Alright, enough crap... Dome, top kill, junk shot, top hat... 4 strikes and you're out...
BP has failed and the hive-mind must start its work...
Over the fold is my first idea for capturing most of the DWH oil... It draws on some ideas I've seen at this site, and adds some of my own... The most important thing is for everyone to start throwing their ideas into the ether. Looks like we are going to have at least a couple of months for them to make it to the Gulf and do some good.
So the vision that popped into my head the other day was a giant rubber doughnut with a kevlar tube around the interior hole and a means of cinching the outer ring... Process:
Option #1:
- lower the whole thing down the top-hat tube, and position the kevlar tube around the BOP.
- inflate the tube and anchor it to the bottom, or to the BOP... the inflatable tube thing may be optional depending on whether sealing the bottom makes sense...
- lift the outer ring so that the top is at a depth where the gas does not crystallize and the oil does not congeal.
- cinch the outer ring and seal it around the top-hat riser to create a balloon (the shape will likely look more like a weather balloon than the football in the picture, but you get the idea).
- pump/release the oil and gas through valves around the perimeter of the cinch point.
Option #2:
1-3: same
- instead of cinching the top, float it on the surface.
- siphon the oil that is channeled to the surface (this idea is almost exactly the same as one I saw in a diary several weeks ago, which remains the best one I've seen... I couldn't find it, so I hope someone will link to it).
At around 50-100 million square feet of material, I'd say a $50-100 million price tag (assuming sheet rubber like that which is used as caps on landfills)... Manufacture would be relatively easy on an abandoned airport runway.
OK hive-mind... go to work...
P.S. the colorful language is obviously an homage to my hero... Fishgrease.