finger in a dam with crumbly walls | The think about leaks in massive repositories of oil or water is that a finger in the dike will not stop it.. might make it worse
Remember cement that was full of holes like a Swiss cheese ? Might be the same cement that should be preventing the oil from seeping through the ocean floor.
You see, the only reason the oil is not seeping trough the ocean floor in a normal well is because they have cement and steel pipes encasing it. Why would the oil bother go through that when there's a nice and easy open pipe to rush trough ? |
| Worst Case: with pipe closed, pressured oil bursts free through weak cement and seeps through seabed Could it happen ? There seems to be a lot of indication that BP's cement was flawed. Would the cement under the ground be any better than the one above ground ?
UPDATE: Someone is wrong on the internet! Me. Fishgrease says this scenario very unlikely
Details after the jump |
That oil is under enormous pressure. If we cap the leaking pipe, all that pressure will be trying to escape through any flaw the steel and pipes under the ground might have. And if there's something we learned to expect from BP is a flaw where there should be none.
well before disaster
well leaking as it is now
We cap the well.. but now the oil under pressure has nowhere to go and a crumbly cement holding it
Cement crumbles, rock and sandy seabed crumble.
red=bad cement, purple=good cement
pics based on Introduction to offshore drilling | This post from oildrum has the details and links to all the information that suggests the "dam with crumbly walls" scenario. Is very heavy on jargon so a wingnut summarized it this way:
● The oil [comes] through this bore hole at great pressure.
● You do NOT want that pressure forcing the oil sideways into upper levels of the drilled-through rock.
● So you line the bore hole with steel casing, and cement in the space between casing and bore hole wall...
● Evidence from the Top Kill failure suggests that this casing-cement system is now fatally compromised.
..
● If you had (which of course we don’t) some massive cork to jam into the top of the bore hole and stop the gusher, all that sideways-leaked oil would just come bursting out through fissures opening up in the sea floor.
● For miles around.
How bad can it be ?
Could be very very bad.. This area could have up to 80 billion barrels interconnected by little rivulets on a seafloor full of layers of different materials, some of them bound to be crumbled by high pressure oil and gas. If even a fraction of this is in BP's well and seeps through a porous seabed... we are talking about miles and miles of "Deepwater Horizon" kind leaks gushing forth
So don't cap the leak
It will cap itself. The crumbly cement is holding the weight of a very heavy Blowout Preventer. Sooner or later it will crumble and then the blowout preventer and all the debris will cap the leak long enough to ruin the seabed
What can be done ?
1- Increase the leaking to relieve pressure. (Now BP cutting the pipes and letting more oil flow makes sense, no ? As do their bumbling and failure on caping the leak)
2 - Drill relief wells to relieve the pressure, and capture the oil.
3 - Boom and capture the oil leaking right now and hope we finish the relief wells before the well collapses on itself
In summary: If the well walls are crumbling, it means are racing against time to drill relief wells and relive the pressure, before we get miles of seabed floor full of "Deepwater Horizon" style leaks.
It seems we all have been DAMned by BP and their corner cutting.
Or not... Experts say that it is very unlikely that the well walls will crumble. Read all the comments below to see details
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