What Could Go Wrong?
While on its face this Miami Herald report on McClatchy sounds great, given BP’s history with the Well from Hell I’m decidedly uneasy: New cap on oil well, testing starts
PANAMA CITY BEACH —; As the Obama administration issued a fresh moratorium on deep-water drilling Monday, robots maneuvered a new, tighter-fitting cap onto a gushing oil well and BP prepared to test whether its latest effort would at long last stop crude from oozing into the Gulf of Mexico.
The company expected to finish latching on the cap to the leaking well late Monday, and up to two days’ worth of tests on its effectiveness could begin Tuesday, BP Chief Operation Officer Doug Suttles told reporters Monday afternoon, when the cap was 40 feet from the well.
We’re taking this step by step, making sure absolutely everything is in place before we do it,” he said.
Suttles described Monday as the third day of a four- to seven-day operation to secure the new cap over the spill’s source, after the previous, looser cap was removed Saturday.
OK, the oil has been carrying grit, which as been eroding the well casing all the way up. The riser collapse with the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon had been stressing the well head assembly, acting like a lever, until it was finally cut away. The well had several incidents of leaking mud into strata deep in the well. The blow-out preventer is leaning 3° out of plumb, which may be from the levering by the bent riser, or may be a result of the rock on which it sits fracturing. These are just a few of the reasons why I don’t think that trying to test a shut off valve on the new cap system is a great idea.
Another thing that bothers me is that to prevent hydrate formation they are talking about pumping in glycol, which is an anti-freeze ingredient. Glycol is definitely poisonous. Dozens of pets die every year from drinking glycol coming from leaking coolant systems. A number of people died or became sick when Chinese companies replaced glycerin with glycol in cough syrup and toothpaste. Given that they are sitting in the Gulf of Mexico and flaring off natural gas, I don’t understand why they don’t just rig a water heater to accomplish the same thing. They could set up a steam engine system to produce the hot water and power the pump to deliver it.
I hope, for the sake of the Gulf, that this works, but it’s BP…
3 comments
Ughhh….Everything?
“OK, the oil has been carrying grit, …”
A few days ago, after reading far too much Ogden Nash at a single sitting, I blurted this out:
A tragedy it is, a creature of the muse Melpomené,
When you discover your true grit is only ground-up homené.
Yeah, I know; Nash used his occasional classical references much more effectively…
Glycol is really, really toxic stuff, as every child in the U.S. has known for decades. Somebody needs to yank control of the cleanup from the hands of BP and put it in the hands of a child; the result at least couldn’t be worse.
That’s about what I’m expecting, Jill, especially since most of the video looks like the well heal leans a good deal more than 3°.
I just don’t understand how the government can allow BP to do things like this. They have not demonstrated any level of competence, much less expertise, in dealing with this.
They are essentially doing what I wanted to do in the first week, i.e. install a new pipe on top with a shut off valve in it.
Oh, a little Nash will travel far, if not in comfort. 😉 [a bad car reference for the young people]