How to stop the deep water BP oil leak; an ingenious solution
Subject: How to stop the deep water BP oil leak; a simple solution
BP recently released a rather dramatic video showing the gushing of oil and methane gas from open pipes a mile beneath the ocean’s surface. As a fan of the ABC hit LOST, the gushing plume resembled the “smoke monster” and I cynically laughed to myself saying, “So that’s where the smoke monster came from!” But seriously, this is a looming ecological disaster and the mile deep
leak needs to be stopped immediately.
What I’d like to know is how much BP will pay a private citizen if they can come up with a solution to stop the leak? Big oil executives were drilled before the US Congress, each blaming the other for the mess. This passing of blame was hideous! It is also mind boggling that BP seems to be playing around, not taking action to stop the leak, but only trying to devise methods to collect the oil.
I believe that if the object were to stop the leak and BP were to pay $100 million dollars or some other significant reward for a solution, you would
soon find that American ingenuity could come up with a solution to this problem. In the past large rewards have been offered for new inventions or technology. Surely if a significant reward were offered, someone could come up with a way to stop the leak.
I wonder how much BP would pay me to tell them how to stop the leak. I think I could devise a solution for much less than $100 million dollars. In fact, I think it could be done for ten-million dollars. Here is my solution and if it is used, I want my money! :-)
Have you ever had to link or splice two hoses when the water was still flowing through the hose? The simplest way to do it is to bend the hose and temporarily stop the flow while the hoses and connected with hose splicing connectors. Therefore I suggest that BP make a giant flexible hose to slip over the leaking pipes, bend the flexible hose, stop the flow, and then splice a new piece of pipe to the flexible giant pipe. It’s a very simple solution based upon very simple, yet working knowledge, of how to splice a hose.
Now I realize doing this at depth of 5,280 feet would not be easy. The pressure at such depths is some 146.6 atmospheres and all the work to crimp the giant flexible hose would have to be done by robots or using cables to bend the hose once it is in place. Or a “crimping valve” might be devised which would have the same effect as bending the hose to slowly reduce the flow while a new piece of pipe is secured to the end. The idea is that the process is made easy because by using such a device the oil and methane gas mixture gushing form the leak at extremely high pressure is permitted to flow through the new attachment, making it easy to slip on the extension, then use a crimping valve or mechanism to reduce the flow slowly which a new pipe is attached.
I would think if this method works it is worth at least $10-million dollars, as BP is losing at least $6-million every day that the oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico. Plus what is so ingenious about this method is that it is so simple “even a cave man can do it!” Sorry, I just could not resist saying that after watching all those commercials on TV by a major insurance company more readily known for its computer animated gecko spokesperson.
The point is, if BP offers a reward for a solution, even if they pick another person's idea instead of mine, I believe American ingenuity could solve this problem. You see, often it takes just looking at a problem in a new and different way to find a solution, and the general public is not under the “pressure” or “fear of being fired” that BP engineers may be. Hence “wild and crazy” ideas may be proposed, ideas like going to the Moon or sending robots to Mars, which people use to think were “impossible.”
It may be that my idea for how to stop the BP oil leak seems “impossible,” but so far all the king’s horses and all the king’s men have not been able to put his Humpty Dumpty oil leak back together. Indeed, this catastrophe reminds me on that classic nursery rhyme:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
Indeed, all the “king’s horses and all the king’s men,” aka BP’s engineers, have tried to robotically activate the blowout preventer (BOP) which failed. They have built huge collection retainers to try to lower over the leaks, which have so far failed. So who is to say that my method, which utilized a bit of fanciful American ingenuity and what I call garden hose crimping technology would not work?
Hose crimping technology works for a garden hose under pressure and although that is not an oil spill at a mile deep, the principle is still the same. Therefore in theory my method should work. I offer it to BP as a solution. Let your engineers try my hose crimping method and if it works all I’m asking is $10-millon and a trip to Disney World!
BP recently released a rather dramatic video showing the gushing of oil and methane gas from open pipes a mile beneath the ocean’s surface. As a fan of the ABC hit LOST, the gushing plume resembled the “smoke monster” and I cynically laughed to myself saying, “So that’s where the smoke monster came from!” But seriously, this is a looming ecological disaster and the mile deep
leak needs to be stopped immediately.
What I’d like to know is how much BP will pay a private citizen if they can come up with a solution to stop the leak? Big oil executives were drilled before the US Congress, each blaming the other for the mess. This passing of blame was hideous! It is also mind boggling that BP seems to be playing around, not taking action to stop the leak, but only trying to devise methods to collect the oil.
I believe that if the object were to stop the leak and BP were to pay $100 million dollars or some other significant reward for a solution, you would
soon find that American ingenuity could come up with a solution to this problem. In the past large rewards have been offered for new inventions or technology. Surely if a significant reward were offered, someone could come up with a way to stop the leak.
I wonder how much BP would pay me to tell them how to stop the leak. I think I could devise a solution for much less than $100 million dollars. In fact, I think it could be done for ten-million dollars. Here is my solution and if it is used, I want my money! :-)
Have you ever had to link or splice two hoses when the water was still flowing through the hose? The simplest way to do it is to bend the hose and temporarily stop the flow while the hoses and connected with hose splicing connectors. Therefore I suggest that BP make a giant flexible hose to slip over the leaking pipes, bend the flexible hose, stop the flow, and then splice a new piece of pipe to the flexible giant pipe. It’s a very simple solution based upon very simple, yet working knowledge, of how to splice a hose.
Now I realize doing this at depth of 5,280 feet would not be easy. The pressure at such depths is some 146.6 atmospheres and all the work to crimp the giant flexible hose would have to be done by robots or using cables to bend the hose once it is in place. Or a “crimping valve” might be devised which would have the same effect as bending the hose to slowly reduce the flow while a new piece of pipe is secured to the end. The idea is that the process is made easy because by using such a device the oil and methane gas mixture gushing form the leak at extremely high pressure is permitted to flow through the new attachment, making it easy to slip on the extension, then use a crimping valve or mechanism to reduce the flow slowly which a new pipe is attached.
I would think if this method works it is worth at least $10-million dollars, as BP is losing at least $6-million every day that the oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico. Plus what is so ingenious about this method is that it is so simple “even a cave man can do it!” Sorry, I just could not resist saying that after watching all those commercials on TV by a major insurance company more readily known for its computer animated gecko spokesperson.
The point is, if BP offers a reward for a solution, even if they pick another person's idea instead of mine, I believe American ingenuity could solve this problem. You see, often it takes just looking at a problem in a new and different way to find a solution, and the general public is not under the “pressure” or “fear of being fired” that BP engineers may be. Hence “wild and crazy” ideas may be proposed, ideas like going to the Moon or sending robots to Mars, which people use to think were “impossible.”
It may be that my idea for how to stop the BP oil leak seems “impossible,” but so far all the king’s horses and all the king’s men have not been able to put his Humpty Dumpty oil leak back together. Indeed, this catastrophe reminds me on that classic nursery rhyme:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
Indeed, all the “king’s horses and all the king’s men,” aka BP’s engineers, have tried to robotically activate the blowout preventer (BOP) which failed. They have built huge collection retainers to try to lower over the leaks, which have so far failed. So who is to say that my method, which utilized a bit of fanciful American ingenuity and what I call garden hose crimping technology would not work?
Hose crimping technology works for a garden hose under pressure and although that is not an oil spill at a mile deep, the principle is still the same. Therefore in theory my method should work. I offer it to BP as a solution. Let your engineers try my hose crimping method and if it works all I’m asking is $10-millon and a trip to Disney World!
posted by TAL | 9:07 AM
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