BP oil spill response suggestions updated 6-2-2010.
We’ve had over 800 suggestions for dealing with the oil spill here at BPOilNews.com, and some of them are very interesting. We’re happy that some in positions of authority are following the postings at this site, but we also want to post BP’s oil spill suggestion telephone hotline again so you can call BP and report your idea directly to them. BP’s Deepwater Horizon response hotline number is (281)-366-5511.
We think we’ve gotten some interesting suggestions from our readers, but we want to report some other suggestions we’ve heard in the last couple of days that seem to come straight out of Hollywood:
- Titanic and Avatar director James Cameron met with government officials Tuesday to brainstorm about ways to stop the oil leak. Cameron has also offered to lend BP his fleet of deep-sea subs which he’s owned sinc making the movie Titanic.
- If anything good came from the making of Kevin Costner’s 1995 debacle Waterworld, it may be that it inspired Costner to spend $24 million inventing a centrifuge that is designed to strip pollutants out of water. Costner has offered the centrifuge to BP, but so far there is no word on whether BP is going to take him up on the offer.
- Houston Texas inventor Steven Dvorak is known as “MacGyver.” Dvorak says he’s begged BP to take a look at his invention that he calls SQUID (an acronym for Super Quick Undersea Incident Device). Dvorak says its a heavy ring attached to a soft reinforced tube to gather the oil as it floats up to the surface. Dvorak says, “I feel like people are scurrying around with teacups and I’m holding a firehose.” Here’s a video of Dvorak demonstrating the SQUID:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx2mDYCIW20
{ 14 comments }
I was wondering why people from hollywood were serious prospects for a resolve to this catastrophe, now I understand they may have tools we could use. I feel that rather than manipulating the actual valve we should think of building a cone shape piece that would fit over the leak and flange to the existing underwater piece that is leaking that would either be magnetic or whatever so that the oil that is spewing out will be directed through this cone closer to the surface so that we can fill tankers with the oil and get it safely put in refineries etc…..
My solution is to stop the leak. I believe that BP is currently trying to cap the riser pipe. They are attempting to first cut the riser at a point lower down so they can get better control of the pipe to cap it. My admittedly simplistic solution would be to drill a small hole (2-3 ” diameter) completely through the pipe instead of cut it, leave the drill bit in place (or insert a steel rod) so that it traverses the pipe opening. Then choose a point lower down the riser (below the steel rod), and drill a smaller hole to be used as a port where a clogging ‘slurry’ can be injected into the oil stream. The slurry could contain lengths of carbon fiber or plastic that would initially get ‘looped’ over the transverse steel rod and eventually form a giant ‘clog’.
Now that the pipe is cut, insert a smaller diameter casing with a swellable rubber on the oustide into the existing well bore. As the rubber swells it will seal off around the pipe and allow all the oil and gas to come up to the surface via the casing. Swellable casing and packers are used all the time in the oil field to seal off hydrocarbon or water wet zones.
Just Simply, Crimp the end. It is a temp fix, but if there is enough to cut, there should be enough pipe to crimp. Use a hydraulic or pneumatic press to crimp the end.
Sirs:
Since there is a bolted flange where you are putting the cap over the leaking pipe, you could simply unbolt the broken pipe piece and re-bolt a new pipe flange with a valve on it.
Attach while the valve is open, and then simply close the valve.
Even if only half the bolts were good, that would probably be enough.
Yours, Leonard Wolf
Retired Boeing Engineer; suggest you loop ~ 100 feet of heavy walled SS pipe connected to a liquid nitrogen source and insert the [long/narrow] loop into the blow-hole to full depth, then begin pumping liquid nitrogen through the closed circuit loop to solidify the material coming up the pipe. This should work to cap the ‘gusher’ until August when the relief well will be completed.
Good Luck,
Ken Bylund,
Ketchikan, Alaska
Nitrogen as a solution will freeze the oil. Your closed loop heat exchanger keeps the nitrgen gas from being a problem; I think the heat exchanger you designed needs to be a little more substancial to tranfer enough cold to freeze the oil. I”m not sure what the temperature of the oil in the ground is, but the volume of oil passing through the pipe would be working against the freeze process and would need to be accounted for. Another thought is that if the freeze partially blocks the pipe, the chances are better for other blocking solutions to be successful!
I enjoyed your thoughts; hope BP is hearing us!
Steven Glenna
Ameritech Electric
Rochester, Minnesota
How to plug the OIL_LEAK in the gulf of Mexico ?
I am a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from IIT, Madras, India. Here is my simple and effective suggestion to plug the oil leak in Mexican Gulf.
Please visit http://www.arjunreddy.net for details/diagram.
Hang heavy metal/steel junk pieces at various heights and crowd the hole with several such weights from bottom to top of the hole from which oil is gushing out. .. To hang the weights in the hole the weights must be tied/hooked to steel ropes of various lengths and anchored on the sea bed before lowering / dropping the weights to fill the hole. In this way, the oil can not push out the heavy pieces, as it happens in the case of pumping mud. By anchoring the weights on built-in columns on seabed/ the height to which the weights can be lowered in to the hole can be controlled; and the weights will remain stable at various heights, say at 500M, 499M, 478M…….100M. The oil flow will reduce as the sea-bed nears. Then We may fill in the last leg of the hole with concrete to seal off the leak.. See the picture below; From R S Reddy;
Please Contact reddigari@hotmail.com
Please Visit http://www.arjunreddy.net for diagram / technical details; How to stop the oil leak….
Posted by : R S REDDY
Would it be possible to use something like the top half of a city water tank to float down over the leak and sit on the ocean floor forming an oil encasing dome. You could attach an oil capture valve on the top of the tank before it was lowered and also place several submarine -type hatches around the perimeter to allow water to flow through for stabilization while it was being lowered. Once the tank /cap reaches the ocean floor, the submarine hatches could be closed and the oil could begin being pumped to the surface through the pre-attached capture valve while your relief well is being completed. If you thought the force of the oil gushing from the well would be able to lift the dome tank, before it is lowered you could weld braces on the outside edges of the tank to support weights that could be added later to hold it securely against the ocean floor.
Wonderful idea………………it should work, go to the hardware store, get the stuff BP and do it now!
is it possible to drop a tapered piece of round solid steel/cast iron into the hole,the external dia the same as the internal dia of the hole.wieght as much as nescescary(big lump of metal on top if needed).with shoulder on it to stop it going all way in.
attach a hydrolic to the pipe itself for stability, use a sterdy rod with an elbow with a hard rubber stopper on the end followed by a metal one and back the rod up into the pipe if their is to much preasure have it screw in if you can only get machines down their use them, you can use an anchor system on the stopper using the pressure against itself, using small metal rodes that face outward so when the pressure hits the stopper they shift out against the pipe locking the stopper in then you can cap it off with a metal one.
funnels with multiple nozzels stack invertly one above the other housing the well mouth covering an area wide enough to hold the funnels stacks . at least futher oil spill is controlled by using submarines to fix rubber hoses on the nozzels to pump the additional oil to well placed oil containers on the surface.
Por Dio Alguna gente del pubrico solo usan la computed para difamar la persona que acen bien por ejempro. 1 June 2010 cuando Bp call for help en la primera semana nadie Los. Ayudo pero cuando el cientifico Jose f blanco les dio la idea a Bp DES. Una bes aparecieron mile dando idea copiando la de Jose f blanco not sean tan estupido Bp sebe que el es el cientifico. Que les Dio la idea ello tienen la grabasion de la bos de el. Y copia de coreo. Electronic. De el o el Jose f blanco tiene copia de todo en su computadora . Por Dio paren de difamar a la gente buena