'Top kill' plugs gulf oil leak, official says (FAILED)

[her209]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-top-kill-20100528,0,5782115.story

Holy crap, it actually worked! I bet BP and the White House are breathing a sigh of relief this morning, but before everyone gives themselves a pat on the back, there's still this business of cleaning up the oil that has spilled.

 

[rasczak]

good. now clean up the mess.

 

[HumblePie]

from what I read, it seems as if it still leaking, but their "plan" so far seems to be working.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/27/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T1

 

[Atreus21]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-top-kill-20100528,0,5782115.story

Holy crap, it actually worked! I bet BP and the White House are breathing a sigh of relief this morning, but before everyone gives themselves a pat on the back, there's still this business of cleaning up the oil that has spilled.

I sure hope it holds. Thank God.

At least now we can start healing a cauterized wound.

 

[Vette73]

Yea there is still some leaking and also it has to hold for a couple months till the new well is drilled.

So this is still a temp fix at best.

 

[Daedalus685]

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/05/27/gulf-of-mexico-spill.html

BP says it will know by Thursday afternoon whether a procedure to stop the flow of oil gushing from a broken well in the Gulf of Mexico is working.

Seems the only thing known for sure thus far is that the mud etc is actually getting into the well. They don't seem to have a clue if it is working yet.

 

[HumblePie]

Seems the only thing known for sure thus far is that the mud etc is actually getting into the well. They don't seem to have a clue if it is working yet.

Yep, which is why I put the word "plan" in quotes as I did above. The only thing they know right now is that they are getting mud in the well and the mud is now coming out with the oil. Now, I will state I have no clue how this mud is suppose to be used to seal the well, but it is part of a plan that someone has to seal it. So since there is mud in the well now it is going according to a plan of some sort.

 

[Slick5150]

Yes, this thread is rather premature. It's "working", not "worked".

 

[Jaskalas]

good. now clean up the mess.

Just wave a magic wand....

 

[child of wonder]

Can we now start seriously looking at alternative energies? Every day the world is bombarded with enough solar energy to satisfy the entire planet's energy needs for a year. It's inexcusable that we aren't harnessing this 100% free and 100% clean source of energy.

 

[Daedalus685]

Yep, which is why I put the word "plan" in quotes as I did above. The only thing they know right now is that they are getting mud in the well and the mud is now coming out with the oil. Now, I will state I have no clue how this mud is suppose to be used to seal the well, but it is part of a plan that someone has to seal it. So since there is mud in the well now it is going according to a plan of some sort.

The mud is used to negate the pressure of the oil. They pump it in to reduce the out flow as much as possible. They then seal the well with concrete. They won't be applying concrete until tonight I'd imagine, and won't have any idea if it is sealed (even temporarily) until tomorrow or the next day.

 

[Thump553]

HumblePie: the plan is for the weight of the mud to slow down and stop the flow of oil, then to follow the mud with cement to permanently plug it. A big worry was the combined pressure of the oil and mud would rupture weakened parts of the pipe. Apparently they are beyond that stage now, and need to follow up with the cement plugging operation.

You know people have been shitting all over BP and it's efforts to plug this leak but from a very small minority of news sources has pointed out BP assembled the best possible brain trust to solve the problem and gave them carte blanche to proceed. I've seen comparisons to the group that got Apollo 13 home safely. As a non-engineer I'm always thrilled when mankind shows the brains to work us out of a situtaion. I'd like to see more of that story developed.

But we do have to have better precautions for such drilling in the future, including deciding whether it it is worth it to drill at all in such hostile environments. Or we at least need better safeguards. I saw a report that Canada always requires a relief well to be drilled at the same time as the production well-a huge additional expense but it would have prevented a good deal of this disaster.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Can we now start seriously looking at alternative energies? Every day the world is bombarded with enough solar energy to satisfy the entire planet's energy needs for a year. It's inexcusable that we aren't harnessing this 100% free and 100% clean source of energy.

The problem is, its not 100% free. Solar Panels cost money, more money than its costs for oil at this point.

 

[Praxis1452]

Can we now start seriously looking at alternative energies? Every day the world is bombarded with enough solar energy to satisfy the entire planet's energy needs for a year. It's inexcusable that we aren't harnessing this 100% free and 100% clean source of energy.

Solar is very situational, it depends on geography, requires batteries of some type to store vast amounts of energy. And, it requires lots and lots of space. It's not that viable at all.

Most green tech isn't very viable even for the near future. In 50 years, I have little idea what will happen, but most certainly pure solar isn't it.

The cost to produce solar panels, as well as the rare metals and cost of producing all those batteries have a cost too. Green energy is never truly green.

 

[Daedalus685]

HumblePie: the plan is for the weight of the mud to slow down and stop the flow of oil, then to follow the mud with cement to permanently plug it. A big worry was the combined pressure of the oil and mud would rupture weakened parts of the pipe. Apparently they are beyond that stage now, and need to follow up with the cement plugging operation.

You know people have been shitting all over BP and it's efforts to plug this leak but from a very small minority of news sources has pointed out BP assembled the best possible brain trust to solve the problem and gave them carte blanche to proceed. I've seen comparisons to the group that got Apollo 13 home safely. As a non-engineer I'm always thrilled when mankind shows the brains to work us out of a situtaion. I'd like to see more of that story developed.

But we do have to have better precautions for such drilling in the future, including deciding whether it it is worth it to drill at all in such hostile environments. Or we at least need better safeguards. I saw a report that Canada always requires a relief well to be drilled at the same time as the production well-a huge additional expense but it would have prevented a good deal of this disaster.

We do, though BP continues to lobby the regulations to remove that requirement for the arctic as "it is too costly and not required". I'm not sure if words were ever eaten so fast in history..

 

[Daedalus685]

Solar is very situational, it depends on geography, requires batteries of some type to store vast amounts of energy. And, it requires lots and lots of space. It's not that viable at all.

Most green tech isn't very viable even for the near future. In 50 years, I have little idea what will happen, but most certainly pure solar isn't it.

The cost to produce solar panels, as well as the rare metals and cost of producing all those batteries have a cost too. Green energy is never truly green.

Solar is useful as a decentralized power production. It requires a change in our idea of energy for it to really work. If every building was tiled with solar panel shingles, we used wind/hydro where appropriate, and had an energy dense backup to offset the system in high population/surface area regions it would be fine. Solar has never been intended to replace anything, the energy density simply isn't there for it to be a centralized power collection means unless it were placed in a Lagrange point.

The battery tech required for a per house implementation isn't all that drastic, and solid state technology is growing rapidly. Eventually we will have capacitors that will last indefinitely long that can be used in place of a traditional battery as long term storage will not be required.

 

[child of wonder]

The problem is, its not 100% free. Solar Panels cost money, more money than its costs for oil at this point.

Solar is very situational, it depends on geography, requires batteries of some type to store vast amounts of energy. And, it requires lots and lots of space. It's not that viable at all.

Most green tech isn't very viable even for the near future. In 50 years, I have little idea what will happen, but most certainly pure solar isn't it.

The cost to produce solar panels, as well as the rare metals and cost of producing all those batteries have a cost too. Green energy is never truly green.

Sure, I'm aware of that. But the fact that we as a country aren't seriously investing in it and doing everything in our power to make it a reality is sad.

It's like we're sitting at home drinking muddy water from a hole in our backyard while there's a clean stream a couple miles away.

"It is not economically viable to get the clean water. It's too hard."

Ultra capacitors, new solar panel technologies, and more are on the horizon. We just need to have the foresight to pursue it, not see it is a cutesy "green" fad. It's vital to our survival as a nation IMO.

 

[Moonbeam]

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

 

[bfdd]

Sure, I'm aware of that. But the fact that we as a country aren't seriously investing in it and doing everything in our power to make it a reality is sad.

It's like we're sitting at home drinking muddy water from a hole in our backyard while there's a clean stream a couple miles away.

"It is not economically viable to get the clean water. It's too hard."

Ultra capacitors, new solar panel technologies, and more are on the horizon. We just need to have the foresight to pursue it, not see it is a cutesy "green" fad. It's vital to our survival as a nation IMO.

nuclear

 

[Daedalus685]

nuclear

Fission is not sustainable long term. It is certainly more energy dense than oil and simply refining what we consider "waste" currently would last us decades but it will run out. Strip mining for thorium or uranium is not much better than the oil sands in Canada as far as pillaging the environment goes.

It is a nice stepping stone, and has a lot of room to grow but I'm not sure if it will ever be truly "clean." Mind you we could be set for a long time if we just used up all of our waste materials in advanced reactors. This would not be cost effective though, not until uranium/thorium is harder to dig out of the ground.

I should point out that we just recently managed to fuel an entire CANDU in Korea with used fuel. That is where the future in fission is.. Cleaning up our mess from earlier fission. We will need a nuclear energy with a much more plentiful base fuel in order to really become sustainable in the long term (being a few centuries in my mind, nothing is long term geologically).

 

[ElFenix]

flow rate revised to 11,000 to 19,000 barrels/day

so, bigger than exxon valdez

 

[Patranus]

And Obama goes on TV and uses this to push Cap & Tax. Who would have guessed.

(And he also said that he acted quickly...right)

 

[CADsortaGUY]

And Obama goes on TV and uses this to push Cap & Tax. Who would have guessed.

(And he also said that he acted quickly...right)

Quickly once it started to hurt him...

 

[Thump553]

We've had cap and trade here in the northeast for most of a decade and everyone involved is very satisfied, including the utilities. Calling it cap and tax is akin to talking about death panels and the health care bill-great political theater, but nonsense.

Solar has made huge gains in the last few years. FSLR's implementation is now cheaper than conventional electrical generation. We need to put some real money into improving the grid. Battery technology is really lagging too.

 

[piasabird]

My son was telling me about this paper he was reading. It is a paper on how plants convert sunlight. It has been thought for a long time that it was basically a chemical process based on Chlorofyl. However, they had been perplexed about how the process is almost 100% efficient. Our solar panels are not even reaching an efficiency rating of 50%. The paper attempts to prove that the process in plants is working on the Quantum Physics level.

I think it might be possible to study the plants and build our own process using quantum physics to achieve a solar panel that is almost 3 times more efficient than what we have today. This is why we need more science majors.