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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 f
by 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 agoMillions of years of seismic activity, sediment deposition, and high pressures.
- pyre 16y ago... forms pipelines under rocks?
- Anechoic 16y agoSorry, 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 agoYou'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 agoIt'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 agofunny! :) 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 agoIt'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 agoYep 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 agoAgree 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 agoThe species has built a lot of computers that didn't work, spaceships that blew up, and skyscrapers that have fallen down.