After six methods for stopping the [Deepwater Horizon] leak failed, BP is now trying a seventh method: “cut and cap.”
[snip]
If this seventh attempt fails, the next option will be to wait on one of two relief wells to intercept and block the original well. This is considered the best hope for permanently stopping the flow, but those wells won’t be in place until August at the soonest. Some predict that it could take until Christmas.
But Kaku thinks that even those predictions could be too optimistic.
“You would have to win the lottery to get on the first try an exact, an exact meeting at the bottom of the well in order to pump cement to shut it off,” Kaku told NBC’s Matt Lauer Wednesday.
If the attempt fails, the drill will be reversed, the hole will be filled with cement and they will try again.
“You have to do this over and over again until you get it just right,” Kaku said. “It takes many tries. So August is optimistic.”
“So this could be spewing oil for months. Could it last for a year?” asked Lauer.
“It could last for years, plural. Okay? If everything fails and all these different kinds of relief wells don’t work, it could be spewing stuff into the Gulf until we have dead zones, entire dead zones in the Gulf. For years,” Kaku said.
This video is from NBC’s Today Show, broadcast June 2, 2010.
PORT FOURCHON, La. The risky effort to contain the nation’s worst oil spill hit a snag Wednesday when a diamond-edged saw became stuck in a thick pipe on a blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said the goal was to free the saw and finish the cut later in the day. This is the latest attempt to contain, not plug, the gusher. The best chance at stopping the leak is a relief well, which is at least two months from completion.
“I don’t think the issue is whether or not we can make the second cut. It’s about how fine we can make it, how smooth we can make it,” Allen said.
The saw and framework have now been freed from the BOP’s riser pipe, from what I have watched on the live feed, and are being hauled back up to the surface. Here’s the photo sequence I took. The first photo is from last night, which shows the pipe saw in action on the BOP riser. I added contrast to these pictures.
The EPA on May 10 authorized BP to use two dispersants-COREXIT 9500 and COREXIT EC9527A, distributed by the Tennessee and Texas units of Nalco Co. in Illinois. BP had already applied those products at the spill site for nearly two weeks. As concerns about COREXIT grew, however, the EPA asked BP on May 19 to find a less-toxic dispersant within 24 hours, and to start using its replacement in 72 hours. BP answered that it wanted to stick with COREXIT.
Frustrated EPA and Coast Guard officials said the company’s response was inadequate, and told BP to start reducing its use of surface dispersants. But in a decision questioned by some scientists, officials said BP’s subsea or underwater dispersant use, authorized in mid-May, could continue.
Last week, the EPA and the Coast Guard said that they would start calling the shots about BP’s dispersant use and that COREXIT applications could be scaled back by as much as 50% to 80%.
COREXIT should be scaled back to 0% —
Especially since BETTER options are available NOW.
I have been keeping up with some interest with the situation in the Gulf. All attempts to staunch the flow of oil from the damaged riser from the well have failed, and as we speak, another attempt is being tried, cutting off the riser to find unbent metal and essentially pushing a straw with a cork on it into the interior of the riser.
That might work, but I suspect that the pressure from the methane dissolved in the oil will make it difficult. Perhaps if a pair of flanges could be welded onto the riser and the pipe, and then bolted down to secure them, it might work.
BP and Your Federal Government, welcome you to the Gulf of Mexico’s Dia de los Cortadores de Pipa celebration for the first day of Hurricane Season.
His Tools Are Bigger Than Your Tools
And the sooner he can get this done:
ROV moving under the BOP with headlights as pincer arm prepares to grasp pipe for the saw to cut
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June 1, 2010. Tues afternoon. BP Starts Cutting the Pipes coming out of the BOP of the Deepwater Horizon. Oil spill of the Deepwater Horizon, day 41.
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The Sooner he can go on to getting his life back.
Poor Baby. BP CEO Tony Hayward laments the distraction that 2 million gallons of oil a day can cause when it hits our nation’s biggest marine nursery for subtropical fish, mammals, and birds.
video transcript:
BP CEO Tony Hayward: “We’re sorry.
We’re sorry for the massive disruption this caused to their lives. I…. we’re…. there’s no on who wants this thing over more than I do. I want my life back .”
narrator: Life here may never be the same. The water and all that lives in and around (shows oiled pelican) could be harmed for years. So on this holiday weekend some people in New Orleans protested.
bullhorn: we’re trying to clean up this mess
woman with umbrella: I’m filled with anxiety every night and I hope that BP executives feel the same way, unfortunately I doubt that they do.
Meanwhile, Rear Admiral Mary Landry, lately famous for shepherding the Lost, er, BP’s hapless spokesperson Doug Suttles, thru the official press conferences, has been put back on duty with the Coast Guard to prepare for Hurricane Season. http://www.deepwaterhorizonres…
Just as Attorney General Eric Holder announces a criminal investigation into what BP was doing, and the President issues another sternly worded statement.
“We will closely examine the actions of those involved in the spill. If we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be extremely forceful in our response.” Holder said in New Orleans.
The president said that if laws are insufficient, they’ll be changed. He said that if government oversight wasn’t tough enough, that will change, too.
Laws, schmaws. What about policy. Who opened more coastal offshore areas to bidding leases? And enforcement of existing safety checks. Who’s MMS signed off on the well design ?
This from the same guy who couldn’t find anybody doing anything criminally wrong with Jack Abramoff’s old unindicted co conspirators, nor from the mercenary and CIA rendition & torture crews since his boss has been in office. Did I mention that Abramoff was a long time lobbyist for foreign energy interests ?
It’s all good !
Pass the candles. Prepare the offerings.
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edit update 5:30 pm PDT:
Per the Alabama Dept of Health pdf link in the first comment, oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill has now officially reached the coastline of Alabama, near Dauphin Island, closing the offshore oyster beds, and fishing grounds of that state. You can beach, but don’t get in the water or swim, and seek medical advice if you have trouble breathing. They didn’t say what legal advice to seek if you have trouble earning a living.
Warning. Not. Snark. BP has hired the former press secretary for ex VP Dick Cheney to be their new spokesperson for US media relations. Anne Womack Kolton, formerly of the Brunswick Group , also defended Dick Cheney’s secret Energy Task Force, http://emptywheel.firedoglake…. and ran public affairs in the Dept of Energy under George W Bush.
It’s no secret. I, who have devoted much of my professional life to defending people accused of horrendous crimes; I, who generally feel that nobody should ever go to prison; I, who have spent decades fighting against state killing; I confess. I want to see BP executives indicted, perp walked in New Orleans in handcuffs before a howling and pressing media, convicted by juries and then locked up. Locked up for a very long time. Like Bernie Madoff.
I don’t care particularly what federal and/or state crimes the BP and Transocean and MMS folks have committed. I want them to be given a full and fair trial in a federal court, and I want them imprisoned. For a very long time. I want them to be an example that this kind of environmental destruction will never be tolerated in a civilized society. There, I’ve said it.
And the good news for me, and for you if you feel this way, is that apparently the current administration has finally decided to move in the direction of criminal prosecutions. It took long enough. It only took 53 days of spillage and a world record, man made environmental catastrophe. Goodness, even WFAN Sports Talk Radio in NYC today was complaining about BP and the spill and the tepid federal response. So finally, today, at long last, the administration is at last starting to pursue the criminals who have attempted to murder an entire ocean and all of the life in it and surrounding it.
PORT FOURCHON, La. – Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that federal authorities have opened criminal and civil investigations into the nation’s worst oil spill, and BP lost billions in market value when shares dropped in the first trading day since the company failed yet again to plug the gusher.
Investors presumably realized the best chance to stop the leak was months away and there was no end in sight to the cleanup. As BP settled in for the long-term, Holder announced the criminal probe, though he would not specify the companies or individuals that might be targeted.
“We will closely examine the actions of those involved in the spill. If we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be extremely forceful in our response,” Holder said in New Orleans.
On Thursday, U.S. Geological Survey director Marcia McNutt announced that the Flow Rate Technical Group — a panel of scientists from government and academia — had determined that the overall best initial estimate for the rate of flow from the leak was between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels of oil per day.
But it was impossible for members of the team that analyzed the oil plume video to estimate the upper boundary of the oil spilled, according to the Ira Leifer, a researcher at the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Steven Wereley, a researcher at Purdue University.
Wereley and Leifer were both members of that team, and Leifer participated in the satellite image analysis as well. Both researchers say that the seven minutes of video that BP provided to the plume team was not sufficient to estimate the upper boundary of the amount of oil — only to give a lower-end estimate.
“What everyone on the panel agreed was that due to the low-quality data BP provided to us, it would be irresponsible and unscientific to estimate an upper bound to the emission,” said Leifer. “So what we presented in the [plume team] report is a range of expert opinions on what the lower bound is.”
Wereley said he was surprised to see the estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels and was “disappointed” with the way that the press release was phrased.
“I was really confused when I read the press release yesterday,” he said. “I had to read it several times.”
So the figures which are quoted all over the media with the phony appearance of upper and lower bounds, “between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels of oil per day,” really only apply to the lower bound, and the best independent estimate of the upper bound remains the figure which Professor Steve Werely provided for NPR on May 20:
100,000 barrels per day, and at 42 gallons per barrel, that’s….
4,000,000 gallons per day.
If we split the difference between that upper bound and the lower bound from the USGS, we arrive at a middle-of-the-road estimate…
60,000 barrels per day, and that’s…
2,400,000 gallons per day.
And that produces a middle-of-the-road estimate that the total amount of oil which Deepwater Horizon has already dumped into the Gulf of Mexico in 42 days is about…
100,000,000 gallons already!
That’s almost ten times as much as the Exxon Valdez, but what the heck!
The Fair Elections Now Act would set up a public financing system for qualified congressional candidates.
Public campaign financing would break big money’s stranglehold on our government, by helping candidates to run competitive campaigns without taking money from corporate lobbyists and PACs.
Many of America’s problems can be traced to our poorly regulated campaign finance system – where candidates for Congress take money from wealthy special interests in return for political favors.
The BP oil spill disaster is just one example of the harm caused by big money in politics. The oil industry’s political contributions helped BP avoid having to install crucial safety features on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that could have stopped the spill.
Outrageously, BP may avoid paying for the damage it caused thanks to a liability cap passed by Congress after the devastating 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
It’s not hard to understand why Congress lets the oil companies have their way – the oil and gas industry gave a whopping $22.9 million to congressional candidates in 2008, and has already given $9.7 million in the 2010 election cycle.
Elected officials should be accountable only to the voters and the public good – not big corporations scheming behind the scenes to purchase political outcomes.
James Carville has been all over the news lashing out at Obama for not being strong enough in his response to the BP oil disaster. And with the news that the oil geyser will continue spewing its stuff until August, I don’t blame the man. He is, after all, from Louisiana.
But for some reason I’m not convinced he’s being completely sincere. In fact, Colombia held a presidential election yesterday and (this may seem somewhat bizarre if you don’t know much about him) Carville actually helped the establishment candidate who wants to encourage “foreign investment,” at a time when BP is considering offshore drilling in Colombia’s waters.
A political guru, frequent CNN pundit and a personality who was featured in the well known documentary The War Room, Carville moves in powerful circles in the U.S. What’s less commonly known, however, is that Carville is also a virtual kingmaker in Latin America — indeed, his professional contacts have ranged from Mexico’s Ernesto Zedillo to Brazil’s Fernando Enrique Cardoso to many others.
VENICE, La. – Disputing scientists’ claims of large oil plumes suspended underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC’s chief executive on Sunday said the company has largely narrowed the focus of its cleanup to surface slicks rolling into Louisiana’s coastal marshes.
During a tour of a BP PLC staging area for cleanup workers, CEO Tony Hayward said the company’s sampling showed “no evidence” that oil was suspended in large masses beneath the surface. He didn’t elaborate on how the testing was done.
Hayward said that oil’s natural tendency is to rise to the surface, and any oil found underwater was in the process of working its way up.
“The oil is on the surface,” Hayward said. “There aren’t any plumes.”
