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I'm no downhole engineer, so this is worth exactly nothing....

But oil in formation is small drops trapped in cracks and fissures in the rock, mixed with water. Very few of those fisures would have direct, upward access to the well casing and the ocean above. You need flow to move that oil along to the well opening. Something has to be making that fluid flow. Maybe there is some natural cause for it in that region or something. Like a magma pocket pushing up on the crust, or maybe all the oilrigs they have lost there recently have pushed down on the seabed enough to squeeze it up....

The wind has been strong too making the spread worse. They are responding with booms and skimmers http://www.pcs.gr.jp/p-shikizai/syurui-e.html which seem to cover such small areas, especially since this is spreading so far and fast with wind and current. Its so sad -its breeding season for lots of aquatic creatures now.

BuzZz wrote: I am not sure about US regulations, but here in Canada, you must have B.O.P.'s (Blow Out Preventer... basically an auto shut-off) on every wellhead. I would bet that the US requires them too. But that wellhead would have been on the platform that sunk, not on the ocean floor. Once that wellhead went deep six, so did any control over that well.

I read this morning that there was a blow-out preventer installed on the ocean floor for just this reason but it didn't do it's job. If you own any stock in Cameron International Corp (the manufacturer of the device), you might want to sell it........two weeks ago.

[quote="High_Side
I read this morning that there was a blow-out preventer installed on the ocean floor for just this reason but it didn't do it's job. If you own any stock in Cameron International Corp (the manufacturer of the device), you might want to sell it........two weeks ago.[/quote]


That would make sense. Though I've messed with enough BOP's on dry land to wonder how such a device is suposed to be made to be foolproof 20 000 leagues under the sea..... Well, I guess it isn't.

This here Prairie Boy will keep his feet firmly on dry land, thank you very much.....

The Irony in which if find myself emersed in, is that I cant stand oil companies, and I work for one of the largest Oil Field Service companies. Irony or hypocritical?
Anyway, the enviromental impact from this disaster is what devastates me. I remember the Valdez Disaster and the enviromental impact on western coast of US and Canada. I truly feel for the people that are directly related to this catastrophic event. Not to mention the lives lost on the rig, but the mammals, birds, humans that will be indirectly affected by this.
When are we going to wise up? We can put men out in space, but cannot sufficiently build safety devices in order to eliminate these types of mistakes from happening.
BP wants to start off-shore drilling in the Beaufort Sea (Canadian Waters) up in the arctic. If our politician have any mental capacity at all, they will tell BP to get stuffed. I really hope the Inuit have enough say in the matter to dissuade this from happening. That area is their hunting grounds. This is a place that is the least affected by humans. The Inuit still live in harmony with nature for the most part.
THE WHOLE THING MAKES ME SICK.

Tragic, but not unexpected...there is no such thing as foolproof, there is ' always ' the chance that something unexpected could go wrong.

The question here is whether there was negligence involved that improved the odds of something going wrong.

It was either an unfortunate tragic accident...or a criminal act.

On a side note: I remember reading back during the Exxon incident that scientists had developed an oil eating organism...and supposedly they even tested it in Alaska shortly after the spill...apparently this organism is environmentally safe and, like any organism, biodegrades.
Haven't heard of it since.

A little trip down Google lane and here it is, from our friends at MIT Labs:

In research that could pave the way for new chemical systems to treat toxic wastes in the environment, MIT scientists are working to understand how certain bacteria digest oil, PCBs and other carbon-based compounds, especially methane (natural gas).

Specifically, the scientists are working to determine the molecular structure of the protein system that allows such a diet. They also hope to work out a kind of "motion picture" of how the reactions involved proceed.

"Once we learn the fundamentals of how nature does it, we can attempt to design simpler chemical molecules that could treat [carbon-based] wastes in contaminated water, chemical dumps, or other places where living organisms couldn't survive," said Stephen Lippard, professor of chemistry and principal researcher in the work.

Although scientists have known about methane-eating bacteria for some time-three years ago related organisms were used to clean up oil from stretches of beaches in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill-they don't know exactly how the bacteria use oxygen and iron to convert such surprising food into alcohol (methanol), water, and carbon dioxide, the principal byproducts.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1992/bacteria-0401.html

So...why can't this be used in this situation...and if it isn't, why not.

Diogenes wrote:Tragic, but not unexpected...there is no such thing as foolproof, there is ' always ' the chance that something unexpected could go wrong.

The question here is whether there was negligence involved that improved the odds of something going wrong.

It was either an unfortunate tragic accident...or a criminal act.

i love to read from people who make since. i'm not saying that i'm happy it happened, but our world is resilient. it might be the worst spill in u.s. history, but it's not the worst in history. there was one in mexico about 30-40 years ago that lasted for 9 months. talking about alaska, if someone went and visited the place now and didn't know about exxon, they'd never know by looking. oil seeps out of the ocean floor every day. not in these quantities in one spot, but it does happen. and for us to think that accidents will never happen is just an impossible world to live in. they'll learn from this and technology will improve. this spill will get cleaned up and the world will recover.

what makes me mad in the whole situation is the little attention that has been given the 11 PEOPLE who died when this happened. i recognize right now the focus is fixing the leak... but these were people. not birds, or fish, or shrimp... people.

dean owens wrote: ....there was one in mexico about 30-40 years ago that lasted for 9 months. talking about alaska, if someone went and visited the place now and didn't know about exxon, they'd never know by looking. oil seeps out of the ocean floor every day. not in these quantities in one spot, but it does happen. and for us to think that accidents will never happen is just an impossible world to live in. they'll learn from this and technology will improve. this spill will get cleaned up and the world will recover.

Interesting that the drilling company in 1979 spill was the pre-curser to TransOcean....the same company as was drilling at the BP spill. Seems we haven't learned a whole lot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHmhxpQEGPo

i don't know what we've learned. but all the drilling that goes on every day and it's been 30 years. i wish we could have accident rates like that for driving.

[edit]: just finished the video. that's pretty interesting. amazing how much things stay the same. thanks for linking to it.