Well casing is gone, oil spill about to get worse

[deadpool99]

I doubt a person would see very much on the surface even if they did nuke it. But who knows with this thing. Part of me wonders if they didn't drill into a reserve thats pressure was far greater than anything they have previously encountered.

[Randall]

i wouldn't be suprised at all that while they have this nice camera showing a leak over here... over there, where there is no camera, it's like 10 million leaks that are far worse.

[sgreger1]

Relief wells are usually spotted in hundreds or even thousands of feet below the wellhead so unless the damage does all the way down they have a chance of controlling it this way. At least they should be able to relieve most of the surface pressure at the old well head which will allow them to more effectively seal off the fractured area.

But that's the problem, how do you seal off the fractured area? It's not jsut the well that must be sealed, but all the cracks ina sever killometer radius around the thing that must also be filled.

Either way it is going to be a daunting task.

[sgreger1]

They know the well pipe is damaged. Thats why they cut the pipe on top of the BOP and thats why they stopped trying to seal it off at the top of the well. Sealing it off up their will make the pressure of the oil in the pipe go up and blast out of the damaged sections even more and add to the erosion of the seabed around the broken section. If they can get the relief wells to work we will be ok.

What we really or at least the gulf states have to worry about is Hurricanes bringing this oil onshore. Its happening right now and they aren't even getting a direct hit.
But once the relief wells are in place they might use those wells to relieve the pressure on the main pipe going up and load it with a nuke or a crap load of high explosives.

A nuke would either seal it off or blow the proverbial cork on the whole oil reserve.

Yah the hurricane is already making waves and bringing it to the shore as well as delaying recovery efforts. But the oil thats out is already out, and if a big enough hurricane hits it spot on, that oil that is under the surface in a giant several mile long plume will come up to the surface, which would be bad.


Anyways, why is no one in handcuffs yet?

[AtreyuKun]

I don't get scared very often. Folks, this scares me. I'm litterally 20 minuted from water on 2 sides of me. 1 being the Gulf, and the other being the Mobile Bay. All this combined with the evil toxic murder rain....how did it ever come to this?

[LaZeR]

Hey! I want to come to.

[danielan]

Oh welcome danielan and timholian

Thanks for the popcorn!

[lxskllr]

how did it ever come to this?

Americans not getting a clue back in the 70s when we got a preview of future oil shortages. After that blew over, all the dipshits assumed it was all good again. This is the fault of everyone here, me included. There's no reason gas should be cheaper than milk, yet it is. If we had been paying the true cost of a petrol economy, we may have put a little more effort into finding better ways of powering ourselves.

[sgreger1]

Americans not getting a clue back in the 70s when we got a preview of future oil shortages. After that blew over, all the dipshits assumed it was all good again. This is the fault of everyone here, me included. There's no reason gas should be cheaper than milk, yet it is. If we had been paying the true cost of a petrol economy, we may have put a little more effort into finding better ways of powering ourselves.

Yah, like how artificial credit ruins the whole system, cheap gas ruins it also. The system then builds itself around this and expects it to stay cheap forever, otherwise the system fails. If you think the market crash was bad this time, wait until the oil runs out.

[AtreyuKun]

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/bloyer/030331

[deadpool99]

Dont forget about Corexit 9500. Who knows what the dispersant is going to do to the environment. The sick thing is they knew the BOP was flawed way bad. They did nothing about it. Incompetence no matter where you turn.