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I don't understand what makes fixing the leak so difficult. Could someone explain it to me? I genuinely want to know this.

by j_baker 16y ago

mkramlich 16y ago
Agreed. I do find it hard to believe that an industry which has been drilling oil in the ocean for decades and has been making billions of dollars in profits is somehow unable to figure out a reliable way of preventing this from happening, or least reliably preventing it from spreading once it does. Ultimately, it's oil leaking into water -- to an engineer's mind, it doesn't seem like rocket science to prevent it from happening and/or dampening it's effects by 90% or more. A thumbnail solution I can imagine involves, oh, I dunno, say a barrier of some kind, either already in place or that can be rapidly put into place in the first few days after the spill starts. In what universe of competent people (with decades and billions under their belt) could it go several weeks in the state it's been? Smells like gross incompetence and/or greed combined with disdain for their fellow citizens.
- Anechoic 16y ago
  A thumbnail solution I can imagine involves, oh, I dunno, say a barrier of some kind, either already in place There was one, namely the blowout preventer. It failed or that can be rapidly put into place in the first few days after the spill starts. That's much easier said than done when you're talking about oil coming out at high pressure, and uneven topography all at a depth of 1 mile under the ocean.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - pyre 16y ago
    > uneven topography all at a depth of 1 mile under the ocean. How was this stuff built up in the first place? (honest question)
    - Anechoic 16y ago
      Millions of years of seismic activity, sediment deposition, and high pressures.
      - pyre 16y ago
        ... forms pipelines under rocks?
        Anechoic 16y ago
        Sorry, since you quoted my line about the topography, I thought that's what you were asking about. The pipeline is formed by drilling long holes (using bentonite slurry to keep the hole from collapsing on itself), building a long pipeline use threaded or welded segments, and slipping the pipe down the whole. It's like well digging, but on a much larger scale.
    - mkramlich 16y ago
      You're asking about how did they manage to build the platform, lay the pipes, drill, put everything into place, etc., right? That's a good question. It seems like they spent a lot of time and money figuring how to get the oil flowing. The question is, did they also spend enough time/money addressing how to prevent and react to failure scenarios?
  - camccann 16y ago
    It's a well known principle that, given a brief problem description, the less a software engineer knows about the problem domain, the easier they will judge the solution to be.
    - mkramlich 16y ago
      funny! :) however, being a software engineer doesn't preclude one from being right or having useful insight within any other realm of human activity.
      - nostrademons 16y ago
        It's a general rule about most people. Almost all problems look simple from 5000 feet up; it's only when you try and work out the details and get it actually working that the difficulty becomes obvious.
        mkramlich 16y ago
        Yep but it's another general rule that many problems look insurmountable when there has been insufficient analysis, brainstorming, experimentation, testing, and time/energy/money spent on trying to solve that problem. I for one have gotten the impression from this BP incident, and from everything I've read, that that is what happened in this case. There was even an interview with a so-called expert who helped work on the Exxon Valdez cleanup who said he's been shocked at how little has changed since then in terms of advancement in technology, process, etc.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    Agree it's easier said than done. But there's a class of problems I find real hard to believe cannot be solved/addressed when one has had decades and billions to work on it, ahead of time, and when the same species has been able to design computers, spaceships, skyscrapers, etc.
    - tedunangst 16y ago
      The species has built a lot of computers that didn't work, spaceships that blew up, and skyscrapers that have fallen down.
harshpotatoes 16y ago
From my understanding (I think we all know what it means if somebody on the internet says 'my understanding'): There is a giant pipe connecting to regions with liquids in them. Liquid flows from region to the other because that is what nature says it will do. The way you stop the leak is by closing that pipe, without creating any other holes connecting the regions. This pipe did have a shutoff valve for exactly this situation, but it failed and will not activate. So basically your option is to squeeze the steel pipe shut, and hopefully this doesn't weak the pipe causing it to break. Also, apparently the pipe is mostly covered by rock, so somehow you have to work around that. I'm sure we've all tried to stop the water from coming out of the garden hose by putting a kink in the hose. It's like that, except now you can't reach the hose because it's under lots of rock, and really far under water. You could put your thumb over the top, but there is too much pressure.
nostrademons 16y ago
There's also the issue of the leak being under 5000 feet of water. The deepest-diving military submarines can only go down to about 2000 feet; any more than that, and you need specialized deep submergence vehicles. Very few of these can dive to 5000 feet; those that can are usually oceanographic research vessels that can't carry the payloads needed to repair things. And you can forget about sending a human out in a diving suit; the pressure (or more specifically, the decompression process) would kill them.
- nradov 16y ago
  No, it is the pressure that would kill a human before decompression ever became a factor. Below ~2000ft, even hydrogen/helium/oxygen breathing gas mixes become so dense and viscous that human lungs aren't strong enough to breathe properly. http://www.us.elsevierhealth.com/product.jsp?sid=&isbn=9780702025716&lid=&iid= http://www.us.elsevierhealth.com/product.jsp?sid=&isbn=9...
- tzs 16y ago
  "those that can are usually oceanographic research vessels that can't carry the payloads needed to repair things" I don't see why they'd need to carry the payload in/on the vessels. Couldn't the payload be dropped or lowered from above?
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    Depends how much finessing it needs. Say they went with the "drop a big dome over it" idea that's been suggested. The sea floor is uneven; if they want the solution to last they need a tight seal that can withstand significant pressure. I don't know the dynamics of underwater concrete jobs, but I'd imagine you can't just pump concrete down the sides of the dome and hope that it ends up in the right place.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- billswift 16y ago
  Actually, there are almost no deep diving submersibles left in service. They have been almost completely replaced by tethered "robots" (actually remote controlled vehicles) in scientific and industrial (oil, pipeline, and cables) use because they are much cheaper and can do all the observation and light collection that submersibles used to do. Unfortunately, they are also less flexible.
j-g-faustus 16y ago
There is a shutoff valve at the bottom of the sea, another valve on the drilling rig at the sea surface, and a pipe connecting them. The way you close off a well is by a) closing either of the valves or b) pumping a few tons of sand and cement down the pipe to block the drilling hole. Here the top valve failed (with the first explosion) and the bottom valve doesn't work. The pipe broke when the platform sank, and without a connection to the drilling hole the well can't be blocked in the normal fashion. Plus it's too deep underwater for divers or normal submarines. Without a connection to the well or a working valve, you're basically screwed. The only certain way to stop the leak at this stage is to drill a new hole at an angle to the first one, a relief well, then you have a connection you can use to pump in the sand and cement to block the well beneath the sea bottom. They have started the process of doing that, the only problem is that it will take months. Fixes that are known to work in shallower water, like the dome to contain the spill so it could be pumped up, didn't work here - it got clogged up by deep water crystals. Drilling at these depths is still largely experimental, so there's not much prior experience to draw on. Maybe they will find a solution at some point, but besides drilling the relief well no fix is know at this time - it's basically trial and error.

I don't understand what makes fixing the leak so difficult. Could someone explain it to me? I genuinely want to know this.

by j_baker 16y ago

I don't understand what makes fixing the leak so difficult. Could someone explain it to me? I genuinely want to know this.

mkramlich 16y ago

Agreed. I do find it hard to believe that an industry which has been drilling oil in the ocean for decades and has been making billions of dollars in profits is somehow unable to figure out a reliable way of preventing this from happening, or least reliably preventing it from spreading once it does. Ultimately, it's oil leaking into water -- to an engineer's mind, it doesn't seem like rocket science to prevent it from happening and/or dampening it's effects by 90% or more. A thumbnail solution I can imagine involves, oh, I dunno, say a barrier of some kind, either already in place or that can be rapidly put into place in the first few days after the spill starts. In what universe of competent people (with decades and billions under their belt) could it go several weeks in the state it's been? Smells like gross incompetence and/or greed combined with disdain for their fellow citizens.

Anechoic 16y ago
A thumbnail solution I can imagine involves, oh, I dunno, say a barrier of some kind, either already in place There was one, namely the blowout preventer. It failed or that can be rapidly put into place in the first few days after the spill starts. That's much easier said than done when you're talking about oil coming out at high pressure, and uneven topography all at a depth of 1 mile under the ocean.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- pyre 16y ago
  > uneven topography all at a depth of 1 mile under the ocean. How was this stuff built up in the first place? (honest question)
  - Anechoic 16y ago
    Millions of years of seismic activity, sediment deposition, and high pressures.
    - pyre 16y ago
      ... forms pipelines under rocks?
      - Anechoic 16y ago
        Sorry, since you quoted my line about the topography, I thought that's what you were asking about. The pipeline is formed by drilling long holes (using bentonite slurry to keep the hole from collapsing on itself), building a long pipeline use threaded or welded segments, and slipping the pipe down the whole. It's like well digging, but on a much larger scale.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    You're asking about how did they manage to build the platform, lay the pipes, drill, put everything into place, etc., right? That's a good question. It seems like they spent a lot of time and money figuring how to get the oil flowing. The question is, did they also spend enough time/money addressing how to prevent and react to failure scenarios?
- camccann 16y ago
  It's a well known principle that, given a brief problem description, the less a software engineer knows about the problem domain, the easier they will judge the solution to be.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    funny! :) however, being a software engineer doesn't preclude one from being right or having useful insight within any other realm of human activity.
    - nostrademons 16y ago
      It's a general rule about most people. Almost all problems look simple from 5000 feet up; it's only when you try and work out the details and get it actually working that the difficulty becomes obvious.
      - mkramlich 16y ago
        Yep but it's another general rule that many problems look insurmountable when there has been insufficient analysis, brainstorming, experimentation, testing, and time/energy/money spent on trying to solve that problem. I for one have gotten the impression from this BP incident, and from everything I've read, that that is what happened in this case. There was even an interview with a so-called expert who helped work on the Exxon Valdez cleanup who said he's been shocked at how little has changed since then in terms of advancement in technology, process, etc.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  Agree it's easier said than done. But there's a class of problems I find real hard to believe cannot be solved/addressed when one has had decades and billions to work on it, ahead of time, and when the same species has been able to design computers, spaceships, skyscrapers, etc.
  - tedunangst 16y ago
    The species has built a lot of computers that didn't work, spaceships that blew up, and skyscrapers that have fallen down.

harshpotatoes 16y ago

From my understanding (I think we all know what it means if somebody on the internet says 'my understanding'): There is a giant pipe connecting to regions with liquids in them. Liquid flows from region to the other because that is what nature says it will do. The way you stop the leak is by closing that pipe, without creating any other holes connecting the regions. This pipe did have a shutoff valve for exactly this situation, but it failed and will not activate. So basically your option is to squeeze the steel pipe shut, and hopefully this doesn't weak the pipe causing it to break. Also, apparently the pipe is mostly covered by rock, so somehow you have to work around that. I'm sure we've all tried to stop the water from coming out of the garden hose by putting a kink in the hose. It's like that, except now you can't reach the hose because it's under lots of rock, and really far under water. You could put your thumb over the top, but there is too much pressure.

nostrademons 16y ago

There's also the issue of the leak being under 5000 feet of water. The deepest-diving military submarines can only go down to about 2000 feet; any more than that, and you need specialized deep submergence vehicles. Very few of these can dive to 5000 feet; those that can are usually oceanographic research vessels that can't carry the payloads needed to repair things. And you can forget about sending a human out in a diving suit; the pressure (or more specifically, the decompression process) would kill them.

nradov 16y ago
No, it is the pressure that would kill a human before decompression ever became a factor. Below ~2000ft, even hydrogen/helium/oxygen breathing gas mixes become so dense and viscous that human lungs aren't strong enough to breathe properly. http://www.us.elsevierhealth.com/product.jsp?sid=&isbn=9780702025716&lid=&iid= http://www.us.elsevierhealth.com/product.jsp?sid=&isbn=9...
tzs 16y ago
"those that can are usually oceanographic research vessels that can't carry the payloads needed to repair things" I don't see why they'd need to carry the payload in/on the vessels. Couldn't the payload be dropped or lowered from above?
- nostrademons 16y ago
  Depends how much finessing it needs. Say they went with the "drop a big dome over it" idea that's been suggested. The sea floor is uneven; if they want the solution to last they need a tight seal that can withstand significant pressure. I don't know the dynamics of underwater concrete jobs, but I'd imagine you can't just pump concrete down the sides of the dome and hope that it ends up in the right place.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
billswift 16y ago
Actually, there are almost no deep diving submersibles left in service. They have been almost completely replaced by tethered "robots" (actually remote controlled vehicles) in scientific and industrial (oil, pipeline, and cables) use because they are much cheaper and can do all the observation and light collection that submersibles used to do. Unfortunately, they are also less flexible.

j-g-faustus 16y ago

There is a shutoff valve at the bottom of the sea, another valve on the drilling rig at the sea surface, and a pipe connecting them. The way you close off a well is by a) closing either of the valves or b) pumping a few tons of sand and cement down the pipe to block the drilling hole. Here the top valve failed (with the first explosion) and the bottom valve doesn't work. The pipe broke when the platform sank, and without a connection to the drilling hole the well can't be blocked in the normal fashion. Plus it's too deep underwater for divers or normal submarines. Without a connection to the well or a working valve, you're basically screwed. The only certain way to stop the leak at this stage is to drill a new hole at an angle to the first one, a relief well, then you have a connection you can use to pump in the sand and cement to block the well beneath the sea bottom. They have started the process of doing that, the only problem is that it will take months. Fixes that are known to work in shallower water, like the dome to contain the spill so it could be pumped up, didn't work here - it got clogged up by deep water crystals. Drilling at these depths is still largely experimental, so there's not much prior experience to draw on. Maybe they will find a solution at some point, but besides drilling the relief well no fix is know at this time - it's basically trial and error.