OK, after a brief conversation with Kossack Nb41 we have a potentially workable solution for the mess in the Gulf.
No, we can't stop the oil, but we can easily interdict quite a bit of the deleterious effect with some basic technology already commonly in use in the oil industry.
So these are oil platforms at their worst – burning like Roman candles and about to sink and make environmental disasters. The first is the Atlas in southeast Asian waters and the second is the Deepwater Horizon.
Here's the Thunderhorse PDQ, another British Petroleum near miss. This was in 2005 right after an incorrectly plumbed pipe permitted the platform to list badly during Hurricane Dennis. As I understand it this was almost Deepwater Horizon, and it happened six weeks before Katrina. That hurricane would have sucked the mess straight up the Mississippi fifty miles due to her storm surge. This view of what a platform actually is will be important later on ...
And here's the problem as seen from space …
And here are the closed fisheries (red), the edges of the oil contaminated area (black), and the visible surface weathered oil & slick (green speckles). This used to come from ERMA, but I guess BP polices this, too. You can still get some information, but the spill extent and surface oil observations are no longer part of the data. I guess it's good I caught this example before they managed to commandeer that tax payer's asset, too.
OK, we know where the problem comes from, we now see the scope, and here is the solution.
They are flaring twenty two million cubic feet of natural gas a day. This could easily be used to power a variety of generators and turbine powered compressors. Compressed air, produced using equipment already commonly employed on oil platforms, using the energy of the natural gas which is currently being wasted, and delivered with piping already commonly installed and maintained by oil platform crews would oxygenate the water.
The problem here isn't that there is oil in the water – oil seeps are common in the Gulf of Mexico. The problem is that there is just so darned much of it. The bacteria that normally consume oil are feasting … but only until they run out of oxygen.
There are some questions here. Do generators and compressors run on the gas coming out of the runaway well? Yes, certainly. Are there any missing technical innovations needed? Nope, just turbines, generators, compressors, and high pressure piping – all common on oil platforms. Are there any training issues? Nope, the oil field workers already know how to do all this stuff safely. They can be put to work right away.
So what we're suggesting is burning a portion of the escaping gas in a turbine, pumping pressurized air down into the water column at the source of the problem, and perhaps adding bacteria, but only because the water near the well is saturated with natural gas. In general the bacteria in the Gulf should be happy with the combination of a free meal and all the oxygen they need to digest it comfortably.
I explored this concept a bit eighteen months ago during research for an article I did for The Cutting Edge News on Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion. The idea of oxygenating Gulf water was of interest to me then due to the massive dead zone caused by agricultural run off – I thought it would be a fine thing to moor OTEC plantships in the dead zone and apply a portion of their energy to clean up the problem.
So, this is a good, solid concept – I had Kossack (and engineer) Nb41 do a quick check on the idea and he said he didn't see anything patentable, but he described it as imminently workable. OTEC expert Robert Cohen is absolutely someone that I will be contacting on this matter tomorrow as he and I have already discussed the concept a bit. Consulting engineer Alan Drake in New Orleans is a friend … and a nationally recognized researcher on transportation and energy issues who has been called in to help with the Deepwater Horizon blowout - he'll have much to say about this. We also got an assist on the particulars of small scale nuclear weapons from engineer and former United States Marine David Cozad.
This is an introductory post. I'll be back to expand on the concept, provide the particulars of what the three technical folk say, and field any press requests. If you're a reporter and this catches your eye you can easily find my contact information by looking at my profile on Twitter.
And if you think Joe Barton's apology to British Petroleum was NOT the right thing for our country you can scoot over to David Cozad's ActBlue page – he is Joe Barton's opponent in Texas District 6.
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(UPDATE: We could use some help getting this idea massaged into a submittable form for the Deepwater Horizon Response. I think we have the engineering talent, I would like to hear from an investor or two who could back this and maybe some presentation people to help pull it all together???