Closing the Hole in the Gulf: A Petroleum Engineer Responds

[existentialist]

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/06/02/closing_the_hole_in_the_gulf_a_petroleum_engineer/


Closing the Hole in the Gulf: A Petroleum Engineer Responds
By Robert Reich - June 2, 2010, 2:47PM

A petroleum engineer who's worked in the oil industry tells me BP is doing the minimum to clean up the oil and everything it can to protect its bottom line. According to the engineer, here's what BP should be doing right now to mitigate the damage. If the President were to put BP into temporary receivership, he'd have the power to get BP to:

1. Stop releasing dispersants. So-called dispersants are toxic, and it's crazy to add more poison to the Gulf. Dispersants do nothing to assist the environment in naturally cleaning the oil; their main use is PR. They reduce the number of ugly pictures of birds covered in pure black crude. Dispersants break the thick layer of crude into smaller globs, but that doesn't help the Gulf and its wildlife. Most of the crude just mixes with the water to produce a goop that looks like chocolate ice cream but is highly poisonous.

2. Mobilize every possible tanker to siphon up crude from as close to the leak points as possible. Oil industry leaders as John Hofmeister (president of Shell Oil from 2005 until 2008) have recommended this, but inexplicably neither BP nor the federal government are talking about even trying this idea. BP currently has only one spot where they have inserted a tube into a riser, or pipe, that is leaking oil from the sea floor. The company is gathering the crude oil and siphoning it up to a drill ship for storage.
They should have at least a dozen collectors. BP has 24 tankers that are being used to make money for BP, not for clean-up duty. (President Obama should also use all necessary federal power -- or money, and send BP the bill -- to put as many tankers and refineries from other companies on the task.)

. . .


3. Restart work on the second pressure relief well. BP did start work on two relief wells as the government requested, but the second has been shut down to cannabalize parts from it for the primary well kill effort. The President must order BP to spend whatever money it takes to get another blow out preventer on site, to re-start work on the second pressure relief well. A recent blow-out off the coast of Australia required five pressure relief wells to successfully shut it down.

[eleny]

1. Again and again the use of tankers comes up

It's time to try bringing one in and see if they fit the area and can do something without causing problems because of size.

[Whoa_Nelly]

2. What experts recognize and state what needs to be done, what can be done

what is actually happening is in a whole 'nother realm :grr: :mad:

Democracy has officially died. The creeping crud and thug of Corpocracy is the new real deal :(

[RC]

3. Why can't they use that giant jaw thing to squeeze the pipe at the top

of the Blow out preventer shut? If nothing else it will slow down the flow of oil

[thereismore]

5. I often wonder about that. nt

[Tutankhamun]

4. I'd like to see more of this kind of expertise in the MSM.