand thousands of psi of pressure. They just have to offer a seal from the ocean water. The oil can still eject itself upwards through the straw. Have some sort of expandable metal ring (like a shutter in a camera, but in reverse) incorporated to protect the delicate rubber seals from the onslaught of rocks and grit ejected up by the plume of oil.

The top hat idea is a "female" connector on top of the "male" spewing tube remnant. Do the reverse: make the spewing tube remnant the "female" end and insert a smaller "male" device (in place of the top hat) to capture the oil.

Actually, that is a very good idea. The best part, it can rigged using the existing setup. The flow rate shows that the local differential pressure isn't too bad, so even one bladder would do it.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Sharks with lasers on their heads.

And snow tires.

[Aurel]

Originally Posted by alf

So what is filling in the void that is left by all the oil that leaked out?

Seawater? Is the seafloor closing in? Would the whole oil pocket rupture/collapse if it was under enough pressure and not stable?

$$bills. Lots of them .

[URY914]

Could you.................

Low tech solution:

Clear and level the area around the well as much as possible. I realize this is asking a lot being that it is one mile below SL.

Cast a LARGE slab of reinforced concrete on a barge. I thinking on the order of 20' x 20' x 8'. Lower it using a barge mounted super crane onto the well head.

Well stops flowing or will it just find the path of least resistance and flow out from under the slab?

[Aurel]

Originally Posted by red-beard

The pipe is 9" in diameter. At 60,000 barrels per day, the flow rate is about 30 gallons per second (120 liters per second) and the velocity is around 9 feet per second (3 meters per second).

Somewhere down the pipe, the diameter is reduced to 7".

How much power would a radio controlled torpedo need to force its way against a flow like that? My idea is to make a torpedo/plug and drive it into the hole. Could then expand itself and get stuck in there.

[Icemaster]

Picard would have this figured in a nano second. He'd have Jordi turn the dish into a giant tachyon beam projector and generate a pulse that would cause the well shaft to implode and collapse, thus pluggin the opening. If that didn't do it, he'd follow with a 75% power phaser blast followed by a proton torpedo.

Wonder what Adama would do....?

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Icemaster

Picard would have this figured in a nano second. He'd have Jordi turn the dish into a giant tachyon beam projector and generate a pulse that would cause the well shaft to implode and collapse, thus pluggin the opening. If that didn't do it, he'd follow with a 75% power phaser blast followed by a proton torpedo.

Wonder what Adama would do....?

Nope, it would take Picard 40 minutes to fix the problem. Enough time to fill an episode with some crew interaction scenes for plot.

[M.D. Holloway]

right at the point of ultimate distress you would have to wait 2 minutes 2 seconds for a commercial break to wit you would come back and the problem (that was so obvious to fix) would be solved in the last 4 minutes of the show - everytime.

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by LubeMaster77

Wouldn't really need hydraulic fluid Red - prolly just crude oil would be fine.

How in the hell are we going to find some crude oil in the middle of the ocean??? There's nothing for miles in any direction!

Think a bit man!

[Maleficio]

What would McGruber do?

[cashflyer]

What if we put a bigger pipe down and around the existing pipe?

Jam it all the way down to the sea floor as a lower seal, then the oil will fill the pipe upward to the surface, where it can be safely collected.

[red-beard]

It would have to be an awfully big pipe, since it would have to go around the BOP.

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by red-beard

It would have to be an awfully big pipe, since it would have to go around the BOP.

Isn't that essentially what the top-hat was supposed to do - and didn't, due to a crystalization problem relating to the gas component of the flow that blocked the flow at the reduction of diameter at the top of the top-hat?

[Noah930]

Darisc, I think you're confusing the top hat (which is what they're calling the current containment device) with the house-sized concrete box they built and tried at first (but failed due to the problems to which you eluded).

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by DARISC

Isn't that essentially what the top-hat was supposed to do - and didn't, due to a crystalization problem relating to the gas component of the flow that blocked the flow at the reduction of diameter at the top of the top-hat?

If you did the Top Hat now, and flushed the system with drilling mud, you might make it work. The previous top hat was just going to be on only one of the sections of broken pipe.

The top hat problem was a combination of natural gas, pressure and sea water. You would need a way to "seal" the bottom to prevent sea water from contaminating the natural gas.

[Noah930]

Of course, if you read (and believe) the site Gogar found in his thread, we're fairly screwed no matter what gets done: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/548251-heres-interesting-oil-well-take.html