At so many levels ? For the industry and for BP, not to mention the dead and injured as well as the obvious environmental effects. Deepwater Horizon was ABS classified.
What I can’t figure is why, if the leak is so well defined at the sea bed, and sufficiently concentrated to be corralled at the surface (to burn it) why it can’t be sucked-up, or captured in huge floating “bags” – like filling a hot-air ballon by natural convection (?) then the water-oil mix shipped away to be separated ? Must be scope for better future emergency devices. Do BOP’s ever work when you need them ? Not my specialist area, but …
(BTW that’s actually Alabama, Mobile Bay, where Florida is indicated on the map.)
Post Note : And more leaks / five times worse than originally believed.
Still glad to see the engineers are working on better solutions – similar to my suggestion above … a dome over the top and … suck. Better late than never, and there’s always the next time.
Engineers are believed to be working on a dome-like device to cover oil rising to the surface and pump it to container vessels but it may be weeks before this is in place.
[Post Note : these junk-shots and top-hats are of course not new approaches to such sub-sea blow-outs. They are normal early attempts until proper intercept relief wells can be drilled, but these take time. Thanks to Alex for the old news links. Remember the disaster has already occurred at this point, not just a blow-out but a failure of multiple BOP’s, both preventable. There was in fact a much more recent and even more similar well blow-out in the North Sea only months before Deepwater – documented in the later reports – also inexplicably not communicated to the Macondo crew and management.]
2 thoughts on “What a Disaster”