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Gulf Oil Spill 2010

Re: Gulf Oil Spill 2010

walrus said:
They'll probably fly there in a chartered jet
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Because chartered jets are evil, and you can't complain about an oil company making billions in profits if you yourself aren't as pure as the driven snow.

But people like Ed Begley Jr. are wackos, so it's win-win.
 
Re: Gulf Oil Spill 2010

dxmnkd316 said:
Why this pipe doesn't have shutoff valves is beyond me.
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It had either shutoff valves or an equivalent: that's the blowout preventers. They were supposed to operate automatically, but did not successfully seal off the pipe. Subsequently, they tried to manually trigger the blowout preventers using a robot, and that failed as well.

Edit to add: Hmm, just found the following report about Congressional testimony, "The failures included a dead battery in the BOP, suggestions of a breach in the well casing, and failure in the shear ram." Yikes! (Just to be clear, that's all stuff that supposedly happened <em>before</em> the explosion.)
 
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Re: Gulf Oil Spill 2010

Puck Swami said:
I'd wondered about that too, but you'd have to think BP would have a lot of very bright deep sea drilling experts working on this problem around the clock, as well as access to contractors, governments, consultants and even other oil companies' disaster expertise in the deep sea sector. That they can't seem to solve it by now suggests that the problems are deeper than we know....
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Yeah, that's what I figured. I mean, they aren't just going to sit on their thumbs while this destroys a part of the sea and watch their profits get spread out over the vast ocean. I don't buy into the fact that this company is just goofing off while this is going on. I think they are a pretty crappy company when it comes to their record, but at this point, it's all hands on deck.

Craig P. said:
It had either shutoff valves or an equivalent: that's the blowout preventers. They were supposed to operate automatically, but did not successfully seal off the pipe. Subsequently, they tried to manually trigger the blowout preventers using a robot, and that failed as well.

Edit to add: Hmm, just found the following report about Congressional testimony, "The failures included a dead battery in the BOP, suggestions of a breach in the well casing, and failure in the shear ram." Yikes! (Just to be clear, that's all stuff that supposedly happened <em>before</em> the explosion.)
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I realize this is a mile under the water's surface, and I realize the pressures are nothing like I've dealt with in the above water chemical process world, but whenever we have a major control valve, we have at least one manual isolation valve as a backup. In absolutely critical situations we sometimes have two isolation valves. It's redundant but that's the point. Hell, all connections to potable water supplies have to have RPZ-style double backflow preventers in lieu of an air gap.. It's the same principle, one check valve to prevent backflow, another to prevent backflow in a second scenario, and a reduced pressure zone to prevent it in a third scenario.

Again, I don't mean to second guess this whole process design but this seems like a no brainer. But I'm guessing this is also standard practice throughout the industry. I'd love to get my hands on a copy of BP's engineering standards and pore through them.
 
Re: Gulf Oil Spill 2010

dxmnkd316 said:
I realize this is a mile under the water's surface, and I realize the pressures are nothing like I've dealt with in the above water chemical process world, but whenever we have a major control valve, we have at least one manual isolation valve as a backup. In absolutely critical situations we sometimes have two isolation valves. It's redundant but that's the point. Hell, all connections to potable water supplies have to have RPZ-style double backflow preventers in lieu of an air gap.. It's the same principle, one check valve to prevent backflow, another to prevent backflow in a second scenario, and a reduced pressure zone to prevent it in a third scenario.

Again, I don't mean to second guess this whole process design but this seems like a no brainer. But I'm guessing this is also standard practice throughout the industry. I'd love to get my hands on a copy of BP's engineering standards and pore through them.
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No matter how many redundant valves you put in series, if the first on in the line ruptures (i.e. an external leak, rather than just leaking from its inlet to its outlet), then the ones down the line do no good. The only way to provide redundancy for an external leak is to have a double-walled pipe the full length of the run. And even that probably wouldn't have worked when the thing attached to the other end of the double-walled pipe burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. The outer wall would have ruptured, too.

I do these exact type of safety/redundancy analyses for airplanes, and sometimes shrouded tubing is unavoidable - it is a major pain in the butt for many reasons, so we try to avoid it if possible.
 
Re: Gulf Oil Spill 2010

LynahFan said:
No matter how many redundant valves you put in series, if the first on in the line ruptures (i.e. an external leak, rather than just leaking from its inlet to its outlet), then the ones down the line do no good. The only way to provide redundancy for an external leak is to have a double-walled pipe the full length of the run. And even that probably wouldn't have worked when the thing attached to the other end of the double-walled pipe burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. The outer wall would have ruptured, too.

I do these exact type of safety/redundancy analyses for airplanes, and sometimes shrouded tubing is unavoidable - it is a major pain in the butt for many reasons, so we try to avoid it if possible.
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That's true. I suppose I don't know exactly where in the line this rupture occurred. If it did occur before the first valve, yeah, that's a problem.
 
Re: Gulf Oil Spill 2010

Wow...NBC interrupted "Days of Our Lives" for the president's address. :eek:
 
Re: Gulf Oil Spill 2010

Top Kill has hit a snag as too much "mud" is escaping through the pipe on its way down. Sounds like this pipe is ****ed and will leak for months. :mad:
 
Re: Gulf Oil Spill 2010

Obama says BP has been following the Feds direction in this clean up, no wonder its F'ed up.

At least they finally have partial approval to build some berms, weeks after Jindal suggested it
 
Re: Gulf Oil Spill 2010

walrus said:
James Carville popping a gasket about Obama and the spill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1DGc_3Ad90
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I have to think Carville is still in the Clinton camp in the end... frankly I'm not going to blame Obama for any of this. I don't think anybody has a **** clue of how to fix this.

I mean, aside from throwing bromides at BP... what else can you do? Further, tossing bromides at BP does not solve the leak problem.

If they want to do anything they need to investigate how to not repeat this problem... and that's about it. Get it all out in the open so there is criticism... shine a light on the problem... seriously, do it over BP's objections... you want to get credibility... do that... technical hearings in front of the "public" (C-SPAN). Boring as hell, sure, but it'll provide more answers than other political bull.

I'm not going to blame Obama for any of this... that's silly.
 
Re: Gulf Oil Spill 2010

Patman said:
I'm not going to blame Obama for any of this... that's silly.
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Its been pretty obvious for weeks no one has a clue, but Jindal has been trying to build berms to stop the oil from going into the marshes, seems like it might work. I suppose it will screw up some part of the environment but I can't see it screwing it up as much as oil in the marshes will. So what has taken so long for the feds to approve the plan?
 
Re: Gulf Oil Spill 2010

walrus said:
Its been pretty obvious for weeks no one has a clue, but Jindal has been trying to build berms to stop the oil from going into the marshes, seems like it might work. I suppose it will screw up some part of the environment but I can't see it screwing it up as much as oil in the marshes will. So what has taken so long for the feds to approve the plan?
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eh... I think its probably grandstanding... unless it really does work and its worth the costs.

As for approval... if it works then implicitly it makes the president look foolish... or Jindal good... again, this administration treats EVERYTHING politically. Lets not lose sight of that... these guys play hard ball... except to the point where they don't want to lose their control.
 
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