could stopping the OIL LEAK be as simple as this?

[space-time]

Just a random thought of mine after a glorious day, spoiled by the top-kill-failed-news.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/29/us.gulf...tml?hpt=T1&iref=BN1 wrote:
Suttles and other officials said that the "top kill" attempt to stop the flow did so -- but only as long as they were pumping. When the pumping stopped, the oil resumed its escape. And Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said that BP would resume using undersea dispersants for the new attempt to trap the oil.

JUST KEEP PUMPING!


If mud has also negative effects on the environment, can't they just pump WATER? The water is right there, you have an ocean full of water and oil (or more likely, oil and water). Sure, it's a different density, different viscosity, but pump lots of it. High Pressure, and lots of water. Keep those pumps running non stop.

Damn!

[Racer X]

I bet they are still concerned about costs over solving the problem the quickest.

[iaJim]

I agree, just keep pumping. Surely fuel can't cost you much when you own the wells.

[BernDog]

Why not sandbags? Lots of sandbags. Barges of sandbags. Mountains of sandbags. M'F'ing small island nations of sandbags. Sooner or later it would be enough, wouldn't it?

[iaJim]

You'd think.

[davester]

No, it can't be as simple as that. The reason that they lost control of the well in the first place was by substituting water for drilling mud. Water does not have sufficient density or viscosity to displace oil under the very high formation pressures they are encountering.

Also, you could drop all of the world's sandbags on top of the well and the jet of oil would simply blast a pathway between them. They would offer essentially no resistance.

This stuff is basic physics.

[space-time]

so how expensive is this drilling mud, and how bad is it for environment?

[Grateful11]

There sure must have been a lot fossils in the Gulf area to make all that fossil fuel and then
pressurize it. Oh that's right the sea water depth is pressurizing it, I guess the sea floor is also
collapsing downward as we remove all this oil, you know displacement.

[Speedy]

Yes, keep pumping mud. Expensive, expensive mud. Lots and lots of it. As long as it slows the flow.

[Grateful11]

Speedy wrote:
Yes, keep pumping mud. Expensive, expensive mud. Lots and lots of it. As long as it slows the flow.

:agree: