what will happen when a hurricane hits Gulf spill?

Discussion in 'All Things Boats & Boating' started by Squidly-Diddly, May 23, 2010.

  1. Squidly-Diddly
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    Squidly-Diddly Senior Member

  2. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

  3. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Wouldn't it be nice if life were so simple. Unfortunately, this spill is pouring out of the ocean bottom over a mile down; there are oil plumes many miles long spreading from it thousands of feet below the surface before they gradually start surfacing. What good is a magic supertanker going to be in such a situation?

    BP is desperately trying to contain and stop this oil spill. And since they're an international petroleum corporation, I suspect they have people on the payroll who speak Arabic, Indonesian, Farsi and a few other "Muslim" languages. If they thought this would work, do you really believe they'd be kicked back waiting for Obama to suggest it first?

    Get a grip, folks.;)
     
  4. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Out of idle curiosity, do you guys really believe Obama is better qualified to handle an oil spill than BP is, and should be taking personal charge? Or if not Obama, name me the government bureaucrat you believe is better qualified to handle the spill than BP's personnel are.
     
  5. hoytedow
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  6. hoytedow
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    No, but Shell is!
     
  7. mark775

    mark775 Guest

    "To bad we don't have a President able to talk with Muslims."
    - Something eerily piquant about that statement.

    Sorry, got to take time out to LOL - BP is going to go to the Saudis for expert technical input?
    Troy, again, I believe that the reference to Barack not doing his job is mostly because if it were Bush, progressives would MOST CERTAINLY blame him.
    I cannot take time to babysit this thread, so know that Troy has a practical insight when politics are not involved.
     
  8. hoytedow
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    I agree that Troy is very wise in things not political. Have you visited the sharpie thread, for instance? Good stuff.
     
  9. mark775

    mark775 Guest

    No. What is the title?
     
  10. hoytedow
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    30' plywood sharpie
     
  11. Squidly-Diddly
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    Squidly-Diddly Senior Member

    the Esquire link has a link about "even underwater" and the

    two oil men who say the leak in the video CAN'T be where 90% of the oil is coming from also say it is no problem to run big hoses and pipes from surface down to close enough to the leak to suck up much, if not most, of the oil.

    I'd imagine you drop a few anchors around where you want the end of the suction pipe and adjust the position with cables. 3 lines on it and a float should give complete xyz control.

    If nothing else they could just dupicate what they did over off Saudi Arabia and catch most of the surface oil(deep oil heading out to Atlantic in gulf stream, couple years to let the bugs eat it mid ocean?).

    The more that comes out about BP's recent history of operations the worst this is all sounding. They seem far and away the worst operator.


    I think it is criminal that they(Govt, Obama, BP) aren't calling out for others to give it a shot, or at least be standing by.
     
  12. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    Here is an interesting post from Troy about DC welding. I found it electrifying and enlightening. From "Welding a steel craft whilst afloat - electrolysis?"

    "I much prefer DC welders, partly for safety reasons. My dad and I spent a fall and winter around Montrose, Colorado one year, welding together feed yard fences out of old oil well pipe and sucker rod.

    In the middle of the day, things tended to get soggy in the sunshine. We lined our leather gloves with cloth gloves, and welded until they got wet enough to start stinging us more than we cared to put up with. At which time we'd swap the wet ones for the ones we had drying on the exhausts of our Lincoln welders, and carry on.

    A guy came out one day with an AC welder, and tried to keep up with us. In the first place, his welds weren't deep enough to hold; we wound up redoing most of his work. And along about the middle of the day when his gloves got wet, his welder knocked him down.

    We checked to make sure he was still breathing, picked him up and set him in the passenger seat of his truck, and told his wife to skedaddle to the emergency room with him. He heard he came out of it OK, but he never returned to the job.

    As LyndonJ points out, the ground leg of a circuit doesn't dissipate into the water, or into any other ground. It just uses it as a path back to the welder. So there shouldn't be any electrolysis worth noticing, or eating of anodes."
     
  13. mark775

    mark775 Guest

    I'll have a go at it. Fully equipped, my fee is $20,000 per day. I got my inspiration from Barack Obama's "Plug the Damn hole" speech from somewhere on the back nine...

    bhjes.jpg

    I think i can do this
     
  14. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    If you think it's that easy, you haven't been keeping track. The methane in oil coming out at that depth and temperature forms hydrates, a mix of ice crystals and frozen methane. I've seen hydrates clog a high pressure natural gas pipeline downstream of a valve, and create a dangerous situation--and that was in the desert. That's why BP's attempt to put a bell chamber over the leak to collect the oil didn't work; the chamber just filled up with hydrates and clogged.

    Those two bozos sound like sidewalk superintendents to me. It's easy to stand off and criticize, and talk about what other people ought to be doing. I've gotten that every time I ever built a house or dug a hole in the ground; there's always someone around who's willing to tell me how I should be doing the job.

    If they're such experts, why haven't they offered their services to BP?

    And I'll say this one more time and give up: no. They can't 'just duplicate what they did over off Saudi Arabia and catch most of the surface oil.' By the time the oil makes it to the surface, it's too dispersed for them to basically sit in one spot and slurp it up. And if you think you can run a supertanker back and forth and round and round, like a vacuum cleaner, you've never seen how many miles it takes just to turn one around or stop it.

    This one I have to chuckle over: "all it takes is three lines and a float should give complete xyz control." Do you really think things are that easy, a mile below the ocean's surface?
     

  15. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    OK, that's cheating when you guys start saying good things about me. How the heck am I supposed to beat up on you and Mark properly, while you're being nice to me?
     
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