Gulf Oil Spill

Publish Post

Hello, here is an explanation of my plan.

Picture the oil leak as like a faucet which is turned on and the water is coming out but for some reason you can't turn it off, and you also can't plug the faucet. Nothing is left but to plug the sink. Now you say, the sink only holds so much and would overflow, but luckily this is just a metaphor. My sink is a sphere that will not let the oil escape once it's plugged. The Yellow rectangle is the pipe spewing oil. the green sphere is the metal sphere i propose we build, and the blue egg shaped thing is the plug. read on!

I don't know what the design of the plug should be, but spherical was my first thought, but in the first picture its egg shaped. I don't know which would be stronger. The main point of the second picture is to clearly show the overall idea, so I'm not worried about what shape it should be, that can be figured out later.


The metal sphere has a circular opening on the
bottom where it will be welded to the pipe , and a circular opening on top

There are two blue plugs in the picture, but there is really
only one, shown in two positions. Once the sphere is welded to the yellow pipe at the bottom hole, then the top hole will be plugged. Ahem. This will allow the oil to keep escaping while the welding is going on. Once that is complete, then the sphere is plugged and that's it.




That was the synopsis, now to the more technical part.

There are two main phases to this plan.


Phase 1,
The blue ellipse will be in the lower position. It will be connected to a winch. Having it in the lowered position allows for the oil to continue leaking up and out of the green sphere while the sphere is being welded to the yellow pipe during phase 1. The oil will actually be going thru the pipe, thru the green sphere, thru the black part at the top and out into the ocean. the black section is where the winch could be and there might be a more formal hatch that can be closed after the plug is engaged, as a double safety.


The green circle represents a metal sphere with a circular opening on the
bottom where the pipe will enter.


But first...
The sphere must be lowered
carefully over the broken pipe,
without damaging
it. Of course, the sphere must simultaneously
be supported somehow, because it's going to be there for a long time: i drew stilts in to the picture, these are the black
lines going from the sphere to the sea floor.

During phase 1, the plug has not been engaged
so oil is still escaping up through the green and black zones and
into the
ocean, and the blue plug is hanging free inside the sphere.

At the completion of the weld, there is no weight on the pipe, and phase 2 is ready to begin.

Phase 2.

Hopefully, crystals haven't formed inside the device. The interior of the sphere, especially around the opening, as well as the entire "egg" plug, should be covered in some kind of protection, like velcroed kevlar or burlap, which will collect any crystals that are forming during phase 1. Immediately before phase 2, this covering should be removed.

Also hopefully, the pipe wont burst due to the sudden increase in pressure, but if
the top kill had
worked, the same pressure would have stressed the pipe. Is there a way to
reinforce the damaged portion of pipe? Perhaps a wider pipe can be put
totally
around the broken one, and welded to it.

Phase Two involves simply activating a winch (the winch is located
inside
the black bubble zone) which will pull the plug
into it's upper "closed" position.

Once it is in place and if we determine by camera that the seal is
tight, it can be welded forming a permanent seal.

Either plug it and weld the plug in place, or plug it and then close an upper hatch. but what if the plug leaks pressurized
oil? Perhaps rubber can be used at 5000 feet below? If it can, it would make this alot easier.

If rubber is not an option then some questions are...
How much pressure is there coming out of this well? Will the friction burn
through a solid iron plug before it can be welded in place? Maybe
so, but if it happens slow enough, we could use the plug to lower the
pressure enough to give us time
to close a more sturdy upper door, which is represented in BLACK in the
picture.


As long as the plug and the sphere have a perfect connection, the oil will immediately stop flowing, and the hatch would just be a failsafe.
If the plug is not a perfect fit, there might be enough time to close the
hatch.

Also, I'm no expert
on how metals behave at 5000 feet of water. If the plug and sphere are
constructed at sea level and taken
a mile underwater, will the metals change shape, allowing a small jet of
pressurized oil to escape?

A test run (at minus 5000
feet) should be done before phase one with a dummy pipe. The dummy pipe
should be designed and installed a good ways from the broken
well where we can do a dry ("wet") run in safety.
The dummy pipe will simulate the pressure that is being exerted by the
spewing oil on the real well. the entire protocol from
phase 1 thru completion can be tested before hand to make sure the plug and
sphere fit together under pressure. But will the test
alter the shape of the plug and sphere? Maybe I'm being too cautious and a test is unnecessary, I'm not
a materials engineer. Perhaps two identical devices should
be constructed and one tested and the other used if
the first passes the test.


My original plan ended with the plug being welded in place, however
the difficulty in
making a water tight seal between two pieces of iron might be difficult, again, I'm not a materials engineer.
Assuming
a margin of error, let's say
that when the plug is put into place, a small amount of oil is still escaping.

Balloons inside the green sphere
can be inflated just prior to the plug being engaged, and REMOTELY POPPED with
a mechanical PIN if there is not a
tight seal. This should give us a split
second or more of lowered pressure inside the sphere
in which to close the upper hatch. The hatch should
be able to close very fast.

Phase one can be done at a leisurely pace, but phase two is the hard part, unless rubber works 5000 feet under water. If it does, the plugging issue would be easier. Just make an iron ball surrounded by rubber as a plug and then close the upper hatch.

Once the plug is pulled, either it will hold or won't. Even if a small
amount of pressure is escaping, perhaps the upper hatch could still be closed.
In any case when the plug is engaged, the upper hatch should be
closed as fast as possible, then welded shut.

Hopefully crystals wont
freeze the winch before the plug is pulled. The winch can be housed in a
protective covering, and during phase 1 the plug can be kept out of the main
stream of oil
to avoid the formation of crystals which might cause a bad seal at the plug. The chain connecting the winch to the plug can be surrounded in plastic and filled with hot water and/or some sort of electric heating elements, hmmm electric heaters next to oil, maybe not good.

If there are crystals, the pressure would force them off when the plug is
engaged, again, hopefully the pressure below the hatch will be low
enough to allow a tight seal.

if rubber isn't an option then the ball would need to be made with precision machines that can make a perfect metal on metal connection