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

[Doc]

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpps/news/source...jd_7813731

[space-time]

CNN: "BP says "top kill" has failed to stop flow of oil from well and it is "time to move on" to another approach. "

[Bernie]

With gas the same price across town, why not boycott BP?

[mrbigstuff]

1960s-tech

no crap. It's really beyond the pale at this point. It would be nice to know who the hell is working on a better solution and what it is, as BP is single handedly ruining the Gulf for decades.

you know, I have occasionally worked on Brownfields projects, and the manner of the environmental remediation for, say, petroleum in the soil at low levels, dictates a significant amount of oversight. just sayin'

[Buck]

This is sad. Apparently Top Kill was the sixth method used. I hope they have more weapons in their arsenal. I'm starting to favor Jughead.

[Grateful11]

Where in the article linked is there anything about '60's Tech? Unless it the cutting off part, how anyone know that's 60's Tech unless you worked in the oil fields?

"NEWSCORE - A BP executive on Saturday said the company’s “top kill” attempt to plug the leak caused by the explosion of its Deepwater Horizon rig, the worst oil spill in U.S. history, was not successful and it is now considering other methods to plug the leak, the Times-Picayune reported.

A source said BP officials would announce the failure of the top kill attempt at a press briefing in Robert, La., at 4pm local time. The top kill method involves pumping heavy mud into the well to stop the oil from leaking.

It is expected that BP will announce that its next option to try to plug the leak will involve cutting off the leaking pipe to get a clean-cut surface, capping it and diverting the leak into another pipe."

[blooz]

The same techniques being used now by BP were used at the Ixtoc leak in 1979. That one was in 200 feet of water and the only thing that worked was drilling relief wells which took months to do.
So it is '70's tech not 60's tech that BP is using today but it doesn't make much difference.

They have space-age capability for drilling in deep water, but the emergency plans are pretty much last millennium.

[Doc]

Grateful11 wrote:
Where in the article linked is there anything about '60's Tech? Unless it the cutting off part, how anyone know that's 60's Tech unless you worked in the oil fields?

Nowhere.

But when they did exactly the same things in almost exactly the same sequence to no avail in the 1979 Ixtoc oil spill, engineers complained that they were stuck using tech that was 20 years old.

[Speedy]

BP could keep pumping drilling mud down the hole to keep the oil at bay. Except, of course, drilling mud is expensive which is one reason they had the blow out (not wanting to use the right amount of mud.)

[Don C]

Maybe they could fill the leak with BP executive bonus check stubs.