BP has received over 300,000 ideas from people with ideas on how to cap the well. Well, maybe, just maybe, one of those suggestions was the answer.
One plumber took it upon himself to try. Below the fold is the story....
Just promise me, no "Joe" jokes.
http://www.csmonitor.com/...
Six weeks ago, Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, received a late-night call from an apologetic "mystery plumber." The caller said he had a sketch for how to solve the problem at the bottom of the Gulf. It was a design for a containment cap that would fit snugly over the top of the failed blowout preventer at the heart of the Gulf oil spill.
Professor Bea, a former Shell executive and well-regarded researcher, thought the idea looked good and sent the sketches directly to the US Coast Guard and to a clearinghouse set up to glean ideas from outside sources for how to cap the stubborn Macondo well.
When Bea saw the design of the containment cap lowered onto the well last week, he marveled at its similarity to the sketches from the late-night caller, whose humble refusal to give his name at the time nearly brought Bea to tears.
"The idea was using the top flange on the blowout preventer as an attachment point and then employing an internal seal against that flange surface," says Bea. "You can kind of see how a plumber thinks this way. That's how they have to plumb homes for sewage."
Credit where credit is due, right? Well, we'll see, jury is still out...
BP executive Doug Suttles says the new containment cap design came from weeks of trial and error. "We've been adding and trying new things constantly," Mr. Suttles said last week.
The question I have is, will we ever know?
BP spokesman Mark Salt says, "There's no way of finding out at the moment" whether Bea's forwarded suggestion from the self-described "lowly plumber" made it into the design. "There's also a good chance that this was already being designed by the time this [tip] came in."
A link from the ROV #210 diary led me to this story:
X Prize Competition
WASHINGTON (AP) -- You might be able to get rich quick if you can fix the BP oil spill.
The X Prize Foundation wants to make fixing the BP oil spill a multimillion dollar competition. It has done the same for space, fuel efficient cars and gene-mapping.
http://www.xprize.org/...
An X PRIZE is a $10 million+ award given to the first team to achieve a specific goal, set by the X PRIZE Foundation, which has the potential to benefit humanity. Rather than awarding money to honor past achievements or directly funding research, an X PRIZE incites innovation by tapping into our competitive and entrepreneurial spirits.
Was this plumber the answer to BP's prayers?
Will this plumber get credit for his design?
Will this plumber be awarded an X Prize?
At this time, Mr. Mystery Plumber is anonymous. Will he stay that way?