[smallpoxgirl]

Toledo is screwed if TS ever does HTF. They'll be overrun by zombies from Detroit within days.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'T')oledo is screwed if TS ever does HTF. They'll be overrun by zombies from Detroit within days.

[Bas]

Shouldn't this thread be about berkeley?

[killJOY]

Ah, my old hometown makes the news again. It is always, always something negative--neo-nazi rallies,political corruption scandals, bizarre murders--now this.

There is something fitting about Toledo's "bombed-out shell" of a down town that makes it suitable for urban military drills.

Here's a view nearby the neighborhood I grew up in:



Charming place.

That's why I fled ^NNE^

[killJOY]

BTW:
that refinery (this one)



is where the tar sands go for refining.


"Watch out where the tar sands flow,
And don't you eat that ashy snow..."

[Ayoob]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVtixuOS ... re=related

[Plantagenet]

Once again peakoil.com is AHEAD of the curve. WEEKS AGO people here were proposing the use of nukes or other explosives to seal the leaking well.

Now, an influential scientist who works for the Marines is proposing using the largest available non-nuclear explosive bomb to seal the leaking well----his proposal in gaining attention in DC.

marine corps scientist says a very big bomb can seal the leaking well

Its time to stop the leak. I say blow it to hell.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'O')nce again peakoil.com is AHEAD of the curve. WEEKS AGO people here were proposing the use of nukes or other explosives to seal the leaking well.

Now, an influential scientist who works for the Marines is proposing using the largest available non-nuclear explosive bomb to seal the leaking well----his proposal in gaining attention in DC.

marine corps scientist says a very big bomb can seal the leaking well

Its time to stop the leak. I say blow it to hell.

[Plantagenet]

Now BP admits the well is leaking out the side....oil is coming out of the seafloor.

If the well is leaking out the side, then thats just another good reason to seal it up with a bomb. BP's efforts to catch the oil aren't working and will never work.

Its time to plug the leak with a bomb.

[Duende]

That would be one of the bigger "hold your breath moments" I could imagine.

[Plantagenet]

It would be incredible.

The whole world would watch the show to see if the USA us still a country that can do things and solve problems.

Whats going on now is just pathetic....every five days another EXXON VALDEX dribbles out from the sea floor and the government does nothing.

The bomb doesn't have to be nuclear...just big.

Its time to blow this thing to hell!!!!!!!!!

[Plantagenet]

Link to Franz Gayl's powerpoint showing how a large explosion using conventional weapons would collapse the well and stop the leak

link to ppt slides about method to stop oil leak

The link is given near the end of the chatty discussion about this solution to the oil spill problem in the GOM.

[Cog]

I've never understood the fascination with using bombs to stop leaking oil wells. There are proven ways to do it and have been used for decades. They are called relief wells. If you don't understand how they work, go over to The Oil Drum and they will explain it to you.

Using explosives, whether nuclear or non-nuclear, would only make a bad situation a lot worse.

[Plantagenet]

I've read the discussions of relief wells at "theoildrum" and they are quite interesting. Did you see the statistical analysis of how many RW will probably be needed to seal the leak?...I'll give you a hint---it will probably take more then one.

However, even by the time the first RW is drilled, the leak will pump another 10 or so Exxon Valdez loads of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Wouldn't it make sense to use an explosive charge to collapse the well bore and stop the flow now instead of waiting months and dithering and doing nothing while huge additional amounts of oil unnecessarily pollute the Gulf?

[Cog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'I')'ve read the discussions of relief wells at "theoildrum" and they are quite interesting. Did you see the statistical analysis of how many RW will probably be needed to seal the leak?...I'll give you a hint---it will probably take more then one.

However, even by the time the first RW is drilled, the leak will pump another 10 or so Exxon Valdez loads of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Wouldn't it make sense to use an explosive charge to collapse the well bore and stop the flow now instead of waiting months and dithering and doing nothing while huge additional amounts of oil unnecessarily pollute the Gulf?

[dinopello]

I think it's ill-advised at this juncture (as my favorite Bush would say).

Capturing as much oil as possible until the relief wells are at least tried seems to me to have the best risk/reward calculus at the moment. By the end of the week they will have about 30,000 bpd collection capacity and more is coming. Even if the relief wells can't be successful for some reason, it will then be a tradeoff of sucking the field dry as fast as possible by production wells or risk the special delivery of a bomb.

From what I have read, the risk of a bomb is that it would fracture the well and formation in unintended ways, allowing the seepage of hydrocarbons up to the seabed at multiple points making it impossible to contain or stop any of it. Although I guess they could then try an even bigger bomb and see what happens.

[mcgowanjm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', 'I') think it's ill-advised at this juncture (as my favorite Bush would say).

Capturing as much oil as possible until the relief wells are at least tried seems to me to have the best risk/reward calculus at the moment. By the end of the week they will have about 30,000 bpd collection capacity and more is coming. Even if the relief wells can't be successful for some reason, it will then be a tradeoff of sucking the field dry as fast as possible by production wells or risk the special delivery of a bomb.

From what I have read, the risk of a bomb is that it would fracture the well and formation in unintended ways, allowing the seepage of hydrocarbons up to the seabed at multiple points making it impossible to contain or stop any of it. Although I guess they could then try an even bigger bomb and see what happens.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mcgowanjm', 'B')P/US are doing EVERYTHING WRONG now.

[Maddog78]

To implode the well you have to get the charge deep enough into solid rock. Blowing off the top layer of soft clays will just make it worse.

Two options;
1)You have to run it into the current well on pipe. Tricky running a charge into a well flowing at that rate.
You'd have to get some type of rig on surface to run it on either coil tubing or drill pipe.
That also adds danger.

2) Drill a well beside the current well. The two relief wells drilling now would not be acceptable to do the job.
The trajectory I have seen of them shows them coming in at an angle to intersect near the bottom of the current well. They would have to start another one to get the correct angle to intersect near the top of the "hard" rock.
I have not seen any data to know where this is. This is the method they could take though, I believe.
Nuclear is not required. A normal large shaped charge could or should work.

Btw I'll say, I'm by no means an expert on blowing in wells but this is just what I think the options are based on my general industry experience. I haven't seen many bloggers with any experience at all, this nuke it now talk comes with no practical suggestions on how or where to deliver this nuke, I've noticed.
Just firing one into the seabed from a submarine as some have mentioned, would not work at all and would just make it much, much worse. The whole field could unload and flood the GOM with radioactive oil.

[mcgowanjm]

^
^
L__Yes, of course.

Exactly what I've wanted from Day 3 (at least).

We should have ALL kinds of drilling going on now
in the Macondo Field.

And a BTW, when the 'experts' make the situation
worse, you eventually, or sooner, get rid of the 'experts'.
We've been over this before.

Two Reliefs.
Two strait into the Field.
And One for placing an explosive to 'implode the well'.

12:06 p.m. | Updated Robert Bea at the University of California, Berkeley, noted some earlier uses of explosives to stop sub-sea blowouts:

Luckily I have worked as a roughneck on several drill rigs and worked on some very large blowouts and spills (Bay Marchand, Mississippi, H2S well [large pdf], Santa Barbara, Piper Alpha, Petrobras P36) so I have some idea about what happened and is happening.

Yes, explosives have been used to stop blowouts. To my knowledge, the Russians did this first. A shallow well is drilled to intersect the blowout well. Explosives are set in the bottom of the well next to the casing of the blowout well. The explosion collapses and seals the well. When I worked for Shell, we almost used this technique to stop the Mississippi H2S well blowout. This well produced one thirds of the U.S. production of H2S per day. Three cities had to be evacuated.

1:48 p.m. | Updated The Harvard physicist Richard Wilson just emailed this note about an approach that capped a seabed well in 40 days:

The problem is finding a 5-inch diameter pipe at the bottom of the seabed or below. One can get within 100 feet by dead reckoning. The method successfully used (in fixing the offshore well that caught fire off Brazil 10 years or so ago) was devised by a former student of mine, Dr. Arthur Kuckes. His company in Ithaca, N.Y., is “ Vectormagnetics.”

(1) Drill a relief well as close as you can. Put Arthur’s gadget down the pipe and send 20 amps of DC (possibly pulsed to code it) to run back to ground.

(3) If the soil is uniform, there will be no longitudinal magnetic field in his device.

(4) If there is an iron pipe nearby current will run to the iron pipe and change the magnetic field.

(5) From this Artur deduces where the old oil well is, and pulls his equipment out and tells the relief well people how to adjust their drilling.

(6) After perhaps 3 or 4 attempts, getting closer every time, the drill hits the old well and recovery commences. Brazil took 40 days.