Will BP's Top Kill Procedure Stop the Gulf Oil Spill?

[zomgwtf]

Nothing like this has ever happened. It is now officially the biggest environmental disaster in US history. The Congressman from La. is a man watching his home being destroyed. If I were him, I'd probably be in tears as well.

Obama is a rock. Back in '08, even when his campaign was in big trouble and his staff was panicking, Obama was like ice.

Edit: I'm confused. Who did you mean; whose crying? T. Boone Pickens?

Pretty sure he's talking about Rep. Melancon. No?

I can completely see why he would be crying, just because you're a 'leader' of sorts doesn't negate the fact that you are human with human emotions. Some people can handle the worst enviromental disaster happening in their backyard while they have to constantly make public appearances and even get blamed at times, most people I would feel can't take this much though.

 

[mheslep]

...

Water or oil based, it usually contains Barite, or Cesium.

Hayward stated they are using a water base, which means that it is likely this mud:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3962099.html

It's nasty stuff, but compared to at least 11 million gallons of crude and over 600 thousand of dispersants, if it works, it would be worth it. If not, it'a 50,000+ pounds of toxic and sometimes mildly radioactive mud.

Most all of the elements are found naturally in seawater including the radioactive ones. It appears the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) compounds added to the mud are the particularly toxic part.

 

[magpies]

Nothing like this has ever happened. It is now officially the biggest environmental disaster in US history.

Ya it has about the same thing happened in the 60's <--*ok 80's*...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I

I mean it's not exactly the same but pretty much...

 

[xxChrisxx]

Ya it has about the same thing happened in the 60's...

Not to the magnitude, nor the depth of the current spill.

 

[zomgwtf]

So just wondering. What sort of legal implications will this have on BP? Not just in the states but on the international stage. I feel that these people should be tried publicly and clearly found guilty for this disaster and not properly being prepared to meet a worst case scenario. I mean they keep saying 'they don't know' about EVERYTHING that's going on here because 'it's never been done before' at those depths. Well if they didn't know anything then they never should have meddled around in it in the first place.

I think that'll set a pretty good precedent? Who knows what their punishment should be though. I say we hang 'em after they pay for everything to get cleaned up and pay for all the damages done. WHO'S WITH ME?


EDIT: Actually if you look at the link provided to the Ixtoc I oil spill you can see that they avoided paying compensation and the like because of 'sovereign immunity'. In my mind they should have be charged at an international level, whether they wanted to or not. This is a criminal act in my mind.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Pretty sure he's talking about Rep. Melancon. No?

I can completely see why he would be crying, just because you're a 'leader' of sorts doesn't negate the fact that you are human with human emotions. Some people can handle the worst enviromental disaster happening in their backyard while they have to constantly make public appearances and even get blamed at times, most people I would feel can't take this much though.

It has been interesting to watch the seven stages of grief play out. Personally, I have reached acceptance. BP may have killed the gulf. We can only hope that it won't be as bad as it might be. BP still hasn't announced that the top kill has failed, so maybe there is even hope for that yet.

•Shock or Disbelief
•Denial
•Bargaining
•Guilt
•Anger
•Depression
•Acceptance

 

[xxChrisxx]

So just wondering. What sort of legal implications will this have on BP? Not just in the states but on the international stage. I feel that these people should be tried publicly and clearly found guilty for this disaster and not properly being prepared to meet a worst case scenario. I mean they keep saying 'they don't know' about EVERYTHING that's going on here because 'it's never been done before' at those depths. Well if they didn't know anything then they never should have meddled around in it in the first place.

Historically the only way you progressed was by acitvely doing new things. If we never tired anything before becuase 'it's never been done before. Progress would halt. This would have been reviewed and safety checked about a zillion times before it was put into operation. There are ALWAYS unforseen circumstances.

There were clearly procedural errors, production should never have commenced after the warnigns and pressure failures. Whoever gave the go ahead after the pressure failure is guilty of negligance. Those are the only people you can bring to a criminal trial.

HOWEVER! The outcome of this should not be to punish individuals. The idea is not to get retribution or revenge, it's to make sure this can never happen again. I don't agree with the sentiment of 'heads should roll' as it does not serve any useful purpose.

BP should be made to pay for the spillage clearup, loss of earnings of people affected and be made to provide ALL data on this to the public for a review.

 

[mheslep]

Not to the magnitude,

Did you look at the link provided for Ixtoc 1? 3,000,000 barrels over nine months. Ixtoc was far larger than this Obama - Minerals Management Service - British Petroleum - Deep Water Horizon spill (so far). It just doesn't get credited as a 'US' spill, being a Mexican rig, even though large portions of the spill ended up on Tx beaches.

 

[Geigerclick]

Most all of the elements are found naturally in seawater including the radioactive ones. It appears the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) compounds added to the mud are the particularly toxic part.

Oil seepage is found naturally in seawater, along with gypsum. Cyanide is natural, that doesn't make a large quantity of it mixed with oil very healthy. Anyway, my point is that it is certainly toxic, but less so than dispersants or crude.

Argentum: Of course I'm aware of that, I didn't say that that it was enriched with tritium and cobalt. I believe the information I linked to speaks for itself, and that it shows the mud is nothing terrible, and certainly I would rather handle that than the dispersants that have been used.

 

[xxChrisxx]

Did you look at the link provided for Ixtoc 1? 3,000,000 barrels over nine months. Ixtoc was far larger than this BP DWH spill (so far). It just doesn't get credited as a 'US' spill, being a Mexican rig, even though large portions of the spill ended up on Tx beaches.

That's a good point. That's still the largest, but it's not a comparable spill to DWH.

EDIT: Ivan's post below was what I was going to put in the edit.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Ya it has about the same thing happened in the 60's <--*ok 80's*...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I

I mean it's not exactly the same but pretty much...

That was a completely different situation as the oil never approached land - only tar balls. The rig was farther out at sea, and most of the oil went north and dissipated. Also, I would have to check the numbers as so much has changed, but I believe that was a slower leak. Rate, location, ocean currents, and wind, all play significant roles in determining the damaged caused by a spill. This is is attacking or threatening the heart of the gulf - the breeding grounds.

Also, that wasn't in the US. Those were considered to be Mexican waters.

Citing the size of the spill only has meaning as a function of rate. Again, a billion barrel spill over a billion years wouldn't be a problem either.

 

[zomgwtf]

That was a completely different situation as the oil never approached land. The rig was farther out at sea, and most of the oil went north and dissipated. Also, I would have to check the numbers as so much has changed, but that was a slower leak. Rate, location, ocean currents, and wind, all play significant roles.

i read it effected over 200km of coastline... hmmmmm

 

[Geigerclick]

Historically the only way you progressed was by acitvely doing new things. If we never tired anything before becuase 'it's never been done before. Progress would halt. This would have been reviewed and safety checked about a zillion times before it was put into operation. There are ALWAYS unforseen circumstances.

There were clearly procedural errors, production should never have commenced after the warnigns and pressure failures. Whoever gave the go ahead after the pressure failure is guilty of negligance. Those are the only people you can bring to a criminal trial.

HOWEVER! The outcome of this should not be to punish individuals. The idea is not to get retribution or revenge, it's to make sure this can never happen again. I don't agree with the sentiment of 'heads should roll' as it does not serve any useful purpose.

BP should be made to pay for the spillage clearup, loss of earnings of people affected and be made to provide ALL data on this to the public for a review.

When all of the damage over decades is added up, do you really believe that our government is capable or willing to get that kind of money? If these undersea plumes and bacterial activity create anoxic or hypoxic regions far larger than those already present, BP could be liquidated and it wouldn't be enough.

What people forget I see, is that we elected the officials who were willing to drill at 5000' without a meaningful plan A to recover from catastrophic failure. Our government, our desire and need for oil, which I do not see changing. From what I can see, the scope of the damage to life in the gulf ranges from some hypoxic regions and lowered populations, to "DOOOOM". There is just no good reference for this, or for what is going to happen when a hurricane drives this inland through sewers, the water table, and more. This could be just another in a line of over hyped disasters, or we could trigger extinctions. The bottom line is that that we have no choice but to wait and see.

Given that, how is our government going to do anything meaningful when they won't even begin skimming, and are in no position to gainsay BP's experts? I feel badly for fishermen, but they are the very small tip of this iceberg.

 

[xxChrisxx]

When all of the damage over decades is added up, do you really believe that our government is capable or willing to get that kind of money? If these undersea plumes and bacterial activity create anoxic or hypoxic regions far larger than those already present, BP could be liquidated and it wouldn't be enough.

I really don't know what would be the best course of action. As ecomically you can't just kill off one of the largest oil companies in the world, yet you can't just let them get away with a measly 'cop out' sum.

I remember the same thing happening when the Valdez spill happened. Exxon kept it in the courts for decades (I think there are still apeeals going to now).

I'm just glad it's not me who has to decide what to do. As it's a case of you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. The backlash no matter what happens will be immense.

Someone was mentioning to me something about a remote valve that they didn't have, but I'm not really too sure what that's about.

What people forget I see, is that we elected the officials who were willing to drill at 5000' without a meaningful plan A to recover from catastrophic failure.

The thing is, no one conceived of this type of blowout to be a possiblity, as it simply shouldn't happen. There are multiple safety redundancies before we get to this stage and they were ignored.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Historically the only way you progressed was by acitvely doing new things. If we never tired anything before becuase 'it's never been done before. Progress would halt. This would have been reviewed and safety checked about a zillion times before it was put into operation. There are ALWAYS unforseen circumstances.

This was nothing but simple greed overwhelming common sense. The only lesson to be learned is that industry is irresponsible, dangerous, reckless, and not to be trusted. But what is most disheartening is to see that some people don't get it. It makes me sick to see people constantly making excuses when this was entirely preventable. In Norway, they require that a relief well be drilled in parallel with the primary well. That way, they don't have to wait three months before stopping a leak in a situation like this. Why should we have to pass legislation for BP, or any oil company, to use common sense? There is only one answer: They can't be trusted.

First the recklessness and greed of the financial markets nearly destroyed the world economy. Now BP may have killed the gulf, and still we hear rationalizations and excuses being made for them by the victims. This is insane!

This almost strikes me as something akin to Stockholm Syndrome.

 

[xxChrisxx]

This was nothing but simple greed overwhelming common sense. The only lesson to be learned is that industry is irresponsible, dangerous, reckless, and not to be trusted. But what is most disheartening is to see that some people don't get it. It makes me sick to see people constantly making excuses when this was entirely preventable. In Norway, they require that a relief well be drilled in parallel with the primary well. That way, they don't have to wait three months before stopping a leak in a situation like this. Why should we have to pass legislation for BP, or any oil company, to use common sense? There is only one answer: They can't be trusted.

Oh of course, its the same with the banks. You simply cannot trust an industry that is that large to regulate themselves. As greed being in the human nature they will chose max profit over max safety.

EDIT: you mentioned banks in the second paragraph ;)

 

[Geigerclick]

It seems that BP stopped their Top Kill for 16 HOURS. There is very little here that is what it seems, coming from BP, or from our government. The bottom line is that this is a disaster for which there was no plan. Hurricanes are coming, with the first named storm brewing near Guatemala. I can't foresee a solution that can be enacted in time to stop hurricanes churning the water, and driving it inland. I would not be shocked, given the timing of the leak based on mating and migration in the Gulf region, that this is going to make sea-birds covered in crude in Alaska seem like a fond memory.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Chad Meyers, on CNN, definitively reports that they have already tried at least "one junk shot". So in spite of what BP says, in some fashion, we have already moved beyond top kill.

No doubt they are throwing everything they have at it.

Updates as I'm posting:

Wolf Blitzer is now reporting specific allegations that BP has manipulated the information in order to protect their stock price.

Robert Dudley, managing director of BP, still says things are proceding well. He also admits that they have tried junk shots.

 

[magpies]

I'm thinking about starting to drink a small amount of oil every week/day so I can build up an immunity to it so I can keep on eating fish without having to worry :)

 

[Geigerclick]

Chad Meyers, on CNN, definitively reports that they have already tried at least "one junk shot". So in spite of what BP says, in some fashion, we have already moved beyond top kill.

No doubt they are throwing everything they have at it.

Updates as I'm posting:

Wolf Blitzer is now reporting specific allegations that BP has manipulated the information in order to protect their stock price.

Robert Dudley, managing director of BP, still says things are proceding well. He also admits that they have tried junk shots.

Why do we expect different behavior from BP or any company? They are in the business of seeing their stock survive, and with this misinformation they have allowed it to be locked in for memorial day weekend. I don't blame snakes for eating cute little mice, but as snake wranglers our government is corrupt and inept. As WE are the people who have created this government by voting, or not, and how we live, it comes back to living a lifestyle that is incompatible with long-term survival.

Wasn't it clear by day 20 or so that BP had no clue how to stop this leak, short of the Russian method? If we allow snakes to play with mice, we should not be shocked when each time we come back, there are fatter snakes and fewer mice.

 

[Geigerclick]

I'm thinking about starting to drink a small amount of oil every week/day so I can build up an immunity to it so I can keep on eating fish without having to worry :)

Crude Oil Hormesis, let us know how that study goes. =)

 

[Ivan Seeking]

According to Dudley, it will be another 48 hours before we know.

The next step would be to cut off the riser pipe, thus increasing the flow, and then put another containment dome over the pipe.

 

[Geigerclick]

According to Dudley, it will be another 48 hours before we know.

How convenient for the stock prices!

 

[mheslep]

This was nothing but simple greed overwhelming common sense. The only lesson to be learned is that industry is irresponsible, dangerous, reckless, and not to be trusted. But what is most disheartening is to see that some people don't get it. It makes me sick to see people constantly making excuses when this was entirely preventable. In Norway, they require that a relief well be drilled in parallel with the primary well. That way, they don't have to wait three months before stopping a leak in a situation like this. Why should we have to pass legislation for BP, or any oil company, to use common sense? There is only one answer: They can't be trusted.

...

I agree! Whoops, there's a typo. Allow me:

The only lesson to be learned is that [STRIKE]industry[/STRIKE] government is irresponsible, dangerous, reckless, and not to be trusted[...]

 

[magpies]

I agree! Whoops, there's a typo. Allow me:

You mean... The only lesson to be learned is that industry and government is irresponsible, dangerous, reckless, and not to be trusted[...]

 

[mheslep]

That's a good point. That's still the largest, but it's not a comparable spill to DWH.

Why not?

 

[mheslep]

You mean... The only lesson to be learned is that industry and government is irresponsible, dangerous, reckless, and not to be trusted[...]

Yes, as it happens I believe government and industry need watching; my post was for balance here.

Edit: If we accept that more government micromanagement might only lead to more MMS type foibles, I suggest a free market solution: require huge, colossal insurance policies on these rigs that cover much more than the cost of the rig but include all the externalities - the worst case scenarios - so in order to get a policy the insurance companies would require reps on the rigs signing off on every step: either comply or lose your policy and the rig is shut down, in the same way that we all are prevented from driving without insurance. Companies that pile up bad safety records get rejected, and thus run out of the business (at least deep offshore). Insurance companies have huge incentives to prevent the over-cosiness we've seen with MMS, in fact the relationship is frequently adversarial, as it should be.

 

[magpies]

Because history never repeats it's self.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Ed Overton, of La. State, professor emeritus of environmental sciences, just confirmed the claim that 90% of the life in the Gulf comes from the Louisiana wetlands.

 

[Borek]

we elected the officials who were willing to drill at 5000' without a meaningful plan A to recover from catastrophic failure

I love it when people blame government and oil companies for their need to drill.

 

[magpies]

90% of the life comes from the Louisiana wetlands? How can that be?

 

[xxChrisxx]

Why not?

Depth and as Ivan said, the flow rate is much higher. The depth being the most critical.

I believe the original sentiment of this was that big oil leaks in the past were stopped, why isn't this one? Unless I misread, this threads been moving at a heck of a pace.

 

[magpies]

So... this one is flowing at a higher rate? Doesn't that mean more oil? They didn't fix that other one for 10 months it says and this one might not get fixed for 2? That's by bp's guess at when a relief well will be done right? So what if this one takes 10 months also? How do we know for sure the flow rate is higher again? Just checking facts.

Also I was wondering does anyone know how the cement they use works? Like how does it harden exactly?

 

[xxChrisxx]

So... this one is flowing at a higher rate? Doesn't that mean more oil? They didn't fix that other one for 10 months it says and this one might not get fixed for 2? That's by bp's guess at when a relief well will be done right? So what if this one takes 10 months also? How do we know for sure the flow rate is higher again? Just checking facts.

It's all based on estiamtes. BP's own and other peoples inital estimates put the flow at 5000 barrels a day. There have been upper estiamtes at closer to 70000 barrels a day (I suspect it's somewhere inbetween). If you check the wiki page, there is a min and max tonnage based on flow estimates.

 

[mheslep]

Depth and as Ivan said, the flow rate is much higher. The depth being the most critical.

The point of the moment was the magnitude of the "environmental disaster" not the difficulty of capping the well. The flow rate of Ixtoc was about the http://www.incidentnews.gov/entry/508790" miles off Mexico, DHS 50+ miles off Louisiana, with 71,500 bbls of Ixtoc oil ending up on US beaches.