4 ms·

I would think that some sort of suction could draw up enough mixture to minimize the problem. For example, 5,000 barrels a day is 145 gallons per minute. ($3

by waivej 16y ago

I would think that some sort of suction could draw up enough mixture to minimize the problem. For example, 5,000 barrels a day is 145 gallons per minute. ($3500 = 10hp 145gpm pump) I would think that they could hook a giant pump onto one or more pipes and collect it somehow. At 145gpm, it would take 7000 years to fill up one of the super tankers. Likewise, I wonder if they could put a heater on the top hat pipe. Maybe the oil is thick at that temp/pressure. Or maybe there are ice crystals, but it seems like they could solve that somehow. We have wires up North to thaw frozen pipes. Shop vacs have larger diameter hoses to not get clogged so easily. Maybe they could bundle lots of smaller pipes together. Ironically, I accidentally poured a few cups of oil into my truck's coolant reservoir. I thought it would all float to the surface, but lots of it just stayed at the bottom. Blowing bubbles into the tank made it float up sort of like the bubble "pumps" in a fish aquarium. At this point, they should just create a contest and let school kids come up with ideas.

superk 16y ago
Firstly latest estimates are between 12k and 19k barrels x day (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30spill.html?pagewanted=2&hp http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30spill.html?pagewanted...). That's 350 - 554 gpm. If a super oil tanker can hold 2m barrels you'd fill one up with greasy, slushy water in between 105 - 166 days (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_tanker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_tanker).
- JimmyL 16y ago
  So why not do it? Find a few empty supertankers (which I'm certain BP can round up if they need to), mount a bunch of large industrial pumps on top of each one, plant them strategically around the leak site, and start sucking up the oil-water mixture from the surface (and stop with the dispersant - we want the oil to stay together in this scenario). Once they're full in a week or so, bring another three or four supertankers in to take over. Meanwhile, send the full ones to a nearby port, offload the oil-water mixture, and deal with processing it to separate out the oil and the water there. We won't get all the oil; if we're lucky, maybe 75%. But whatever that percentage is, it's miles better than what we're getting now. This is apparently what was done in the early nineties off the coast of Saudi Arabia when they had a similar problem. I'm not saying this would be cheap - supertankers and pumps don't grow on trees - but BP needs to fix this and show they're making a good efforts. Plus, you could probably recover a good deal of the oil as a part of the onshore processing and sell it like any other oil.
  - superk 16y ago
    Yeah... your comment about supertankers growing on trees is way understated in regards to BP being able to round up a few empty ones in less time than it will take to drill the relief wells.
- waivej 16y ago
  I didn't realize 2b metric tons is the total of all that carriers move in a year. Eek, off by 1000. (I should get some sleep.) BTW: I think it's curious to compare the 19,000 bpd with the 645,113 bpd that the Alaskan pipeline moved in April. http://www.alyeska-pipe.com/Default.asp http://www.alyeska-pipe.com/Default.asp I can't visualize how much we must be consuming/burning every day.

by waivej 16y ago

superk 16y ago

Firstly latest estimates are between 12k and 19k barrels x day (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30spill.html?pagewanted=2&hp http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30spill.html?pagewanted...). That's 350 - 554 gpm. If a super oil tanker can hold 2m barrels you'd fill one up with greasy, slushy water in between 105 - 166 days (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_tanker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_tanker).

JimmyL 16y ago
So why not do it? Find a few empty supertankers (which I'm certain BP can round up if they need to), mount a bunch of large industrial pumps on top of each one, plant them strategically around the leak site, and start sucking up the oil-water mixture from the surface (and stop with the dispersant - we want the oil to stay together in this scenario). Once they're full in a week or so, bring another three or four supertankers in to take over. Meanwhile, send the full ones to a nearby port, offload the oil-water mixture, and deal with processing it to separate out the oil and the water there. We won't get all the oil; if we're lucky, maybe 75%. But whatever that percentage is, it's miles better than what we're getting now. This is apparently what was done in the early nineties off the coast of Saudi Arabia when they had a similar problem. I'm not saying this would be cheap - supertankers and pumps don't grow on trees - but BP needs to fix this and show they're making a good efforts. Plus, you could probably recover a good deal of the oil as a part of the onshore processing and sell it like any other oil.
- superk 16y ago
  Yeah... your comment about supertankers growing on trees is way understated in regards to BP being able to round up a few empty ones in less time than it will take to drill the relief wells.
waivej 16y ago
I didn't realize 2b metric tons is the total of all that carriers move in a year. Eek, off by 1000. (I should get some sleep.) BTW: I think it's curious to compare the 19,000 bpd with the 645,113 bpd that the Alaskan pipeline moved in April. http://www.alyeska-pipe.com/Default.asp http://www.alyeska-pipe.com/Default.asp I can't visualize how much we must be consuming/burning every day.