What about molten lead to stop the oil.

[dsc]

Lead is heavy, low melting point. Melt a bunch of lead and send it down to the well.

[TransitJohn]

1. It'd be a lead ball before it got to the sea floor.

:eyes:


What about fairy dust and unicorn horns?

[dsc]

2. I meant in a steel pipe

not just in the water.

[GreenStormCloud]

6. Steel is an excellent conductor of heat. Even insulated, your led would solidify. N/T

[jackmccrack]

10. how come I haven't heard anyone talk about

1 the ramifications of stopping it up with,say,molten lead(not to knock the idea, its just the pressure that would build up.)
2 there are already 2 other plumes of oil already. so if we stop it up with anything, the pressure is just going to go somewhere else.
3 what happens if we set a nuke down there and it causes one of 2 things.
1.an earthquake
2.an explosion that,not only makes the holes bigger,but, makes the oil shoot up and now since we nuked it, its radioactive and its falling on our heads.


so has anyone else but me see these scenarios as a possibility?

[Liberal Veteran]

12. Fairy Dust only works in Never-Never Land and Unicorn Horns only work on virgin olive oil.

[GreenStormCloud]

3. How do you keep it molten as it goes a mile down through cold water? N/T

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Ok here is a basic question, HOW DO YOU DELIVER IT?

And you do know Lead is VERY POISONOUS...

Here is a little fact, temp at that depth is in the low 40s... and water is thick as syrup...

[charlie]

5. Wasn't lead shot once made by tossing it into water?

I don't think that'll work better than any of the other junk they're trying to cram down there.

[MrScorpio]

7. How about a giant arc welder?

I'd say about one about the size of a football field should do the job.

[WeDidIt]

8. How about lead balls the size of golf balls for a junk shot?

Denser than the rubber shit they tried last time.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. How about a really big cork?

[backscatter712]

11. The oil pressure would shoot it right back out again.

They tried a substance explicitly designed for this sort of work - they call it drilling mud, but it's a synthetic compound designed to be heavy, viscous, perhaps with non-Newtonian qualities like hardness when under pressure, that sort of thing.

Top-kill failed, because we've got the equivalent of hundreds of firehoses of pressure gushing out of that well. Getting anything into that well to block the flow is insanely difficult.

[CoffeeCat]

13. What about a ginormous beach ball...

...a really sturdy, thick plastic deflated ball as big as a ship. Attach the balloon onto where
the oil is gushing. Allow the beach ball to fill up. To the beach ball, attach straw-like thingee
that would reach up to the surface. Allow oil to flow out of the straw into a tanker or
wherever.

Yeah. I don't know what I'm saying. But it's an idea.

[IDemo]

14. I can tell you have never soldered

One of the attractions of lead as a solder is that it cools and solidifies as quickly as it melts.