Anyone been following the Gulf oil leak fix attempts?

[Bloodwych]

You can watch them live from ROVCAM (these streams play best in VLC player - the media link can be found by viewing the page source):

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_inte...ov_stream.html

Also some other streams from http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?...tentId=7062605

OceanInterventionROV1

OceanInterventionROV2

Viking_Poseidon_ROV1

Viking_Poseidon_ROV2

Boa_Deep_C_ROV_1

Boa_Deep_C_ROV_2

Skandi_ROV1

Skandi_ROV2

Enterprise_ROV_1

Enterprise_ROV_2

Q4000_ROV1

Q4000_ROV2

Man, they are having a right chew on trying to fix it. It's unbelievable that I can watch something happening at the bottom of the ocean hundreds of miles away.

They also have daily video blogs explaining the plans as they try out different methods. It's been interesting stuff.

[Harrison]

I've only been keeping tabs on it via the main news on BBC and SkyHD. It does seem a major nightmare trying to get this leak to stop.

It does raise the question about why more safely measures have not been in place already to prevent such a catastrophic event taking place. Had no one considered what would happen before now if a floating oil rig on the surface had collapsed and ruptured the main pipe connected to the sea bed?

Surely some kind of self sealing valve system would have been the solution to prevent this?

And with the size of the oil industry and the length of time they have been dealing with pumping oil out from deep sea drilling platforms they would have made more progress? Or is it the usual case of while it works and no problems have occurred, leave it as it is to save money on development and cost of new parts and keep the profits coming in? From their profits posted for last year it would definitely seem to be the case.

And why is the rest of the world and the rest of the oil industry seeming to be sitting back and watching this taking place? Everyone possible that could help should be there doing something to try and fix this. The amount of oil flowing out of this leaking pipe is a major global disaster and is going to kill a lot of the natural habitat and wildlife in the region.

[Bloodwych]

100% agree with everything you said.

I love wildlife and nature, and this made me sad beyond belief. Worst possible time of year for the turtles and seabirds. Manitees could be affected, plus all the other rich wildlife.

Makes you question how a mega rich oil company didn't have several failsafes. Looks like they were never prepared to safely drill at this depth. Our continued oil rich lifestyle isn't worth this kind of sacrifice - the gravy train will end eventually and what mess will we be left with? We need to control this better, but I fear this won't be the last disaster.

[Buleste]

Amazingly rich Oil companies who pay out billions in dividends make their money by cutting corners and paying off politicians to ignore it especially in America. It's only when pointless disasters like this happen that people realise that they are making a deal with the devil.

It should be mandatory that a cut off valve should be placed every mile or 2 miles so that should a leak happen to the pipeline the oil can be cut off and the leak repaired with minimal damage but in an industry that has a limited lifespan profits are key and installing such safety measures would cut down on those profits so it's cheaper to invest in politicians to turn a blind eye. Gotta love Democracy and free market economies.

[Bloodwych]

Updated with more links as the main Rov cam seems to be down.

[outlawal2]

Amazingly rich Oil companies who pay out billions in dividends make their money by cutting corners and paying off politicians to ignore it especially in America. It's only when pointless disasters like this happen that people realise that they are making a deal with the devil.

It should be mandatory that a cut off valve should be placed every mile or 2 miles so that should a leak happen to the pipeline the oil can be cut off and the leak repaired with minimal damage but in an industry that has a limited lifespan profits are key and installing such safety measures would cut down on those profits so it's cheaper to invest in politicians to turn a blind eye. Gotta love Democracy and free market economies.

Yep that all sounds good until you really take a long look at the drilling process and where they are drilling. They DO have fail safes and as I understand it there are 3 separate redundant computer controlled safety devices in place in the control room of the structure that is anchored to the seabed. So if the pipe ruptures between the structure and the floating rig, the only oil lost is the oil in the pipe.. Very small amount. As for installing shutoffs every few miles, it is currently impossible to do this since they are drilling a mile under the surface of the ocean and then drilling miles below that.

My question is how does three separate and redundant computer controlled fail safe devices all fail simultaneously causing this kind of disaster? Statistically this is near impossible..

I personally think this was an act of sabotage, but so far nothing has been mentioned about this possibility...

[Harrison]

I think the issue was that the main drilling platform was on fire and so any computer system were probably offline as the rig sank.

[outlawal2]

I think the issue was that the main drilling platform was on fire and so any computer system were probably offline as the rig sank.

The fail-safe systems are specifically designed with this possible contingency in mind. The systems are installed in the structure that is anchored to the sea floor and sits directly ON the sea floor.. This structure is sealed and completely separate from the floating rig and that is why I am very suspicious that the systems could all fail at once..

[Bloodwych]

To see what they are now dealing with since making the cut (not as clean as they would have liked):

OceanInterventionROV2




That is a lot of oil! I think now they will try and clean it up and place a cap on top.