Gulf oil spill: Progress on leak containment being made, federal officials say

Federal officials said Sunday that engineers have succeeded in vacuuming up some of the oil that has been leaking from the Deepwater Horizon's drilling well, the first progress in containing the BP spill since the Horizon exploded and sank last month.

The apparent success, announced by the Unified Area Command for spill response, came overnight. Undersea robots inserted a four-inch pipe into the Horizon well's "riser," which is leaking several thousand barrels of oil a day into the gulf.

The so-called insertion tube siphoned oil from the well up to the ocean surface 5,000 feet above and into the belly of the drill ship Discoverer Enterprise. Natural gas that flowed up with the oil was burned aboard the ship, officials said.

Efforts to insert the tube had failed on Friday and Saturday. Even Sunday's success was interrupted when the tube became dislodged, officials said, but engineers subsequently reinserted it.

Officials offered no immediate estimate of how much oil has been diverted so far, except to say "some" oil and gas had made it to the ship. BP had previously expressed hope that the tube tactic could divert up to three-fourths of the leak while engineers continue working to plug the well permanently.

"While not collecting all of the leaking oil, this tool is an important step in reducing the amount of oil being released into Gulf [of Mexico] waters," the command center said in a news release.

-- Jim Tankersley in Houston

Comments

[Paul Lentz]

Anything that contains some of the oil is better than nothing.
Let's hope this is the first step and they will come up with better solutions.
Undersea robots inserting tubes sounds promising!

[G Navarro]

Heres an idea, how about trying to send down a huge vacuum tube, bigger then the pipe down below where the oil is coming from, not to go inside but to go around the outside of the pipe. This can be clamped on after it is around the pipe. Then have both the water and oil come up to ships waiting above that can catch all the outflowing oil and water that come up at first and eventually seperate it. after the pressure is going into the tube, then they can begin working on plugging or diverting the oil. If they have no clamps to fit down below, they can use a water proof canvis type material to start the clamping process. This sounds like it would work if someone puts their mind into it ????????????

[Daniel]

Dear Daniel,
Michael Brune
Executive Director, Sierra Club
The Gulf of Mexico - Oil Disaster is a Wake-Up Call that America needs to embrace and develop an alternative to oil as a fuel source. The time has come to look to our past, for what is the most viable source of energy from the most resourceful plant, that was so foolishly banned by an act of ignorance. The plant that was grown since the first settlers arrived,and revered by our Founding Fathers who praised it as a wonder of nature.
"Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere." George Washington
"Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country." Thomas Jefferson
The issue of hemp?s true potential has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media but if one does a search on the Internet, an abundance of information on the truth can be found. One statement claims that if just 6% of the land in America was dedicated to growing Hemp, we could produce enough bio-fuel to cover our energy needs
When it comes to deriving fuel from organic matter the key words are biomass & cellulose and when it comes to the percentage of biomass ? cellulose and the tonnage per acre, Hemp beats out all other plants. Depending on the reports cited Hemp provides from 4 to 50 even a 100 times the cellulose of corn, sugar cane and other matter used for fuel.
During World War II, the Department of Agriculture mounted a campaign urging farmers to grow Hemp for the war effort and produced a short film entitled ?Hemp for Victory.? Yet after the war, Hemp was once again banned as a legal crop.
We need to put end one of the greatest travesties in American history and make Industrial Hemp a legal crop to provide the country with new industries and jobs for Americans that will lead to energy independence.How long must American farmers wait to grow this precious resource?
Hemp is the Green Bullet that can put America back on the path to prosperity.

[Daniel]

Fuel
Planting only 6 percent of the continental United States with biomass crops such as hemp would supply all current domestic demands for oil and gas.
Did you know the average American spends 33 of 40 working hours to support their need for energy? It's true; 80 percent of the total monetary living expense for everything we do is ultimately wrapped up in energy costs; from the energy it takes to make the food we eat, to fuel for the cars we drive, to the manufacturing, storage and transportation of the products we buy. And 80 percent of solid and airborne pollution in our environment can be blamed on fossil energy sources. It is estimated that America has already exhausted 80 percent of its fossil fuel reserves.
Industrial hemp is the number one biomass producer on earth, meaning an actual contender for an economically competitive, clean burning fuel. Hemp has four times the biomass and cellulose potential and eight times the methanol potential of its closest competing crop - corn. Burning coal and oil are the greatest sources of acid rain; biomass fuels burn clean and contain no sulphur and produce no ash during combustion. The cycle of growing and burning biomass crops keeps the world s carbon dioxide level at perfect equilibrium, which means that we are less likely to experience the global climactic changes (greenhouse effect) brought about by excess carbon dioxide and water vapors after burning fossil fuels.

THE TWO MAIN REASONS WE ARE IN SUCH AN ENVIROMENTAL MESS TODAY
1) The decision of the United States Congress to pass the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act was based in part on testimony derived from articles in newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, who, some authorsTemplate:Http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhearst.htm stress, had significant financial interests in the forest industry, which manufactured his newsprint.
2) Hemp paper threatened DuPont's monopoly on the necessary chemicals for manufacturing paper from trees and hemp fiber cloth would compete with Nylon, a synthetic fibre, that was patented in 1938, the year hemp was made illegal It is often asserted in pro-cannabis publications that DuPont actively supported the criminalization of the production of hemp in the US in 1937 through private and government intermediates, and alleged that this was done to eliminate hemp as a source of fiber—one of DuPont's biggest markets at the time. DuPont denies allegations that it influenced hemp regulation.

3)Hemp for Victory is a black-and-white United States government film made during World War II, explaining the uses of hemp, encouraging farmers to grow as much as possible.

THE GOVERNMENT MUST KNOW THE REAL VALUE OF USING HEMP IT HELPED SAVE THIS COUNTRY DURING WW2!!

Hemp - The Short Term Solution for climate change Image Hemp can be used as a short term solution to the climate change challenge, simultaneously increasing soil carbon, locking carbon into raw materials and replacing unsustainable raw materials across several industries. It is an adaptable, hardy, multi-purpose crop that can play an important role in reducing and repairing human environmental damage. Hemp is far less vulnerable to changes in climate compared to slow to medium growth forests and still has the most useful biochemical characteristics of hardwood. In addition, hemp is a very versatile crop, not just in terms of use value, but also in terms of how it can be managed by farmers. Growing hemp on deforested hillsides prevent landslides, run-off and also prepares land for future crops or reforestation. Large scale tree planting is not feasible without providing an immediate and sustainable alternative to forest resources used by the majority of the worlds population for cooking heating and raw materials. Hemp produces several metric tons of versatile biomass per hectare annually or bi-annually in hotter climates, potentially protecting old growth forests. CO2, which represents 50 per cent of greenhouse gases (GHGs), according to the IPCC, is converted along with other chemicals (or assimilates) into food by plants, depending on biomass production. The resulting growth and storage of carbon is identified in terms of biomass.

[PDX111]

All of BPs efforts thus far have been aimed at getting the oil into tankers so that BP can make money from that well.

Thanks for all of the suggestions about stopping the flow of oil, but BP does not care about any of that. Their responsibility is to pay for $75 million of the damages, and that limit to their responsibility was met in the first day or two of this disaster. BP has not made any attempt to stop the flow of oil because they don't want to stop the flow of oil. BP's interest is in keeping the well gushing while getting as much into tankers as they can.

[Lake Salvador]

A "bowl" as you put it is a short term way of thinking. BP has to plug it and the sooner they do, the better.

[L. Collins]

Hook up that mile long tube to a flexible upside down bowl that is lowered to the oil exit point and watch how it will catch all the spill off and then BP can funnel it out to the ship. Even if it does not catch all the oil exiting, the bowl extension will snag quite a bit and the oil will rise in the bowl straight to the suction pipe. A bowl catches much more and is much more forgiving than a straight tube.

[Larry Hough]

Crush the pipe closed used shaped explosive charges, assuming that the pipe will withstand the "crush" without fracturing.

Quickly implemented, fast and cheap.

[satish]

Reuters:
"Satish Nagarajaiah, professor in civil and mechanical engineering at Rice University in Houston said the siphon tool is unlikely to capture more than 15-20 percent of the oil."

Watch the only video animation of the oil spill getting sucked into the Loop Current and start heading towards Miami:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43GGdviGOjs&fmt=18

[loupgarous]

Barack Obama took more money from British Petroleum than any other US politician. Is the LA Times going to look into the Federal regulatory history on this drilling site? Several irregularities existed in the US government's inspections of the site, according to witnesses interviewed by CBS's "Sixty Minutes" program on Sunday, May 16th.

This is the Los Angeles Times' chance to stand alone among the mainstream media in investigating exactly how much slack paying Barack Obama's campaign expenses gets his campaign contributors in their daily operations - and how much the cozy relationship between Barack Obama and BP contributed to the incineration of 11 men and the worst environmental disaster in the history of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Los Angeles Times has in the past questioned the role of editorial and reportorial bias in covering important news stories - why not step forward from the pack and cover the role that BP's generosity to Barack Obama had in the seemingly lax inspection history of the Deepwater Horizon's last drilling job.

[omonubi]

"Federal" officials? Which ones? Unified Command is made up of WHO?

Something is very, very wrong here...

[Reaed]

So they succeeded in sticking a tiny straw into the gusher? Pardon me while I fail to cheer. What a joke.

[threeg3]

Bush -- a sense of modesty??? Like the phony carrier landing off the hostile coast of San Diego in his junior pilot flight suit? And the drumbeat of revisionist history continues unabated.

[Rolo Tomasi]

I love it, when a post reflects that Parallel Universe, other wise known as Fox News and Talk Radio ( "environmental whacko's probably caused the rig to explode. "What better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig?” Limbaugh asked.

Not BP or Halliburton, or TransOcean, with billions of liability at stake, even hinted that something like that occurred.

Obama, just like every other President, caved in to the Oil Lobby and had signed legislation opening up drilling again off the Atlantic Coast.

The same lobbying effort ( big oil) was able to convince law makers to not require a specific Blow Out preventer, as it would cost too much..( $500,000 per well.).

How all of this transmuted to Obama, 10% Unemployment and his "Ego" is mind boggling.

One would have hoped that the poster would have shown some concern for the actual impact of the spill, and offer some concrete constructive comments about the situation.....Nope....that takes independent thought......

I'm for off shore drilling, but only with revamped Federal guidelines and over sight.

As to the environmental damage. Incalcuable.
But according to Rush, oil and water are both natural substances, it will take care of iself....Hey Rush, and pals......GO SWIM IN IT......................

[Mark Bakic]

Please pass this information to others.

To stop the leak quickly and effectively, a clamp (similar to a surgeons artery clamp)( IE: hydraulic “Bear Trap”) should be deployed before the damaged sections of pipe. We have identified a few gate valves that could be quickly adapted to surround the pipe. The hydraulics can also be upgraded to forces that can “Pinch” the pipe sufficiently to stop the flow of oil. I have conceptual drawings and engineering. This system with the appropriate support could be in place within days. The pipe manufacturer needs to be contacted for crush specifications.

Approximate cost: 2M
Time-frame to apply: 2 weeks

After the pipe has been crushed off the vast majority of the oil leak should be stopped.

The second phase of the post disaster will be to use a tool called a “Mosquito” to tap into the remaining pipe and safely extract the oil to tankers at the surface. It has been estimated that 12-15 “Mosquitoes’” would be required to sustain a 21” pipe flow.

Approximate cost: 7M
Time-frame to apply: 2-4 weeks

Mark Bakic
Concept Engineer
940-435 9336

[Tom Wright]

I am a retired Firefighter Paramedic and I have an idea how to stop BP's oil leak. Make a giant intubation tube (Like the kind used in the medical field), insert it into the pipe, inflate the custom made heavy duty intubation balloon with nitrogen. This could stop the leak until they get a permanent fix. Kind of like a Combitube for oil spills.

[phil]

Change?, yes, from bad to worse and still hiding it all from the people;;

[jojo]

"Progress...being made, federal officials say"

Ring any bells amerika?

Look for the leak to be stopped somewhere around the time we leave Afghanistan and Iraq....

[Greg Maragos]

The one good thing about this mess is that it serves as a reality check for Obama's ego, which is bigger than the spill itself.

At least Bush had a sense of modesty about him. Obama doesn't. Unemployment is still at 10% nationally, and he still thinks the world of himself. This self-love affair has to end.

[Brian Pia, imagecpr.com]

British Petroleum has one thing working in its favor as it tries to dig itself out of a very deep PR and legal hole—the lack of one compelling image that will become symbolic of the actual destruction that may be occurring underwater in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Everybody fixates on the picture of the cormorant or the bird flailing around all covered with oil, and while that’s obviously sad to see, no one should assume there’s not similar things occurring in the open ocean,” said Andy Bowen, an oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in an interview with The Washington Post. “It’s not like the open ocean is irrelevant.”

As each day goes by, a dangerous environmental storm grows larger, much like a hurricane increasing in intensity. A fragile eco-system is at risk—everything from fish eggs, shrimp, dolphins, whales and sea turtles, to a multi-state area filled with newly unemployed commercial fishermen.

Muted images

In the weeks since the oil rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers, the images from the Gulf have been muted. They don’t provide a full picture of what’s really happening underwater.

Read more at www.imagecpr.com