DUmmies try to fix the oil leak!
Some of the DUmmies must think they are "Brains" from the Thunderbirds. These rocket scientists are coming up with ingenious ways to fix the Gulf oil leak that I'm sure no one has ever thought of before. Witness this THREAD, "Why couldn't they make a 3 inch thick iron plate about 1 meter squared. Then. . . ."
So let's all head out to Tracy Island, aka DUmmieland, where Brains is working into the wee hours of the night, coming up with workable solutions, in Rocket Scientist Red, while the commentary of your humble guest correspondent, Charles Henrickson, is in the [brackets], as we all count down: 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . DUnderheads are GO!
Why couldn't they make a 3 inch thick iron plate about 1 meter squared
[First of all, Brains, you don't have an iron plate "3 inch thick" and "1 meter squared." Which is it, "inches"--good, solid, American--or "meters," you Euro-wannabe pseudo-scientist??]
Then cut a whole into the bedrock right up to the oil well hole . . .
[The whole hole?]
. . . and slip the metal plate across.
[Hey, great idea! I bet you're the first to come up with that! Grab your wetsuit and we'll send you down there and you can slip that puppy right across there and save everybody a lot of trouble! Next stop, Oprah!]
The metal plate would then be kept in place by the weight of the bedrock above. Better yet the bedrock would collapse on itself making it even more secure.
[BEDROCK COLLAPSES! FRED, WILMA TRAPPED UNDER THE RUBBLES!]
Works for me.
[OK, that's a plan then. Call Obama.]
the bedrock would have to be very thick
[Like your head.]
Your assets are gravity, rope and a few fragile robots. Good luck.
[Call MacGyver.]
no seal and there are likely other weak spots on the pipe that will fail.
[Sealed vs. Unsealed.]
This calls for some type of Laser.
[LASER DEEP CONTROL!!!]
Powerful laser + turbid water = steam = nada....
[Laser = loser]
Sharks with fricken laser beams attached to their heads!
[YES! THAT'S IT! . . . Except, I've never seen a shark with a laser beam on its head. . . .]
picture a frozen coke bottle exploding x 1000
[OK, got it. Now what?]
Three points. One, I'm not picturing exactly what you mean here - more details?
[Well, first you find some sharks who would be willing to wear the laser be-- wait, I think you're back to the iron plate idea. . . .]
Two, how on Earth would you even cut something like that?
[Get the sharks to point their laser beams at the iron plate.]
Three, how is that supposed to be faster than the relief well being drilled?
[These questions are too tough. We haven't got that far yet. But I'm sure if we all send out good thoughts and white light and positive energy, it'll work.]
What about a concrete hockey puck the size of a house. . . .
[Call the Edmonton Oilers.]
stack a bunch of curling things together.
[Hair curlers?? Stuff it with hair curlers?]
There is 3 foot diameter steel pipe lining the hole. Where it comes up out of the seabed there is a 60 foot tall blowout preventer (BOP) mounted on top of the pipe. The pressure at the top of the well pipe where it enters the BOP is greater than 10,000 psi. Cut a hole into the bedrock? Where? With what? If you were able to somehow dig a tunnel down through the rock and over to the well pipe, you would still have to cut all the way across a 3' diameter pipe (double pipe, since there's also a casing.) As soon as you cut into the pipe you would unleash a gusher of oil and gas which would blow all your fix-it stuff back out of the tunnel and into the gulf before you could do anything else.
[Picky, picky, picky. . . .]
oh well I tried. I felt like doing something.
[And that's what COUNTS, Brains! You FELT like doing something! That's the old DUAC spirit! You get an "E" for
I'm glued to the oil drum site.
[I don't think that's going to work either.]
posted by PJ-Comix at 5:18 PM
12 Comments:
Somebody call the White House, Obama should be made aware of these suggestions. If the DUmmies are found not to be racist, sexist, homophobic, islamophobic, or global warming deniers, their ideas on capping the well may be considered.
With such fabulous brains at work, we should have the job done in no time.
I'm really glad we decided not to drill in the pristine arctic, like that idiot Palin suggested. If it weren't for the hard work of so many environmentalists, we'd be scuba diving in permafrost right now.
GOD BLESS HITLER!
Gawd. The Thunderbirds. Again.
Didn't the last time 'The Thunderbirds' were featured lead to the blindingly profound realization that 'Clutch Cargo' was probably even creepier?
I guess your inner homo wouldnt like "Space Angel" either?
I worked offshore for 3.5 years. After the second major "kick", I decided dying on a burning rig 60 miles from shore just wasnt for me. Food was really good though. Also had 2 types of coffee: regular and "coon ass" (Cajun).
Let's not forget 11 people died.
"I guess your inner homo wouldnt like "Space Angel" either?" Sham
No. You're wrong. My inner homo (the tormenting little bitch) was AWAKENED by 'Space Angel'. Those fucking bastards had to show me "the mouth". I was young and impressionable. What the hell was I, troglalittleman, supposed to do?
"Let's not forget 11 people died" Sham
If there's a semblance of justice left, it will all come down to these eleven people and whether or not their deaths were preventable. They were preventable. No doubt about it. I want to believe they will be how we remember all this. They tried to stop it. Their mission was to cap this well and move on. They knew things were headed for the shitter. They tried to stop it.
If you don't mind me asking, what's a "kick"? And why did you think you had to make a choice about burning up? No snark here. I'm just interested in your experience with this shit. Educate us. What's going on out there?
A "kick" is the entry of water, gas, oil or other formation fluid into the well hole during drilling.
It occurs because the pressure exerted by the column of the drilling fluid is not great enough to overcome the pressure exerted by the fluids in the formation being drilled. If prompt action is not taken to control the "kick", or kill the well, a blowout may occur.
Yeah. One of the most important people is the "mud man". The drilling mud has to vary according to depth and pressure. It lubricates the drill, brings up the stuff thats being drilled through, and keeps "stuff" down there from coming up to quickly.
I was a mudlogger, BTW. Lowest man on the rig's totem pole, but essential for reading gasses, pressure, etc.
A bad kick can put several thousand feet of pipe up in the air. A really bad one ... well, 11 people died from one.
Thanks for the 'kick' explanation you guys. I admit to not having a clue about this shit...for example-
"The drilling mud has to vary according to depth and pressure. It lubricates the drill, brings up the stuff thats being drilled through, and keeps "stuff" down there from coming up to quickly." Sham
This is what varying formulas of "mud" do. I had no idea.
You having been there Sham, the elephant in the room is whether or not you felt confident in the process. Even though you knew going in that it could get hairy, were you reasonably assured that things were OK? Did a scenario like this one ever come up at the dinner table?
Well it was my first real job out of college, and the pay was pretty good. Of course everyone had insurance. In 3.5 years the worse that I saw was one roustabout having the tip of his finger taken off, so I guess - considering the large machines all around - that it was safe.
When you begin detecting a kick things change. Everyone knows the consequences, and your anal sphincter begins to pucker.
I never worked on an onshore rig, only offshore, but I bet the procedures were similar. However the rehearsals for escaping in the life rafts always gave me the heebie-jebbies.
"However the rehearsals for escaping in the life rafts always gave me the heebie-jebbies." Sham
Well, yes. Especially after concluding "I decided dying on a burning rig 60 miles from shore just wasnt for me."
I guess I'm asking why you concluded there was a big risk of burning up on an oil rig.
You didn't go to a website to discover you were at risk, sham. You were there. You knew. Am I right about that?
Tell us. At least tell us why you got scared. Shit...I worked in a lead smelter and could tell you stories that would curl your hair. Just tell us. What was it like out there?
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