Paging Mr. Campbell

[y66]

From Expert Is Confident About Sealing Oil Well

 

Pat Campbell never met a well he couldn’t kill.

 

But in his long career of bringing oil well blowouts under control, Mr. Campbell has usually employed a hands-on approach. Fires may have to be extinguished, wellhead equipment repaired, gunk removed. Then, he said, the well has to be told who’s boss: “I’m here, I’m touching you, I’m telling you you’re dead,” is how he describes it. “You just don’t know it yet.”

 

His latest challenge is a well that only a robot can touch. Mr. Campbell is one of scores of experts working in a command center in Houston to help BP figure out a way to seal its blown-out well 5,000 feet below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico. Rather than just containing the oil as it gushes into the gulf, sealing the well would stop the leak.

 

Because of the pressure, temperature and remoteness of such deep water, preparations to seal the well have taken time, with the work at the wellhead done by robotic submersibles. There are plenty of things that could go wrong, but Mr. Campbell, an executive vice president of Superior Energy Services whose subsidiary, Wild Well Control, is a leader in the field, is confident.

 

“Oh, we’ll kill that well,” he said.

 

Relief wells are being drilled that would do the job in a few months, BP officials say. But the more immediate plan, expected Wednesday, is to try a “top kill,” in which heavy drilling mud is pumped into the well, followed by cement, to overcome the pressure of the rising oil. The procedure may involve a “junk shot,” an attempt to choke off the oil flow by bridging gaps in the blowout preventer, the giant stack of equipment that failed when the accident occurred on April 20.

Hope that junk shot works man.

[blackshoe]

Well, at least somebody is doing something, while the talking heads on TV are all yammering about how no one is doing anything.

[mike777]

I like the super tanker surround idea...as a one more stop gap measure.......

 

 

 

Why not try.......several ideas at once while drilling a 4 month relief well.

[kenberg]

A very interesting article in many ways. Of course the main thrust is that maybe this will finally be the thing that works, but it also gives me pleasure to note that we may end up with a huge debt of gratitude to a guy whose "only degree is in being a grandpa". Best wishes to him.

[hrothgar]

Well, at least somebody is doing something, while the talking heads on TV are all yammering about how no one is doing anything.

Yes, by all means, lets do "something".

 

Who knows if that something will actually improve anything. However, at least we can pretend that we're trying to make things better.

 

Don't get me wrong, I really hope that the "Top Kill" plan works. At the same time, I'm completely digusted with people's obsession with instant gratification.

 

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

[y66]

Breaking news ...

 

Top kill seems to be working ...

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/us/28spill.html?hp

 

Edit: Drilling mud is not holding. Engineers are still optimistic though. Time for junk shot?

[Winstonm]

Why not try.......several ideas at once

 

GREAT IDEA. We could try:

 

Solar power

Wind power

Wave power

Atomic power

Chinese slave-wage power - (An idea Apple stole from Union Pacific.)

[junyi_zhu]

Why not try.......several ideas at once

 

GREAT IDEA. We could try:

 

Solar power

Wind power

Wave power

Atomic power

Chinese slave-wage power - (An idea Apple stole from Union Pacific.)

Already 13 suicides from the factory working for Apple in Shenzheng, China in the past a few months ....

[mike777]

Why not try.......several ideas at once

 

GREAT IDEA. We could try:

 

Solar power

Wind power

Wave power

Atomic power

Chinese slave-wage power - (An idea Apple stole from Union Pacific.)

Already 13 suicides from the factory working for Apple in Shenzheng, China in the past a few months ....

Statistics is so interesting.

 

 

Actually this is a very low suicide rate.

 

The expected number in China is around 56

 

 

Around 14 per 100,000....

 

 

400,000 work at this factory.

[junyi_zhu]

Why not try.......several ideas at once

 

GREAT IDEA. We could try:

 

Solar power

Wind power

Wave power

Atomic power

Chinese slave-wage power - (An idea Apple stole from Union Pacific.)

Already 13 suicides from the factory working for Apple in Shenzheng, China in the past a few months ....

Statistics is so interesting.

 

 

Actually this is a very low suicide rate.

 

The expected number in China is around 56

 

 

Around 14 per 100,000....

 

 

400,000 work at this factory.

Shocked. China has the highest female suicide rate in the world and is the only important country that has a higher female suicide rate than male's.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...by_suicide_rate

[gwnn]

China is not on that list.

[junyi_zhu]

China is not on that list.

It is.

 

26 People's Republic of China See: Suicide in the People's Republic of China 13.0 14.8 13.9 1999

[Hanoi5]

Why are dogs committing suicide in Scotland?

 

http://www.listzblog.com/top_ten_bizarre_l...eries_list.html

[gwnn]

China is not on that list.

It is.

 

26 People's Republic of China See: Suicide in the People's Republic of China 13.0 14.8 13.9 1999

This is serious Twilight Zone stuff I clearly remember looking for China and there was no sign of it I even sorted the list and it was Japan on first place. Somehow my browser hid rows that had "main article" next to the header or something.

[Winstonm]

I wonder if we can get China to buy our debt, too.

[gwnn]

Why are dogs committing suicide in Scotland?

 

http://www.listzblog.com/top_ten_bizarre_l...eries_list.html

excellent mysteries, but I don't understand what's the big deal about the viruses (number 1). the others are really interesting, I will read up on them.