4 ms·
The oil pressure is so high that a 5 mile tall mud (twice the density of water) needed to be pumped into the well, as its own pressure was not enough. The invol
by TeHCrAzY 16y ago
The oil pressure is so high that a 5 mile tall mud (twice the density of water) needed to be pumped into the well, as its own pressure was not enough. The involved forces are incredible.
- palish 16y agoCould you rephrase? (What is "a 5 mile tall mud"?)
- joe_the_user 16y agoColumn, I'm guessing. The mud gets pressure from being piped down from the surface - if it is twice the density of water, then that's the double to ambient pressure on the bottom. Of course, the failure of the top kill didn't necessarily come from an inability to get enough pressure but from the limits of how to pressure could be applied - but of course, we don't know for sure why the top killed failed and possibly neither does BP. It's miles into the ocean where methane-oxides become solid.
- TeHCrAzY 16y agoCorrect re. Column. I miss words sometimes, even when re-reading what I have written.
- Keyframe 16y agoI suspected pressure was too high, but how exactly high? Wouldn't a nuke blast essentially shut the vent with rocks? So there must be a threshold for how heavy that concrete slab should be. Also, what is '5 mile tall mud'? A column of mud 5 mile high (how wide, how dense) equivalent of pressure?
- ars 16y ago5,000 to 7,000 psi. At about twenty feet wide. If my calculations are right, you need about 30,000 metric tons of weight to stop it. And don't forget whatever you put down there will also float because of the water. So you need even more weight.
- Keyframe 16y agoThanks! That put it into a perspective for me. According to http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=titanic+weight http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=titanic+weight Titanic weight was 53,149 tons.