"Top Kill" has officially failed... BP ponders next bit of 1960s-tech to try to plug oil leak...

[mikebw]

- put a larger diameter pipe around the current one and suck the oil up

- crimp the pipe, squeeze it until the sides comes together hopefully stopping the flow.

- bury it under tons and tons of concrete

- nuke it, causing the pipe to collapse and the seabed to cover it up

[The UnDoug]

Your first suggestion (the larger pipe) seems like a good one. Why can't they do that?

[Grateful11]

I still say they should have tried quick setting concrete instead of drilling mud but then again
I don't know how drilling mud reacts or why they thought mud would clog it up to begin with.
I also heard they were pumping golf balls into it. Why not about 10,000 gallons of Great Stuff
expanding foam all at once.

[mrbigstuff]

you know, this hasn't even risen to the level of pre-Roman technology as of today.

sorry, had to get that off of my chest. yes, I know it's a mile down in the ocean, but still.

[Speedy]

They are going to cut off the only parts slowing stuff down so they have a clean pipe. This will speed up the flow. Then they will thread the outside of the pipe, screw on a cap and shut it off.

[space-time]

Speedy wrote:
They are going to cut off the only parts slowing stuff down so they have a clean pipe. This will speed up the flow. Then they will thread the outside of the pipe, screw on a cap and shut it off.

chance of success... 1%?

[Grateful11]

space-time wrote:
[quote=Speedy]
They are going to cut off the only parts slowing stuff down so they have a clean pipe. This will speed up the flow. Then they will thread the outside of the pipe, screw on a cap and shut it off.

chance of success... 1%?
They don't even do that above water, that I know of, that's why they have BOP's that actually
work. Any other industry has to have contingency plans for spills as small as a slow drip of
oil if there's a chance it's going end up in a storm drain. These people appear to have no
contingency plan of any kind.

I wonder what the big company that goes around the world putting out fires and capping
wells has to say about all this.

[Mini 9]

I think this has given terrorists a new achilles heel to focus on, don't you?