Does this look like their little pipe is achieving 20 to 40% containment?
http://www.energyboom.com/policy/breaking-new-underwater-footage-oil-leak-siphon-place
The explanation is plainly simple.
The only estimates that have been done by independent experts based on actual video data from the leak source say the leak is much bigger than the constantly-repeated 5000 barrels a day. The lowest independent I heard reported 20,000, with what the guy himself admitted was a crappy, napkin method. The guy who put the data into his fluid dynamics modeling computer came up with 70,000. Margin of error tops it out at 100,000 barrels a day.
Why would anyone believe Randian oil reps about the size of the leak over independent mathematicians?
And, how can the media be ignorant of this? They must be lying- why?
Anyway, I can believe the little straw is sucking 1000+ barrels a day. The trouble is that it claims only ~3% of the oil.
Yes, it does but there are 3 more leaks along the riser pipe so there is no way of knowing what is going on based on the video. Not sure where you’re getting a figure of 20 to 40% containment.
They should blow the pipe up and put a dome over the well head so it can be tapped and pumped while they drill a relief well.
BP concedes more oil than estimated flowing into the Gulf
Senator Bill Nelson (FL) managed to wangle a live video feed of the leak at the site where the tube is inserted:
Live feed (currently on overload)
Look at Nelson’s YouTube Channel for more.
I’m not seeing a decrease in plume size that’s anywhere near raising the pipe thingy above the level of a stunt.
What with clouds and orbital mechanics, here haven’t been any decent satellite pix in two days, maybe today?
Serioiusly, Squink, the video appears much worse than before.
May 24 Slick grows a second tail, parallel to the coast.
The tail down towards the loop current is still there, now with a big blobby thing at its southern end: 250 meter hi res image
Daily images from Modis/Terra here
The latest high estimate of the spill volume I’ve seen from a major news source is now 120,000 barrels a day. So, worst case scenario this thing is already around 180 million gallons. Again, if the highest estimate is the case.
If that is the case (and has been constant all along), this leak is already bigger than Ixtoc I, the current largest blowout leak in world history AFAIK, which spilled 150 million gallons of oil into the Yucatan side of the Gulf. Mexico got kind of lucky with it though, as the oil mostly floated away and toward Texas, see this map.
That map is from this photo essay, which documents some of the effects of the spill on Padre Island in 1979. Warning: may contain images of '70s guys in too-tight pants.
LonghornDave, when you’re talking about royalty, are you lumping together the bonus, rentals, and production royalty? 'Cause a 1/5 to 1/4 royalty seems awfully high. The following publication from MMS states that the royalty went up from 1/8 to 1/6 in Jan. 2007. MMS, “Information to Lessees Western Gulf Of Mexico Sale 204”. (PDF warning)
Despite my nit-pick, I completely agree with your main point that there’s no way BP’s screwing around on starting remediation, just so they can save a few bucks worth of oil.
Agree with Magiver that the sequence of events leading up to the accident will make for very interesting reading.
I was actually meaning to capture the entirety of the difference between the 8/8ths working interest and the net revenue interest. In my experience, it isn’t uncommon to see a net revenue interest of 75% to 80% for offshore wells. I should not have said that the federal government will get a 20% to 25% royalty although I didn’t really want to get into the specifics about the differences in working interests, net revenue interests, and other types of interests on this message board; I was trying to keep it simple. I have not actually seen any NRI number for BP for the well; I am just guessing it is somewhere around 80% to the 8/8ths.
I missed the whole interview and I don’t know who was being interviewed but I heard August thrown around as a possible completion date. I took this to mean if the top-kill fails.
On PBS they discussed a cap being built that will circulate warm water to deal with the methane hydrates freezing up.
I don’t understand why a well cap doesn’t have multiple gate valves. Given the environmental cost-of-failure there should be at least triple redundancy plus a foolproof catastrophic external cap.
The Flow Rate Technical Group, which is the independent group formed to determine the actual flow rate of the leak has provided their first initial estimates. The background of the Group is as follows.
Their initial estimate is that the leak is 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day.
Thanks, LonghornDave 
Consider this solution:
A = Pi times r squared
The pipe is 22 inches in diameter. Radius = 11 inches.
Area = 3.14151111 = 380 square inches.
BP has stated that the pressure of the oil coming out of the pipe could be as high as 14000 lbs/square inch. The fact is that it will vary- the center will have a strong ‘channel’, and the outsides will move more slowly and exert less pressure, but let’s keep it simple to ensure that the solution is big enough for the problem.
The maximum pressure at the wellhead, then, is 14,000lbs/in^2 * 380 in^2 = 5,320,000 lbs of pressure. Divide by 2000, that’s 2660 tons of pressure.
What we’re going to do is build a containment dome that is honest-to-Stalin guaranteed to meet the maximum pressure exerted by the leak. Forget extracting the oil to the surface- we’re going to plug the damn hole! (If the top kill doesn’t work). The plan is intended to be obvious enough that the Army Coprs of Engineers could realize it.
What we need is a dome that exceeds 2660 tons in downward pressure. I am not familiar with the maths on the materials, but assuming that this is too large for a single object that can be constructed and lowered to the ocean floor lickety-split- no problem.
We are going to drop cement pylons to the ocean floor, in a triangle or square or whatever depending on how many we need. If we can procure 1000-ton pylons, 3 would do the trick but Stalin would probably use 4.
These pylons will be equipped with pulley apparati. Cables can be run through rollers or even simple eyehooks for this application.
The containment dome will be as massive as can be accomplished under the circumstances. The last dome lowered over the leak got clogged with ice crystals and could not be installed. This ‘dome’ (closer to tube) is simply going to be open at the top. We want to put it in place without ice obstructing it, so we have to let the oil just keep leaking for awhile.
The pylons are arranged in a sqare around the dome in advance. Cables run from barges on the surface (Stalin would use one barge per pylon), through eyehooks at the bottom of the dome, from there through eyehooks at the top of the pylons, and finally affixed from there to the bottom of the pylons. The effect is that winching on these cables applies downward pressure to the dome, limited by the mass of the pylons. If you can devise a way for the pylons to directly, physically weigh down the dome, well that is more elegant isn’t it? But remember we’re in a hurry.
Once the cables are tautened and we know the dome can withstand whatever pressures the leak can provide, all that remains to be done is to plug the top of the dome. Maybe we pump cement and junk into this dome and wait for it to clog. Maybe there is a hatch and it is easy. Maybe we try to suck the oil up through the dome to waiting ships. If ice clogs it up and nothing flows, success! The only place the oil can go from here is out the bottom. Hopefully plugging little leaks around the bottom of the dome is a more trivial task. If the dome has a ‘skirt’, if it is a little sombrero-shaped, cement could be applied to hold it down, perhaps enough smothering cement such that the cables could be cut and the thing would stand alone.
Feel free to poke all the holes you like in my moronic little suggestion. Actually label me a moron, once for every punctuation mark, I don’t care. Just point out where you think the plan slips into fantasy.
This is a very informative video of what engineers are doing to solve the problem and after watching it, it should be perfectly clear why knowledgeable people in USCG & Interior are deferring to the experts and not caving to talking heads on TV and why Obama and Salazar should keep their mouths shut.
Not wishing to click on a piece of BP propaganda, perhaps you can summarize.
All along, my concern has not been so much about what BP was doing to clean up the “spill”–but more about how they can be made to pay for the mess they’ve created. And how they can be prevented from causing further damage. Obama & Salazar need to study up–& keep talking.
BP’s safety record has been abysmal for a long time.
Not sure why you feel Obama should keep his mouth shut. Is it so that Republicans can shout their lameass Katrina comparisons with impunity?
Its not propaganda, its a video showing BP’s technical operations chief explaining, well, their technical operations to clean up this environmental catastrophe, using photgraphic images, 3D models, clear-cut explanations of what each vessel is, what it’s mission is, etc. The fact that BP produced it doesn’t make it propaganda. In fact, I felt the same reservations about it as you when I saw the URL in the link (this was emailed to me), but upon watching it, found it informative.
Nah, that was a cheap shot. I just feel like some of these people are underestimating the scale of a disaster like this and how much time it really does take to deal with it.
I think most of em are underestimating the scale and complexity. Even at http://www.theoildrum.com/, there’s people coming in asking why we can’t just…, or wondering whether the injection is all some sort of PR dodge on BP’s part. Of course BP and the feds didn’t do themselves any favors yesterday by misleading us on what was happening with the top kill attempt:
I saw that same story on CNN.com and wondered the same thing. I don’t know all the details but I think at this point for BP that total transparency on this matter should be the order of the day. Maybe there’s a valid reason behind the delay between start/stop/start of the procedure. Even still, they should have shared the fact that they had stopped, and why they stopped.
They ran through all the mud they had so part of the delay was waiting on another batch.
Ah, fair enough.