Hair, Hay & Nukes: The Web's Oil Spill Solutions
Germany's Mario Gomez, second right, scores a goal during the Euro 2012 soccer championship Group B match between the Netherlands and Germany in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, June 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) / Frank Augstein
BP says in the Gulf of Mexico, but at the same time the company also says the federal government has ultimate control over the event. The government, meanwhile, says it's BP's mess and so they're responsible for cleaning it up.
Many fingers are pointing on the Internet, too, in all directions, with some people even being angry about other people's anger (yes, Rand Paul).
Special Section: Disaster in the Gulf
But beyond the rage, there are also suggestions on what to do, now! (if not yesterday) to stop the Gulf's bleeding of oil and to clean up what's already been leaked.
Suck It Up With Really Big Ships
Former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister and former Saudi Aramco manager Nick Pozzi told Fast Company that 85 percent of oil from a massive offshore Saudi spill in the early 1990s was cleaned up using supertankers to suck in seawater and oil - millions of barrels at a time - and discharge them in port where the two substances could be separated and treated.
Hofmeister and Pozzi each said they'd tried suggesting the solution to both BP and government officials, and have heard crickets.
Perhaps, as Pozzi tells Fast Company, it's the downside to the plan: "You tie up oil tankers" - tankers that could be carrying crude above the Gulf's waters to customers.
Use the (Centrifugal) Force
As the spill has shown, oil does not always float on top of water. Plumes of oil have been discovered under the surface, and extracting it from the ocean is much more problematic than simply skimming the surface.
Following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, actor-director Kevin Costner helped fund a group of scientists developing a device to aid in oil cleanups. The Ocean Therapy machine uses centrifugal force to separate clumps of oil from water. BP has approved a test of 26 of the devices in the Gulf.
"Lava lamps and things like that, we've been brainwashed to think that oil and water don't mix," Dr. Michio Kaku, physics professor at City University of New York and host of "Sci-Fi Science" on the Science Channel, told "The Early Show on Saturday Morning." "Shampoo, mayonnaise, lotion, creams, most of your kitchen cabinet is actually emulsified water and oil. They do mix. So it's a misconception that oil and water never mix."
He said the physics of the Ocean Therapy machines would separate the water from the oil, but at the rate of 200 gallons a minute, it's too little, too late.
"The oil slick is as big as the state of Connecticut," Dr. Kaku said. "You need hundreds, hundreds of these ships with these machines to begin to pump the water and separate it. We have to get real, and that is the slick is gargantuan in size, and 26 or so machines just don't cut it."
Let's Just Nuke It
Russian science editor Vladimir Lagowski has written a column in which he claims that the U.S.S.R. used nuclear devices to plug underground fissures several times with success - most of the time. The author cites one failure, where a 1972 gas blowout was not extinguished by a nuke. But at least it was only 4 kilotons.
This peaceful use of nuclear detonations fell under the Soviet Union's Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy program. The Russian Analytical Center for Non-Proliferation lists 67 underground nuclear explosions conducted by the U.S.S.R. in the interests of its national economy between 1965 and 1990.
Lagowski writes that the probability a nuke detonated a mile under the gulf would seal the Deepwater Horizon leak is perhaps 20 percent: "Americans could take a chance."
Let's Award Cash Prizes
InnoCentive, a "global web community for open innovation," announced a challenge for its members to come up with a solution to mitigate the impact of the Gulf of Mexico spill, and is offering a cash prize for the winner.
In 2007 the Oil Spill Recovery Institute awarded a prize for finding process to remove frozen oil from the bottom of Prince William Sound (using pneumatic concrete vibrators to break up the oil, restoring liquid flow).
Non-Traditional Substances to Soak Up Oil
Hair: Matter of Trust's Hair for Oil Spills Program collects shaved hair to create booms and mats to absorb oil from spills.
And it's not just from salons: animal groomers, wool & alpaca fleece farmers, pet owners and just plain hairy individuals can also sign up to donate hair, fur, fleece, feathers, or the nylons and tights that are stuffed for booms.
Matter of Trust's hair mats were deployed successfully in 2007 to absorb oil on the beaches of San Francisco that had leaked from the Cosco Busan after it collided with the Bay Bridge.
However, CBS Affiliate WWL reports today that engineers will not use booms made out of hair. Crews evidently concluded on Saturday that using the hair was not feasible after tests (conducted in February during an oil spill in Texas) showed that commercial boom absorbed more oil and less water than hair boom.
Charlie Henry of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said hair booms became water-logged and sank.
Organizations collecting hair were asked to stop doing so.
One man told WWL, "Even if it doesn't work the most efficiently, it's better than nothing. If you look at the pictures right now that we're seeing, that we're allowed to see, there are no booms out in front of Grand Isle. So why not use ours?"
Hay and Straw: In this YouTube video two employees from CW Roberts Contracting, a Tallahassee, Fla., company, demonstrate how dropping hay onto the surface of oil-contaminated water will absorb the oil - and then you just scoop up the hay.
"You can't screw up," one man says. Walton County seems to agree.
Sick 'Em
And if BP isn't fixing the leak and cleaning the spill fast enough, Rayne, posting on The Seminal at firedoglake.com, foists a lot of blame at President Obama for not using the Executive Office's powers to their fullest extent.
Rayne says Mr. Obama should declare BP in violation of its lease and kick them off our property - and while they're at it, threaten to seize all American assets of the company if they fail to set up a proper claims system paid for by the company.
Rayne also makes the economic argument that if BP "cut corners" in the Gulf of Mexico, chances are they did so elsewhere, and so the government should investigate their other operations, such as in Alaska (where the company is still trying to settle claims for two spills in Prudhoe Bay dating from 2006).
Rayne also suggests the government fund an alternative energy plan modeled after the Apollo program or the Marshall Plan, and tabs Al Gore as the man for the job (since he, like, proposed it almost two decades ago).
He even offers a little helpful advice to the acknowledged First Trekker: "I'm tempted to tell one Barack Obama to get really, genuinely excitedly-upset, be more than that Spock character for once, add the passion of Captain Kirk and the anger of Dr. McCoy in the mix."
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved. Many fingers are pointing on the Internet, too, in all directions, with some people even being angry about other people's anger (yes, Rand Paul).
Special Section: Disaster in the Gulf
But beyond the rage, there are also suggestions on what to do, now! (if not yesterday) to stop the Gulf's bleeding of oil and to clean up what's already been leaked.
Suck It Up With Really Big Ships
Former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister and former Saudi Aramco manager Nick Pozzi told Fast Company that 85 percent of oil from a massive offshore Saudi spill in the early 1990s was cleaned up using supertankers to suck in seawater and oil - millions of barrels at a time - and discharge them in port where the two substances could be separated and treated.
Hofmeister and Pozzi each said they'd tried suggesting the solution to both BP and government officials, and have heard crickets.
Perhaps, as Pozzi tells Fast Company, it's the downside to the plan: "You tie up oil tankers" - tankers that could be carrying crude above the Gulf's waters to customers.
Use the (Centrifugal) Force
As the spill has shown, oil does not always float on top of water. Plumes of oil have been discovered under the surface, and extracting it from the ocean is much more problematic than simply skimming the surface.
Following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, actor-director Kevin Costner helped fund a group of scientists developing a device to aid in oil cleanups. The Ocean Therapy machine uses centrifugal force to separate clumps of oil from water. BP has approved a test of 26 of the devices in the Gulf.
"Lava lamps and things like that, we've been brainwashed to think that oil and water don't mix," Dr. Michio Kaku, physics professor at City University of New York and host of "Sci-Fi Science" on the Science Channel, told "The Early Show on Saturday Morning." "Shampoo, mayonnaise, lotion, creams, most of your kitchen cabinet is actually emulsified water and oil. They do mix. So it's a misconception that oil and water never mix."
He said the physics of the Ocean Therapy machines would separate the water from the oil, but at the rate of 200 gallons a minute, it's too little, too late.
"The oil slick is as big as the state of Connecticut," Dr. Kaku said. "You need hundreds, hundreds of these ships with these machines to begin to pump the water and separate it. We have to get real, and that is the slick is gargantuan in size, and 26 or so machines just don't cut it."
Let's Just Nuke It
Russian science editor Vladimir Lagowski has written a column in which he claims that the U.S.S.R. used nuclear devices to plug underground fissures several times with success - most of the time. The author cites one failure, where a 1972 gas blowout was not extinguished by a nuke. But at least it was only 4 kilotons.
This peaceful use of nuclear detonations fell under the Soviet Union's Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy program. The Russian Analytical Center for Non-Proliferation lists 67 underground nuclear explosions conducted by the U.S.S.R. in the interests of its national economy between 1965 and 1990.
Lagowski writes that the probability a nuke detonated a mile under the gulf would seal the Deepwater Horizon leak is perhaps 20 percent: "Americans could take a chance."
Let's Award Cash Prizes
InnoCentive, a "global web community for open innovation," announced a challenge for its members to come up with a solution to mitigate the impact of the Gulf of Mexico spill, and is offering a cash prize for the winner.
In 2007 the Oil Spill Recovery Institute awarded a prize for finding process to remove frozen oil from the bottom of Prince William Sound (using pneumatic concrete vibrators to break up the oil, restoring liquid flow).
Non-Traditional Substances to Soak Up Oil
(Matter of Trust)
And it's not just from salons: animal groomers, wool & alpaca fleece farmers, pet owners and just plain hairy individuals can also sign up to donate hair, fur, fleece, feathers, or the nylons and tights that are stuffed for booms.
Matter of Trust's hair mats were deployed successfully in 2007 to absorb oil on the beaches of San Francisco that had leaked from the Cosco Busan after it collided with the Bay Bridge.
However, CBS Affiliate WWL reports today that engineers will not use booms made out of hair. Crews evidently concluded on Saturday that using the hair was not feasible after tests (conducted in February during an oil spill in Texas) showed that commercial boom absorbed more oil and less water than hair boom.
Charlie Henry of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said hair booms became water-logged and sank.
Organizations collecting hair were asked to stop doing so.
One man told WWL, "Even if it doesn't work the most efficiently, it's better than nothing. If you look at the pictures right now that we're seeing, that we're allowed to see, there are no booms out in front of Grand Isle. So why not use ours?"
Hay and Straw: In this YouTube video two employees from CW Roberts Contracting, a Tallahassee, Fla., company, demonstrate how dropping hay onto the surface of oil-contaminated water will absorb the oil - and then you just scoop up the hay.
"You can't screw up," one man says. Walton County seems to agree.
Sick 'Em
And if BP isn't fixing the leak and cleaning the spill fast enough, Rayne, posting on The Seminal at firedoglake.com, foists a lot of blame at President Obama for not using the Executive Office's powers to their fullest extent.
Rayne says Mr. Obama should declare BP in violation of its lease and kick them off our property - and while they're at it, threaten to seize all American assets of the company if they fail to set up a proper claims system paid for by the company.
Rayne also makes the economic argument that if BP "cut corners" in the Gulf of Mexico, chances are they did so elsewhere, and so the government should investigate their other operations, such as in Alaska (where the company is still trying to settle claims for two spills in Prudhoe Bay dating from 2006).
Rayne also suggests the government fund an alternative energy plan modeled after the Apollo program or the Marshall Plan, and tabs Al Gore as the man for the job (since he, like, proposed it almost two decades ago).
He even offers a little helpful advice to the acknowledged First Trekker: "I'm tempted to tell one Barack Obama to get really, genuinely excitedly-upset, be more than that Spock character for once, add the passion of Captain Kirk and the anger of Dr. McCoy in the mix."
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To day is 80th day, since the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. Oil keeps gushing from the leaking well into the Gulf of Mexico. The amount of spilled oil now is around 336 000 000 gallons.
BP significantly reduces this rate motivated by the fact that the daily capturing 15-20 thousand barrels of oil.
I have repeatedly explained, no matter how much oil BP capturing from the Cap, because the pump creates inside the Cap additional negative pressure which immediately compensated by the pressure in the petroleum layer and accompanied by an additional release of oil, correlated with this negative pressure.
So, the amount of gushing oil unchanged or unaltered is about 90-120 thousand barrels per day.
There are many people like myself, who would like to give alternative methods to BP and the government but lack the contacts to meet the right people. BP lacks thinking ?outside of the box? and continues to solve its problems to the ?best? of their knowledge.
Using my know-how and liquid nitrogen oil freezing equipment we can shut the well during the nearest 3 weeks.
Constantine Balakiryan, PhD, Professor.
To day is 80th day, since the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. Oil keeps gushing from the leaking well into the Gulf of Mexico. The amount of spilled oil now is around 336 000 000 gallons.
BP significantly reduces this rate motivated by the fact that the daily capturing 15-20 thousand barrels of oil.
I have repeatedly explained, no matter how much oil BP capturing from the Cap, because the pump creates inside the Cap additional negative pressure which immediately compensated by the pressure in the petroleum layer and accompanied by an additional release of oil, correlated with this negative pressure.
So, the amount of gushing oil unchanged or unaltered is about 90-120 thousand barrels per day.
There are many people like myself, who would like to give alternative methods to BP and the government but lack the contacts to meet the right people. BP lacks thinking ?outside of the box? and continues to solve its problems to the ?best? of their knowledge.
Using my know-how and liquid nitrogen oil freezing equipment we can shut the well during the nearest 3 weeks.
Constantine Balakiryan, PhD, Professor.
7 million barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico
To day is 68th day, since the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. Oil keeps gushing from the leaking well into the Gulf of Mexico. The amount of spilled oil now is around 300 000 000 gallons.
BP significantly reduces this rate motivated by the fact that the daily capturing 15-20 thousand barrels of oil.
I have repeatedly explained, no matter how much oil BP capturing from the Cap, because the pump creates inside the Cap additional negative pressure which immediately compensated by the pressure in the petroleum layer and accompanied by an additional release of oil, correlated with this negative pressure.
So, the amount of gushing oil unchanged or unaltered is about 90-120 thousand barrels per day.
There are many people like myself, who would like to give alternative methods to BP and the government but lack the contacts to meet the right people. BP lacks thinking ?outside of the box? and continues to solve its problems to the ?best? of their knowledge.
Using my know-how and liquid nitrogen oil freezing equipment we can shut the well during the nearest 3 weeks.
Constantine Balakiryan, PhD, Professor.
7 million barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico
To day is 68th day, since the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. Oil keeps gushing from the leaking well into the Gulf of Mexico. The amount of spilled oil now is around 300 000 000 gallons.
BP significantly reduces this rate motivated by the fact that the daily capturing 15-20 thousand barrels of oil.
I have repeatedly explained, no matter how much oil BP capturing from the Cap, because the pump creates inside the Cap additional negative pressure which immediately compensated by the pressure in the petroleum layer and accompanied by an additional release of oil, correlated with this negative pressure.
So, the amount of gushing oil unchanged or unaltered is about 90-120 thousand barrels per day.
There are many people like myself, who would like to give alternative methods to BP and the government but lack the contacts to meet the right people. BP lacks thinking ?outside of the box? and continues to solve its problems to the ?best? of their knowledge.
Using my know-how and liquid nitrogen oil freezing equipment we can shut the well during the nearest 3 weeks.
Constantine Balakiryan, PhD, Professor.
I have developed a concept to reduce the ecological catastrophe of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In my opinion, the unique solution to reduce scales of ecological accident in Mexican
Gulf is to immediately start downloading liquid nitrogen into the oil well?s breakthroughs.
The low temperature will increase the viscosity of oil and may even freeze it.
The freezing will slow down the speed of emission of oil and make it easier to facilitate the collection of oil in the off shore sector.
BP has tried cement, mud and a dome to contain the oil spill. The ?Top Kill? concept has not worked and will not work, it is dead concept.
So, BP wasted time with ?top kill??
And a new plan ?B? of the BP only exacerbates the ecological situation.
I can offer ?Know-How?If you would like to discuss this concept with me please contact me:
Constantine Balakiryan
4721 N. 40-th STR.
Phoenix, AZ Phoenix
Play the blame game once the situation is under control.
Below the BOP stack, use a flexible suction hose to remove the silt and mud surrounding the well pipe. Remove silt/mud roughly 20 feet in depth or to the bedrock (whichever is more shollow) and about 20-30 feet in diameter exposing the well casing. Deposit the removed mud laterally (which should require less suction) to a point where the currents in the gulf will allow the silt to settle or be carried elsewhere so it does not impede visibility at the well head. This is the same technique used by archeologists and treasure hunting vessels. Once the mud is sucked up to the surface boat it is sifted-through for fragments or gold/silver.
The BOP is the problem so make an attempt for a simple solutions such as this while you are trying to introduce new overly-elaborate variables and Band-Aids (time is a wastin?). You don?t replace the engine when the radiator cap is leaking. The only true fix for this situation, as much as people wish that it wasn?t, are the two relief wells being drilled into the same naphtha pocket which will not be completed for another month at best.
By using ROVs or whatever means available remove the old blow out preventer and replace it.
Expose the well casing by cutting off the old equipment or by removing the damaged riser, BOP stack, and top well section by remove all of it at the closest exposed section union or undamaged/bent area. Remove the bolt-secured flange on the new BOP stack and replace it by welding a section of pipe threaded on the outside. It would be of a slightly larger inner diameter than the outer diameter of the well casing. Lower a union-style nut, open section facing up with threads on the inside and then a large brass or other soft metal ferrule onto the well casing. Then lower the retrofitted larger diameter pipe down onto the cleanly cut well casing. Bring the steel nut and brass ferrule up to meet the new threaded pipe and continue threading the nut up onto the new BOP threaded pipe section. This will tighten the brass ferrule to the outside of the well case and push the malleable brass into the gap between the well casing and the larger BOP pipe section.
Close the valve or use the rams.
Detailed CAD drawings if needed.
Marco
BP could put a long inflater pipe with an uninflated plug into the oil stream and push it down as far as possible, maybe 50+ feet if possible. Then, apply air pressure quickly and inflate the plug till it expands against the sides of the well hole. Then you can go in with the concrete! Here's a reference: http://*******.com/3ys8hrk