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Gulf Oil Spill: Quick Fix Dashed as BP Tower Fails to Contain Oil
First oil washes ashore in Alabama • BP engineers admit rethink is needed • Failed 100-tonne tower lifted off the seabed
Hopes of a quick fix to stop oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig gushing into the Gulf of Mexico were dashed on Saturday, when a build-up of crystallised gas blocked the pipes in the huge metal containment tower, which then had to be lifted from the seabed.
Oil is seen on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico as BP tries to stop oil leaking from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico. Photograph: Staff/Reuters While BP
engineers wrestled with the problem, reports came in of the first tar
balls and tar beads washing up on the white sand beaches of Dauphin
Island, off Alabama.
The metal tower, specially designed and constructed to cap the leak, is the height of a four-storey building and weighs 100 tonnes. The hope was it would hold the oil still gushing out of the well, which could then be siphoned out of the top, but the blocked pipes made that impossible.
The chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, said: "I wouldn't say it's failed yet. What I would say is what we attempted to do last night didn't work because these hydrates plugged up the top of the dome."
He predicted that it could take another 48 hours to find a resolution.
The problem is blamed on methane gas, partly frozen into slush by the cold temperatures on the seabed at 1,500 metres (5,000ft). Engineers anticipated the problem, but not the volume of the gas build-up in the pipes. Suttles said that solutions could include heating the area, or adding methanol to break up the hydrates.
Meanwhile, oil continues gushing into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 4,000 barrels a day or more.
Teams were sent by BP to Dauphin Island to test the tar washing up on the beaches, to establish whether it really does come from the spill. They will also lay down clusters of oil-absorbing synthetic fibres, and build storm-fencing along the beach.
A spokesman for the spill response command said that tar washing ashore on Alabama's beaches was common. However, local residents, holding up fist-sized chunks, said they had never seen anything like it before.
Construction workers have been racing around the clock, all weekend, to finish laying a three-mile boom across the mouth of Mobile Bay, Alabama, the ninth largest port in the US. The boom, tethered to a line of pilings driven into the sea bed, is being built with a double gate to allow ships to pass through. Vessels will be held between the gates, checked for oil contamination, and cleaned if necessary before being allowed to proceed. The bay is also home to beach resorts and commercial and leisure fisheries, including oyster beds.
Fishing restrictions mean thousands of boats have been tied up idle. Oyster processing plants are running out of supplies and shutting down, putting hundreds of people out of work.
Wayne Eldridge, owner of J&W Marine Enterprises, an oyster plant operator, said: "I'm screwed. The biggest thing is I've got 35 people unemployed there."
93 Comments so far
Show AllDUH, DUH.... You mean their little robots couldn't
manuver 65 tons of concrete one mile below the sea
overtop and sitting on the risor against 70,000psi ??
I think they could maneuver their big box well enough - the problem with the scheme is that BP's engineers couldn't do the math to figure out that methane ice crystals would clog up the works. I suspect they may have been schooled in Texas and were employing some form of faith-based math and physics...
" A spokesman ( notice he did not want his name exposed ) for the spill response command said that tar washing ashore on Alabama's beaches was common. " Too bad there is not capital punishment for B.P. and people like this so called spokesman. This guy needs to be tared and feathered with the tar on the Alabama beaches!
[This guy needs to be tared and feathered with the tar on the Alabama beaches!]
I think that would be a great idea, but you're too limited. The company execs who decided to cheap out on the blowout preventer and the execs of the services company - Halliburton I think - should also be tarred (using the recovered oil) and feathered (using the feathers of the dead birds when they become available.)
I agree but, in my opinion, tared and feathered is too good for the executives and CEO's of B.P. and Halliburton. These two extraordinarily evil, corporations need to be given the death penalty!
How 'bout slowly boiling them in oil?
It worked on us so it should work on them. :-)
But we couldn't get to them anyway. They're being protected by mercenaries hired by our homeland security.
"Teams were sent by BP to Dauphin Island to test the tar washing up on the beaches, to establish whether it really does come from the spill."
The nonsense never stops.
And: "A spokesman for the spill response command said that tar washing ashore on Alabama's beaches was common. However, local residents, holding up fist-sized chunks, said they had never seen anything like it before."
Hey, maybe it is all just a coincidence, like global warming.
Lol! That is pretty good SARCASM.
I dont know what it is about this news, but there is a whole heap of humour in the posts.
I think it may be that humour is a way of bringing balance to our collective psyches. It is that or going mad. ;-)
Where's Ronny Raygun when you need him? The actual source is undoubtedly a bunch of polluting trees.
You wonder whether BP is going to contest every municipality's claim of oil washing on the shore in order to exhaust the legal process.
You can count on it.
are these the same bright ones who designed this whole thing in 5K of water... or the ones trying to clean it up... might as well go harass the locals...
and how much fuel was needed to raise this failed funnel?
Vivid analogy! Helps me laugh to keep from crying.
Somehow, I don't think "off-shore babes" are the only ones getting raped by these guys. And applying the condom after ejaculation doesn't seem like such a great plan either.
One can only hope that the atomic energy regulators won't consider it as a "deregulation" precedent for allowing the erection of containment domes only after nuclear reactors spring a leak.
[One can only hope that the atomic energy regulators won't consider it as a "deregulation" precedent for allowing the erection of containment domes only after nuclear reactors spring a leak.]
But it worked so well at Chernobyl... Oh, right.
And kudos to Visiting Professor for the laugh, I wish I'd thought of it first...
The most intelligent men on earth rule the oil industry, and far to many inexcusable mistakes in this catastrophic oil spill for it not to be a premeditated act of “Disaster Capitalism.”
For more then one Alabama official involved has stated, “I cannot believe that they had no backup plan.”
"The most intelligent men on earth rule the oil industry..." Not by a long shot. The most ruthless capitalists on earth run the oil industry. There's a difference.
Per article from The Business Times Online:
"THE owner of the oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and causing a giant slick, has made a $270m (£182m) profit from insurance payouts for the disaster.
The revelation by Transocean, the world’s biggest offshore driller, will add to the political storm over the disaster. The company was hired by BP to drill the well.
The 'accounting gain' arose because the $560m insurance policy Transocean took out on its Deepwater Horizon rig was greater than the value of the rig itself."
This puts a whole new angle on this cataclysmic fuck-up...but then, who would be surprised to find that they had figured out a way to make a profit even in the event of failure.
A 10 day fishing ban? Whether you see a tar ball or not, the Gulf water is now so contamininated with BP's chemical solvent and the oil that as this ban should be updated for a much longer period of time.
Fishing is, or should be, dead in the gulf for a generation. Can't even eat shrimp or oysters or any fish at all anymore unless you know for sure where it came from. Can't eat fish out of our streams and rivers because they contain too much mercury. When does it end. When do we as a species stop shitting in our food?
Remember the promises about the safety of offshore oil rigs ...... as we are promised the safety of NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS.
The insurance industry will not insure nuclear power plants for full damage, and a catastrophic meltdown would make an area the size of Pennsylvania uninhabitable forever (Plutonium, an alpha emitter, has a half life of 24,400 years). Radiation is invisible and odorless, and history shows that "escapes" of radioactive substances into the environment are not reported to the public.
Very good point, and perfect time to point that out.
Also worth pointing out for remembering is just how overrated the oil company's response to mop up the damage is in the media.
HEy there is only one answer, folks. It's renewables all the way AND to NOT expect to get all the electricity one wants all the time... period.
It's time for a new paradigm. It's time to give up on our whole way of life. It's back to the old ways. It's the only way to insure we actually have a planet to live on.
Oh wait, this is what we will eventually be back to, we will be forced to, sooner or later.
"AND to NOT expect to get all the electricity one wants all the time... period."
Yes, we are going to have to reduce our energy consumption and change our whole way of life. First step: cut the power to the Imperial MIC war machine. Re-tool all these industries to produce wind and solar technology and how about a continental rail system - not some over-priced high-speed pork barrel BS, but just regular trains using existing track - and mass transit in all major cities so as to eliminate the waste of automobiles and jet planes while we're at it.
Problem is, we dont have leaders with Vision, just a bunch of sorry-ass punks who want to keep the MIC-Wall-Street gravy train running for them, and damn the country.
That's the problem.
That's part of the problem. The other part is that we don't have a citizenry with vision and will enough to change ourselves. Thus, not changing ourselves, ensure that the system keeps marching on.
But, it gives us grist for the mill here on Common Dreams, don't it?
I think what they mean by hydrates is molecules of gas frozen and combined with water molcules or something... sounds very explosive and probably what caused the blow out.
They are in new territory here...in other words they don't have a clue what they are really dealing with ...this is a new environment one mile deep and it is like discovering a new planet.
We may need a new planet but they are so far away.... I guess we just have to mess up the one we got.
".....They are in new territory here....."
Indeed.
God help us if that oil and all that dispersant get into the Gulf Stream. I feel very badly that BP's containment structure plan is not working as I can't believe those doing the grunt work are enjoying this absolutely miserable situation. However, the greedy fat cats at the top clearly *got around* having to submit a viable contingency plan for this kind of emergency and I have no f-king sympathy for them. This leak will go on for months. You're right, Jim, they don't know what they're dealing with. It's pretty obvious by now.
not a rosy picture.
And it also is showing how the whole peak oil scam was way to manipulate the market when there is enough oil to drown us all.
I think Peak Oil was always a counter to the environmental movement.
It is a theory that makes the oil companies rule.
WTF? Do you also believe Global Warming to be a scam?
I don't think you have a handle on either.
whats the average depth of water for in production sea drilling?
Until fairly recently, never more than a few hundred feet. The idea of drilling for oil in 5000 to 8000 feet of water was unheard of a couple decades ago.
Yea yea, we'll just heat up those hydrates enough to release the methane but not enough to cause a methane bubble that would explode. That should be easy, especially in ice cold water at 5000 ft. Shouldn't take more than a few more days.
Methane gas! That explains the strong smell in the gulf. It's one really big gas leak. They say there is 10,000 times more gas than oil in this pocket. Maybe we'll see a really big fire in the gulf, like when that river caught fire in Cleveland. I still say NASA should be running this show not BP.
How long till smoking be banned in the French Quarter?
It is strange too because Methane is what blow up the miners and I thought it was Natural gas from oil fields....
maybe methane can be Natural as a fart.
there are places where the oil and gas seep out all the time..... but maybe not in the Gulf..
You are absolutely correct! Methane emissions are as natural as a fart. The Earth's crust naturally burps (or farts) methane as a matter of course. See Fred Pearce's book, "With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change" for a fascinating account of this phenomenon.
Sometimes these methane farts are of such a magnitude they leave a crater on the ocean floor. In one crater, an underwater, remote controlled camera found a fishing vessel sitting perfectly upright on the sea floor, dead center in the crater. The scientists who studied it wondered if the methane fart simply eliminated the bouyancy of the water under the boat, dropping it to the bottom. Interesting speculation.
Anyway, these are not farts we want to light, much as the fraternity boys running the oil companies might enjoy it.
This ice like-substance canned methane clathrate, is what naturally forms when methane is exposed to water at the 2200 psi (15,000 KPa) pressures and temperatures of 3-4C present at these sea depths. It is abundant in the mud of the deep sea - although in this case, the methane is coming from the well.
As Kem Patrick used to warn us here, in the Arctic seas this methane ice occurs at much shallower depths on the continental shelf due to freezing water temperatures. But, this water is likely to warm as the polar sea ice melts, resulting in a "burp" of methane that could lead to runaways global warming and the end of life on earth.
Bear in mind, though, that canned methane clathrate is disgustingly limp and slimy.
Try a serving of FRESH methane clathrate with just a little salt and butter and I guarantee your opinion of it will improve! ;)
Independent estimates have the rate of oil escaping at 25000 barrels per day. It is claimed that both the Governmnet and BP are lying when they make the claim of 5k per day.
This year BP stands to make 23 billion in profits.
I don't usually cross post, but the comment seems appropriate here as well.
We've been raping Gaia for generations, every orifice we can find. Isn't it reasonable that She should get a bit sick to Her stomach and burp or fart occasionally?
One of these days, She's going to say, "That's it! I've had enough," and soon after, we, too, shall sleep with the dinosaurs.
With the $3 Trillion wasted on the Iraq Big Oil MIC Congressional Imperial Presidential war crimes, we could be well on our way to creating viable clean energy alternatives.
The cost of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is now approaching $1 Trillion, so Big Oil can exploit the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia for Asian markets.
We have also bankrupted our government with these two wars of aggression, creating public debt for private profit.
Yet, the problem is not a "peak oil" shortage but rather how to limit the use of oil before we have destroyed our atmosphere and the oceans.
In case some missed the following article, it's an interesting read.
By some estimates the oil and gas deposit they opened up could cover 20,000 square miles under both sea and land in the region. This is literally a sea of oil and gas that is, more than likely, abiogenic in origin from deep within the earth. The blown out well is more like an oil volcano with the oil being the magma.
"They've Literally Punched A Hole Into Hell, We Need A Crash Alternative Energy Program Now, Assuming We Even Survive"
http://www.opednews.com/articles/They-ve-Literally-Punched-by-thepen-100503-174.html
excerpt:
"Despite the gusher of lies we've heard trying to minimize the planetary scale disaster now in progress in the Gulf, the terrifying truth is available for those who will hear it. First they told us the "leak" was only 1,000 barrels a day, when in fact it is at least 5 times that much. Of course it's hard to pretend an oil slick the size of New Jersey isn't there. And it could easily blow out to 50,000 barrels a day (2,000,000 gallons) in a heartbeat, according to a "not for public" NOAA emergency report.
This is not just a leak, it's a monster underwater oil geyser, under upwards of 100,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, enough force to lift 50 tons with your thumb. And unless it is somehow stopped, it may spell the end of all marine life on the planet. We are not talking about just one Exxon Valdez size tanker spill, we are talking about one of largest oil fields ever discovered completely venting its entire contents into the ocean, thousands and thousands of tankers. It's THAT cataclysmic."
BWAH-HAH-HAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!
I am no engineer, and even I could have told you that this was one asshat of a plan.
This is going down as the single worst environmental disaster in the history of mankind. It is terribly unfortunate that we will be taking down most of the planet with us on this one.
"This is going down as the single worst environmental disaster in the history of mankind."
Not by a long shot.
Just wait.
OK, the impending 'Great Methane Fart' that will happen when the trans-polar regions heat enough via global warming to release the megatons of methane trapped in the rapidly melting permafrost that will exterminate most living things in the Northern Hemisphere in a matter of hours will be the worst environmental disaster in the history of mankind...
Oh yeah...that too!