BP oil cap loaded on ship. Deployment by this weekend (weather depending).

[Statistical]

With remote-controlled robots a mile underwater unable to seal the gushing well, and with the drilling of relief wells that would allow crews to plug the spouting cavity months away from completion, it is time for the big box.

The containment dome, as engineers are calling the structure, was built over the past week by a crew of more than two dozen welders working around the clock at a shipyard in Port Fourchon, La. The dome began its journey to the site of the ruptured well on Wednesday and arrived early on Thursday; the plan is to lower it by cable to the sea floor, 5,000 feet below the surface, and sit it atop the larger of the two remaining leaks.

The dome will not shut off the gushing well, which is still spilling an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil a day; the goal is just to keep some of the oil out of the water by capturing it and then funneling it to a drill ship, called the Discoverer Enterprise, waiting on the surface.

...

“This is new technology,” said Bob Fryar, BP’s senior vice president for operations in Angola, who was brought to Houston for the engineering effort. “It has never been done before.” BP was leasing the Deepwater Horizon oil rig from the owner, Transocean, when it exploded on April 20. BP officials said they hoped the dome would be working by Monday. If successful, it will capture about 85 percent of the oil spilling into the sea, officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/science/07container.html





An 85% reduction would prevent 180,000 gallons from entering the Gulf. At 90 days till relief well is completed that would reduce the total spill by 16 million gallons (roughly one and a half Exxon Valdez).

I hope for the Gulf's sake this works. Should not more by Sunday.

[goforit]

1. Never been done before?....Yikes! Hope they have an immediate plan B/C/D...

[Statistical]

2. I may have butchered the quote in trying to limit it to 4 paragraphs.

More info at article.

This has been done before but only in "shallow" (1000 ft or less) water. There are additional problems at 5000 ft that have never been encountered before.

The freezing cold temperatures
the risk of ice forming in oil and blocking pipe
the mixture of oil, water, nat gas on the recovery ship
the fact that the natural gas will expand as it rises creating problems (and yet more cooling).

[lonestarnot]

3. I thought I heard it could happen today?

:scared:

[complain jane]

21. Me too

I had read it could be lowered around noon. I hope they start soon although I'm sure they are working their asses off on this.

[Statistical]

4. Not much interest I guess.

[tekisui]

5. I am curious to see if this works.

Even if this works, there will be the risk of the kink in the riser pipe wearing down.

[Brickbat]

6. I find this fascinating and amazing. I had heard a few days ago it would take a month to get this

dome done. And here it is. Cheers to the workers who put in overtime to get this done. The graphic and photo are handy, too, to visualize what's happening.

K&R.

ETA: Huh; I recommended it and it's still below zero. Whatevs.

[SidDithers]

8. I recc'd too, with the same result...

must be DU'ers who don't want the spill controlled.

Sid

[Statistical]

12. Yeah I have to imagine they were working 24/7 straight using 3 shifts.

As far as the REC some people just want to see the disaster as bad as possible. They think it will help reduce our oil consumption.

If anything it will just mean we consume the same amount of oil it will just pollute "foreign waters".

[complain jane]

20. The only thing

it will reduce is innocent life. How could anyone want this to be as bad as possible (I get what you're saying, that's a rhetorical question).

However this debacle has caused me to try riding my bicycle to work. It's only around 8 miles one way but there are a lot of hills and I'm very out of shape & have a lot of weight to lose so it will be a win-win if it turns out to be manageable and I do it on a regular basis this summer.

I wish I could seriously consider an electric car but I live in an apartment without a garage or indoor parking of any kind. I have to park on the streets.

[Statistical]

24. Hopefully someday we will have induction charging.

No plug needed just park the car over induction pad in parking space. Something like park certain parking spaces (green lines instead of white). You have contract with electric company and when you park over induction pad it begins charging your car and electric company adds it to your bill.

The technology already exists but it will take years before there are enough cars for that to make sense.

[complain jane]

25. Wow that sounds cool!

I love the idea of having an electric car, anything to stop supporting this horrifying, catastrophically reckless, greedy industry.

[SidDithers]

7. K&R...

Hope it works. It's a patch, not a fix, but any reduction of the oil spilling into the gulf is a good thing.

It's an elegant engineering solution. The slot and the flaps are nice additions to the original funnel idea.

Sid

[The Stranger]

9. A lot is riding on that oversized outhouse.

Okay, now let's go save the planet.

We NEED some good news.

[Cetacea]

10. Thank you.

K&R.

[OllieLotte]

11. This would be fantastic if it worked. We need a break on this.

I saw the flops on the news this morning and wondered what there purpose was. I thought there were three leaks and one was stopped? This covers the main one on the end?

I understand it was gas pressure that caused the accident to begin with.

Excellent post. Thanks.

[Statistical]

13. Yeah they sealed one of the three leaks yesterday. n/t

[Junkdrawer]

14. They're going to position this thing by ROVs 1 mile down in oil clouded water....

over a pipe gushing oil.

What could go wrong?

[SidDithers]

15. What would you propose as a safer or easier alternative?...nt

Sid

[Junkdrawer]

16. Just pointing out that success is less than assured....

I read an expert yesterday that said that if this thing (touted to collect up to 85% of the leak) gets 10%, he would be surprised.

[TheBigotBasher]

18. The Russians suggested nuking it.

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0504/russian-paper-suggests-nuclear-explosion-cut-gulf-oil-geyser/

[Junkdrawer]

19. Not to be a Negative Nancy, but I think I'd pass on that plan....

It's bad enough I'll be eating crude with my shrimp, I don't need it glowing in the dark.

[complain jane]

23. How about stuffing Dick Cheney down that pipe?

Five foot wide pipe, sounds about right. We could all breathe a sigh of relief on many fronts.

[Feron]

17. I really hope that this works. nt

[slackmaster]

22. I like simple solutions

They're often the best you can do.