Must see:
BOP Forensic Analysis Part 1
BOP Forensic Analysis Part 2
BOP Forensic Analysis Part 3
I received a set of links to the massive video library collected by Josef Gerbils of The Oil Drum.
Deepwater Horizon BlowOut & Oil Spill:
Deepwater Horizon BlowOut II
Deepwater Horizon BlowOut III
Deepwater Horizon BlowOut IV
Deepwater Horizon BlowOut V
Those include many videos from our crew and others.
Must reads:
Six Steps that Doomed the Rig is an excellent graphic from the New Orleans Times Picayune.
Lax Oversight Seen in Failure of Oil Rig's Last Line of Defense. Watch video and interactive graphic page, too. That has one of the best overviews of how the BOP works, and doesn't work, and the management interference that caused the accident.
We have a new 40 page 12mb report on the Macondo well that is an excellent reference on the well design.
Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Spill Reference Material - from Whitis is the best source for everything.. The quantitative data diary has also been moved there.
The motherlode of technical data Kairos brought us was removed, but the 19 mb 48 page BP Accident Investigation Overview, and the 12 mb 147 page Confidential TransOcean Assurance Analysis of the BOP with detailed control diagrams starting at page 56, are still available.
Go to the Deepwater Horizon Data Summary for a wealth of actual data from the Department of Energy.
This is what BP DOES NOT WANT YOU TO SEE. The following images are guaranteed to make you SICK AT HEART.
These images are not for the faint of heart - DO NOT VIEW THEM LIGHTLY.
Really, I mean it. Hold somebody's hand. Grab a tissue.
A brief reference guide to nicknames you may see in the ROV diaries:
- Gertrude, aka Gerty: the oil volcano
- Lizzy: the diamond saw cutter
- Clampy: the cute ROV
- Crunchy: 30 ft shear. bit the pipe, now a movie star
- Wanda: the dispersant sprayer
- laundry basket: yellow thing that brings things up and down
- Thingy: those things, you know, those things
- Shiny Thing: those really neat things
- Ms. Blanche Flo, aka Blanche, aka Flo: the manifold thingy
Thanks to dov12348 for publishing a diary on Oil Terminology.
Technical Info
Here is a tutorial on the sources of well pressure.
H/T to Pluto for finding this much better well casing configuration diagram (PDF).
Here is the initial BP Spill Investigation (PDF) report from 24 May.
The initial approach above was followed by an open hole and a drill pipe magnetic ranging run. After they got to within 5 feet of the blown out well's lower casing they reamed and encased the bottom of the well in cement. They are prepared to start the final 50 feet of drilling to intercept the annulus which is just past the rock. They may still proceed with reaming through the blown well's casing if only to ensure there is cement at that level. (Photos from The Oil Drum)
On 28 June, Kent Wells provided a dual audio and slide presentation that has an accompanying transcript.
A video primer on ROV Watching, from GW Regular sometv.
Video feeds we are watching
Tomtech created a set of playlists for VLC player to partially solve the problem where titles do not identify the ROV.
==== ROV Feeds =====
20876/21507 - Development Driller II's ROV 1
32900/49178 - Development Driller II's ROV 2
41434/41436 - Olympic Challenger's ROV 1
40788/40789 - Olympic Challenger's ROV 2
47146/47147 - Development Driller III's ROV 1
43698/43699 - Development Driller III's ROV 2
==Restricted to web browser based viewing==
BP videos All the available directly feeds from BP.
WKRG - Mobile/Pensacola (Contains link for an iPhone app at the bottom.)
==Multiple stream feeds (hard on browser/bandwidth)==
Bobo's lightweight ROV Multi-feed: A great low impact multi-view page
Markey's multi-view page
These High-def videos of the spew after the riser was cut were provided by the DOE.
See this thread for more info on using video feeds and on linking to video feeds.
Again, to keep bandwidth down please do not post images or videos.
Links, courtesy of several Kossacks
- DATA
- Sketch Map of Subsea Operations - from Another Kevin
- GeoPlatform - Gulf Response: Mapping the Response to BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico
- Kent Wells' technical update, June 10, 2010
- dov12348's oil toxicity links
- dov12348's Ocean currents, wind currents, and hurricane links
- Visualize the spill
- SkyTruth
- Images of the Oilpacalypse, from Tomtech.
- Visit the Oil Spill Crisis Map to see where oil, mousse, tar balls, and eau de crude have been reported on the Gulf coast.
- The BP Deepwater Horizon Unified Command official website. Wherein you can read latest post warning of employment scams associated with the event and much more from the folks handling this.
- Timeline of response here.
- Department of Energy BP Deepwater Horizon Spill site updates.
- Department of Interior BP Deepwater Horizon Response site provides updates, reports, data, links to pictures, etc.
- Rigzone for specific disaster news and news about the offshore industry, in general.
- Maritime ship tracking -- courtesy of johnsonwax
- NOAA Spill tracking site
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I got home late Friday, around 9. I'm still not used to seeing the stars in the front yard I grew up in, but since the storm, I can look up and see the sparkles of the cosmos from my own little corner of podunk, Mississippi. It was hot. Ungodly hot. And I guess I've sort of chickened out since I've been out of the Deep South's humidity for so long, although Kentucky's not the tundra, but damn: South-Central Mississippi and New Orleans in September are like walking into a sauna cranked to 11.
The yard has been repaired, completely. We had dozens of pines that we lost in the storm, and it took forever for Mom to get the stump holes filled and the grass re-seeded. The blueberries are everywhere. Really. They've completely regrown after being damaged by trees falling on them. I took my mag-lite and walked over to the nearest tree before I'd even gone in the house to eat a few handfuls of sun-warmed blueberries.
Mom had been to the coast the day before and brought home my favorite homemade granola and local yogurt, and I sat on the couch, comfortable but tired, and ate blueberries with yogurt and cereal... one of my favorite dinners... while I watched my local news - WLOX - not talk about the spill.
It feels a little like post-Katrina Mississippi all over again. That's not hyperbole, it's my recollection of going home after being fixated on it from afar and finding that at first blush, people in the same area code don't seem as wrapped up in all the emotions of the disaster as I am. But then, as now, once I start talking to friends and family, I find they've just internalized everything.
My sister, a freshly-minted MBA with emphasis in real-estate, has had four offers dry up in the wake of the explosion. A HS girlfriend is a caterer who had some reasonable business from the Biloxi high-rollers, but tourism rates have plummeted. Another friend's dad works for Motiva, a subsidiary of Shell. His hours have been cut, but he still has a job. People down home know that the oil industry still puts food on their tables, and part of their worry about drilling bans and higher-MPG cars is that they know those things will change oil consumption - and their way of life.
Much like after a hurricane, they're fighting to rebuild themselves. But in a different way. Post-Spill Mississippi has to convince people that she's healthy. This is, with apologies for the unscientific comparison we came up with while having a beer with my friend the caterer, the equivalent of trying to convince your partner you're well after a long-term illness. Sure, you don't look sick anymore, but everybody knows you couldn't keep food down last week, so no; I don't want to share your soda just yet.
That's what the people who make Mississippi's economy are going to have to get past: the economic equivalent of sharing a soda. How do we convince people we're well again?
Secondly, and more importantly in the long-term, how do we change the tenor of an entire culture? How do we convince the skeptics among us that living without fossil fuels is possible? That living without a car is viable? That public transportation is desirable? That "doing what we've always done" is no longer an option?
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Previous liveblog ROV diaries:
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #391 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Talking about Change - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #390 - Drips Redux - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #389 - Night of the Living Drips - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #388 - Sittin' Up With the Dead - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #387 - Time for a Wake? - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #386 - The Coroner Won't Pronounce - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #385 - Is it Dead? - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #384 - Darryl House
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #383 - Issues - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #382 - Intersection! - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV 381 -- O'Donnell Edition of BP's Gulf Catastrophe - gchaucer2
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #380 - Ranging Run - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #379 - Darryl House
Previous motherships and ROV's from this extensive live blog effort may be found here.
Information on our community can be found in Phil S 33's diary here. That diary having timed out, bigjacbigjacbigjac next took up the cause and posted a new bio diary here. The latest bio diary was posted by Ursoklevar on 7-25 and includes the bios from the previous diaries in alphabetical order by user name.
If you'd like, feel free to join in by sharing a little about yourself there.
in the dark time we held vigil,
we held vigil against the night,
we raged against the storm,
we moved with the force of nature
to right a great wrong,
to howl like the wind,
to hold the line,
to renew an ancient vow,
a sacred purpose,
to recall to life the human spirit,
to safeguard that which is most holy to us,
to forge and reforge,
this, above all, to be true,
to awaken our greater nature,
to commune from the deepest regions of our soul,
to heal this realm, to heal our people,
to guard all life, to guard life,
for this generation,
and all to come,
this is why we hold vigil ~ ~ ArthurPoet ~
| | We Are Here |
| | We are here. |
| | We are watching. |
| | Years from now, |
| | if anyone asks, |
| | we will tell them: |
| | We were there. |
| | |
| | Maybe it will not matter. |
| | Maybe nothing matters. |
| | But if we throw up our hands now, |
| | maybe someday, |
| | years from now, |
| | we will ask ourselves, |
| | why did we not at least keep watch, |
| | why did we not? |
| | |
| | Maybe someday, some of us |
| | will talk with someone younger, |
| | and tell of the time we watched. |
| | Maybe that someone younger |
| | will try harder next time, |
| | will do more next time, |
| | remembering |
| | the time we watched. |
| | |
| | -- bigjacbigjacbigjac |
We're all stunned and horrified by this disaster. Huddling with good people to calculate the damage and monitor progress, have a laugh when we can, share the sorrow we feel, and learn a lot in the process... That's what I'm really here for.
This is how I best cope. And if it turns out to be a useful thing to others, then that's great.
Kimberley
This is where you want to be for discussion, worrying, tearing up, and caring for each other. It's also where you're welcome to be angry and scream and curse and cry and rant at the criminal negligence and greed that have brought us all together. Most importantly, though, it's where we can learn from those kossaks among us (I'll not name names for abject fear of leaving one of you out, but you know who you are.) who bring the light of knowledge - sometimes with heat, sometimes without it - and teach us about what's happening beneath our Gulf of Mexico. On a personal note, I'll ask you to please be kind to each other in our little boats. There's enough hurt going on outside without bringing it here. - khowell
Bandwidth Warning: NO IMAGES and NO VIDEOS. Readers who are on DIALUP will thank you!
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