Merged Judge blocks moratorium on off-shore drilling

[funk de fino]

Much in the same way that an engineer could tell you on 9/12 why the WTC collapsed, I can tell you why Deepwater Horizon exploded. I don't need to wait several years for the NIST report.

The rig exploded because they removed the heavy drilling mud from the pipe before setting a sufficient plug. This vastly lowered the head on top of the well to the point that the pressure in the well was greater than the pressure in the pipe. And when that happened, the fluids in the well will rose. The plug that was supposed to prevent a rise didn't work. As the fluid rose, the pressure dropped and a fraction of the liquid converted to gas. This gas hit air, mixed with oxygen, and ignited (probably from being at their flash point).

You can blame the plugs they had for failing, or maybe the casings, which they knew had been damaged. You could blame them for not using a blow-out preventer which would self-activate. You can definitely blame them for removing the drilling mud early.

A in-depth study will likely reveal which components failed where and which ones held up. Maybe the plug held but the casing around it failed, or vice versa. But it's really not necessary to know what caused the explosion. That study won't be finished in 6-months either. It will take years. But it's not necessary. The oil companies need to play safe, and the regulators need to stop giving explicit approval for oil companies wanting to ignore safety regulations.

No, you cannot. You can make guesses like the one above. You can look at some of the supposed actions and what they might have done and you can assume you know.

That does no-one any good.

 

[Newtons Bit]

No, you cannot. You can make guesses like the one above. You can look at some of the supposed actions and what they might have done and you can assume you know.

That does no-one any good.

It's pretty clear to someone who engineers as a living. The only real question remaining is whether the casing failed or the temp plug did. They knew the casing was damaged, and they knew the plug wasn't final. They should not have removed the drilling mud until the casing was inspected and the final plug installed. It's pretty 'ing obvious. Just as obvious as saying that the WTC failed because a plane slammed into them.

 

[rwguinn]

It's pretty clear to someone who engineers as a living. The only real question remaining is whether the casing failed or the temp plug did. They knew the casing was damaged, and they knew the plug wasn't final. They should not have removed the drilling mud until the casing was inspected and the final plug installed. It's pretty 'ing obvious. Just as obvious as saying that the WTC failed because a plane slammed into them.

It's amazing to me how so many of the folks who get bent out of shape over woo in the classroom, or medical profession, immediately play the "woo" card when real science is used to support a point.
We know what happened. All that's really left is why somebody made the idiot decisions.

 

[leftysergeant]

When the first commercial oil wells were built, the earth had a little over 1 billion people.

Today, we have 6.8 billion.

Short version: No, it can't.

Only because nobody with the money to influence such decisions is allowing the alternative energy programs to move ahead properly. We can do with a lot less oil than we are using if people just get their hips off their shoulders.

 

[Newtons Bit]

It's amazing to me how so many of the folks who get bent out of shape over woo in the classroom, or medical profession, immediately play the "woo" card when real science is used to support a point.
We know what happened. All that's really left is why somebody made the idiot decisions.

Money. That thing cost a lot of money / day. But the reports show that the water spout from the top was 240ft up in the air. Compare that to how much head is over the well. It sounds like someone did some math and was off by about 5%

 

[rwguinn]

Money. That thing cost a lot of money / day. But the reports show that the water spout from the top was 240ft up in the air. Compare that to how much head is over the well. It sounds like someone did some math and was off by about 5%

Don't those dudes know about Margin (or Factor of Safety)?

 

[Newtons Bit]

Don't those dudes know about Margin (or Factor of Safety)?

It's a foreign concept to you and me, but it's pretty common in professions where public safety isn't at risk. Mining factors of safety are very low. I recall one of my mineral engineering professors at school talking about 1.25 for temporary mining tunnels.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Only because nobody with the money to influence such decisions is allowing the alternative energy programs to move ahead properly. We can do with a lot less oil than we are using if people just get their hips off their shoulders.

The reason alternative energy isn't taking off is because wind and solar are insanely expensive, too diffuse to be useful (both require massive arrays of turbines/panels or other collection systems with almost ecocidal footprints) and the only real alternative (nuclear) is under constant propaganda attack by green fearmongerers and eco-lobbyists.

 

[leftysergeant]

The reason alternative energy isn't taking off is because wind and solar are insanely expensive, too diffuse to be useful (both require massive arrays of turbines/panels or other collection systems with almost ecocidal footprints) and the only real alternative (nuclear) is under constant propaganda attack by green fearmongerers and eco-lobbyists.

Twaddle. If we had a wind turbine manufacturing industry here, the cost would come down and people would have jobs. But the money from tax cuts, which was supposed to produce industrial jobs has, instead, been piddled away gambling on derivatives or used to create jobs in China to undercut our working people.

And there is this one big thing about nuclear power that you seem to overlook. Mistakes are going to be with us for centuries. Safe? The oil maggots told us Gulf drilling was utterly safe, too.

Are you going to blame the blow-out on green activists next?

 

[rwguinn]

It's a foreign concept to you and me, but it's pretty common in professions where public safety isn't at risk. Mining factors of safety are very low. I recall one of my mineral engineering professors at school talking about 1.25 for temporary mining tunnels.

Even 25% margin would have held, though, if the error was only 5%.
On shuttle payloads, we started at 1.5, and final configuration was still 1.15.
On commercial aircraft, we shoot for 0 margin (FS=1.0) at 50% overload--but we have weight constraints.

 

[Newtons Bit]

Even 25% margin would have held, though, if the error was only 5%.

I was looking at actual demand to capacity, not including the margin.

There's not telling how close these guys decided to push it.

 

[HistoryGal]

In response to post 164, please see post 161.

Thank you.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Twaddle. If we had a wind turbine manufacturing industry here, the cost would come down and people would have jobs. But the money from tax cuts, which was supposed to produce industrial jobs has, instead, been piddled away gambling on derivatives or used to create jobs in China to undercut our working people.

Actually, no. For one thing, it takes 50 times the steel and concrete per megawatt to build wind as it does nuclear.

And as I said, the footprints of wind and solar vs. nuclear are staggeringly huge.

Bruce Nuclear Generating Station: 6.2 Gigawatts, ~1200 acres

Maple Ridge Wind Farm: 320 megwatts (peak output with suficient wind) 12,000 acres

Proposed 3 gigawatt solar plant in India: 37,120 acres (only operates during daytime, only produces 3 GW between 1000 hrs and 1400 hrs).

Too much cost, too big of a footprint for too little gain.

Are you going to blame the blow-out on green activists next?

Yup!

Whose fault is it that we were drilling in 5000 feet of water when we could have been drilling closer to shore where the problem could have been fixed earlier and safer?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

The explosion happened due to bonehead decisions on the part of engineers to displace mud with seawater, reducing the pressure on the reservoir, among other things I am not competent to determine (although experts in the field are).

I think you and Newton's Bit should contact BP and Congress right away. Both of them have said that the investigations are incomplete, and the causes of the disaster aren't known.

Those bonehead decisions triggered the whole mess, and all the contingency plans in the world for mitigation would not have stopped it.

You're confusing contingency plans with "fail-safes". When the "fail-safes" fail, you need a contingency plan to stop spewing oil into the Gulf. (That is, they're not meant to prevent something like this, but to deal with it quickly after it happens.) Those contingency plans were part of the documentation required for the permits in question.

So don't confuse the two points: 1) investigations into the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster are incomplete contrary to what you two think, and 2) the industry has not provided adequate contingency plans.

It seems like the only solution to a blow out is to drill relief wells. If this is the case, and it takes months to drill relief wells, maybe we should require them to drill relief wells at the same time they drill the main well.

And again, this is not guesswork. We all know that the industry presently is unable to contain a leak like this. (My niece in Panama City said the beaches are a mess.)

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Whose fault is it that we were drilling in 5000 feet of water when we could have been drilling closer to shore where the problem could have been fixed earlier and safer?

I don't know about whose fault it is, but it makes sense. Oil in the open ocean is a lot less harmful than it is on coasts, wetlands, estuaries and coastal islands.

I would say the "fault" is our dependence on oil.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

The reason alternative energy isn't taking off is because wind and solar are insanely expensive, too diffuse to be useful (both require massive arrays of turbines/panels or other collection systems with almost ecocidal footprints) and the only real alternative (nuclear) is under constant propaganda attack by green fearmongerers and eco-lobbyists.

Isn't the relative cost of energy tied to policy?

Just as an example germane to this thread's topic, since off shore drilling platforms lack any viable contingency plans in the event of a blow-out except relief wells which take months to drill, what would happen to the cost of oil extraction if they were required to drill relief wells simultaneously with the main well?

FWIW, I think the "greens" and "eco-lobbyists" have become more and more friendly to nuclear energy.

 

[AvalonXQ]

I don't know about whose fault it is, but it makes sense. Oil in the open ocean is a lot less harmful than it is on coasts, wetlands, estuaries and coastal islands.

True or false: "the reason why this problem has been so difficult to fix is because of how deep we're drilling"?
True or false: "had this same problem occurred in shallow water, near the coast, it would likely have been fixed very quickly with very little damage"?

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Whose fault is it that we were drilling in 5000 feet of water when we could have been drilling closer to shore where the problem could have been fixed earlier and safer?

Why do people keep saying this?

Is there any evidence that drilling in shallower water would have made any difference beyond giving the spilled oil a head start at making landfall? Where it would be far less dispersed and degraded?

We've got clear evidence that it isn't necessarily the case.

 

[thaiboxerken]

As long as the oil industry doesn't know how to stop leaking oil wells quickly, there should be a moratorium.

 

[funk de fino]

It's pretty clear to someone who engineers as a living. The only real question remaining is whether the casing failed or the temp plug did. They knew the casing was damaged, and they knew the plug wasn't final. They should not have removed the drilling mud until the casing was inspected and the final plug installed. It's pretty 'ing obvious. Just as obvious as saying that the WTC failed because a plane slammed into them.

An engineer would have notice the bolded part. Speculation out of your expertise. In mine however.