We received a very interesting “hack” today from our good friend [Jonny Dryer] that really got us thinking, but first a little background.
For those that live only inside of a box on top of a mountain (we know who you are), there was an explosion of a British Petroleum oil rig about 40 miles southeast of Venice, LA. Being proclaimed by Carol Browner as “probably the biggest environmental disaster” – stated a month after the accident.
And the oil is still spewing. Now, we’re not ones for criticizing how this event is being handled; no, we left it to the experts.
Back to our point, [Jonny Dryer’s] sent us his plan for slowing the oil spill, by using liquid nitrogen, pretty genius if you ask us. And we were wondering what possible solutions other readers had come up with? Share your thoughts on this situation in the comments.
Why not just a huge (width and height), weighted upside down funnel attached to a mile long tube with an above-sea-level vaccum pump, sucking up all the oil out of the tube… Even if it only sucked up 70, 80, 50, 30% of that oil… Why the f**!(@ not? The oil is spraying out, have a thousand horsepower pump suck it up faster than it can come out, or even slower; who cares, its better than it is.
Weld the pipe shut by running bead around the lip of the pipe, slowly making it narrower, then seal it. Shouldnt be that hard to retrofit one of the robots with welding ability. That will work.
If the pipe is 21″, why couldn’t a tapered pole like device be manufactured perhaps 30 or so feet long with the top diameter approximately 21″ The robot could guide the point into the cut off ruptured pipe and lowered to gradually shut off the flow. whatever pressure is required would be attached to the top of the pole. Basically this idea would be like shoving a tapered stick into a garden hose until the flow stopped.
I’m thinking many making suggestions haven’t been keeping up with the news very well, as their suggestions are so similar to failed efforts so far. Last I read BP is planning to take off the hat the well is now wearing so it can try on a new hat, but I hadn’t heard the name of the new hat to be modeled.