Here’s the link to the Central Command Center Suggestions website:
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/546759/
Here’s the link to the simple form to fill out:
http://www.horizonedocs.com/artform.php
It was easy; I sent in a suggestion to utilize bioremediation, i.e. oil-eating microbes especially for the Dry Tortugas and Florida Keys coral reefs. I’m sure they are getting lots of these and may or may not care/listen/respond. DV
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/
June 3, 2010, 10:47 am
By ROBERT MACKEYAs my colleague William Broad reports, the United States is not planning to heed calls from armchair engineers to fire a nuclear weapon at the damaged BP well still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico — simply because, in the words of one official, “It’s crazy.” That said, as Mr. Broad notes, ideas about how to cap the well are flowing onto the Web nearly as fast as oil into the water.
While thinking outside the box, and even the bun, comes naturally to many Americans who spend a lot of time online, some of this brainstorming has been generated in response to requests for help from BP, the government and news organizations like CNN.
BP’s Web site has a “citizen response” section appealing for information and ideas. One blogger, a lawyer named Michael J. Evans who runs BPOilNews.com, reported this week that the company “finally opened a telephone hot line to take oil spill suggestions from the public.” He added:
Whether the suggestions will be seriously considered by BP remains to be seen, but I am happy to report that I had a satisfactory experience when I checked out the Oil Spill Suggestion Hot Line. When I called (281) 366-5511, the phone was actually answered by a live person (in my case, after only two rings) who was polite and actually seemed to be putting my information into a computer. The operator took my name, city and state of residence, ZIP code, telephone number, and e-mail address. She then asked for my suggestion and requested that I speak slowly so she could write it all down.
According to the “Suggestions” page of the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command Web site:
Thousands of people have submitted possible ideas on how to stop or contain the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. More than 20,000 ideas on how to stop the flow of oil or contain the oil spill have been sent to BP since the Gulf of Mexico incident. These ideas have flooded in from people across the world, ranging from ordinary members of the public to oil industry professionals, and in many languages from Arabic to Russian.
According to the site, “BP has implemented a process to review and evaluate all of these suggestions.” Callers are asked to submit their ideas in written form, and then each scheme “is sent for triage by a team of 30 technical and operational personnel who will review its technical feasibility and application.” Although “the technical review can take some time,” eventually:
Each idea is sorted into one of three categories:
* Not possible or not feasible in these conditions;
* Already considered/ planned or;
* Feasible.The feasible ideas are then escalated for a more detailed review, potential testing and field application. So far, around 100 ideas are under further review.
CNN’s call for ideas encouraged readers of its Web site to “share a video or photo explaining your thoughts — bonus points for awesome visuals.” After several hundred responses came in, the network asked Bill Nye to explain why none of the suggestions for cleaning up the spill or capping the well were better than those already devised by experts.
After looking at several of the proposed solutions, Mr. Nye urged viewers to keep in mind that “the people working on these problems are engineers, these are people who nominally can do calculus, people who are very good at physics, people who’ve studied chemistry, people who have dedicated their lives to learning about nature, to learning about science, to learning about the process by which we understand the world.”
Although The Times has not joined CNN in soliciting ideas, that has not stopped our readers from submitting dozens of possible fixes in just the past week. My colleagues who usually field helpful notes about typos or angry screeds about split infinitives and our coverage of ethnic conflicts from readers of our Web site have lately been getting notes they’re filing under “I Know How to Fix the Oil Spill.”
Here, with some corrections of spelling errors, are a few of the more creative ideas to come over our transom in recent days:
Recently when they were widening the roadway 287, whenever they would use explosives they would lay a very heavy steel woven blanket over the area to protect the public. These blankets were 40’ x 40’ hoisted into place with cranes. Why not put several of these blankets over the hole then several steel roadway plates over them! Or why not just sink a ship over the hole! — C. Guntner
My dad, an old barge owner, suggests (and I concur with changes) that an upside-down barge (or I say circular, bowl-like object) filled with concrete (or other heavy material that pours into a mold, then hardens), is lowered onto sea floor on top of and encircling pipe end. Then other heavy objects added on top if needed until the pressure of escaping oil is equalized and spill stops. Further encapsulating and stabilizing measures can then be added to bunker the area down. — Pat Hoffstatter
Create, by sewing, a mile-long tube of impermeable fabric with enlarged ends, a two-ended funnel, the bottom end circus tent sized, the top lake-reservoir sized. The bottom is loosely floated over the leak, then tacked to the ocean floor. The top gradually fills with the rising oil-water mixture floating up to become a lake-reservoir held in place by buoys, increasingly oil rich, as the seal at the bottom is improved. The lake-reservoir is emptied continuously by a tanker fleet. CONTAMINATION OF THE GULF CEASES. — Dr. Lawrence F. Wasser
I came up with a SPINNING TOP PLUG with toggle clamps. The spinning top has grooves on it, like a tap and wings to make it spin from the oil flow. Once the top is over the the pipe, it is lowered very fast or dropped into the out flow pipe. And the toggles hole the top in place. It also has a movable coupling holding the SPINNING TOP SYSTEM. Good Luck. — Jim Fox
It is difficult to add a cap on top of a high-pressure tube. However, it is relatively easy to insert a long metal stick with a long thin tip and gradually increased radius and backward hooks into the well. First put the thin tip of the stick into the well and then push the stick into the well and let the thick part matching the well’s radius deeply into the well and the backward hooks to keep the stick in the well. — Xinhang Shen
I have one suggestion to stop oil flow. BP may consider using clay and/or sand in their top kill effort. These are natural constituents of the sea bed and perhaps heavier than oil. I am not an engineer or a geophysicist, but I am tossing with this idea. I am deeply concerned as is everybody and offer this naïve suggestion. — S.K. Dey
Please! Seal the Gulf Oil Leak quickly and at low cost by immediately dropping 100s to 1000s of tons of plastic bagged capsules of either cement/ concrete/ clay/ etc. select best available/effective material from readily available bottom door opening DREDGING BARGES towed to the site from nearby ports. – Jerry Pospisil
Could the riser pipe be squeezed shut, much as a soda straw be squeezed between thumb and finger? — Joe Kellen
I am engineer and I would like to suggest for BP to stop oil leak, an alloy of zinc of low-point fusion, like Zamak in Portuguese. — J.M. Solis
I LIVE IN RUSSIA. I KNOW HOW TO STOP CONTAMINATION OF MEXICAN BAY. I WOULD LIKE TO SELL THE IDEA. BUT I BADLY TALK FOR ENGLISH AND I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO CONTACT WITH GUIDANCE OF COMPANY. YOU WOULD NOT COULD TO ME HEREIN TO HELP. IT IS VERY GOOD IDEA. YOU WILL BE SORRY ME FOR BAD KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLISH. WITH KIND REGARDS. DMITRY
It seems the easiest solution would be to put a bladder on the end of a pipe, as far into the pipe as possible (to get past sharp edges). Pump air into the bladder, it’s done. The bladder can be designed to spread out into the pipe with the pressure from the oil.
Depending on how deep you have to go, you could also make it a mechanical seal instead of pumping air. Put the largest steel tube into the pipe that will still allow the oil to come out of the pipe, push a bladder through the tube, the bladder is anchored to the inner tube, like a parachute, oil pushes open the bladder. The bladder has to be designed to expand with the pressure.
Don’t know if it can be done, but from my armchair it seemed logical.
— John Cole
I don’t pretend to be an expert with this type of problem. However, I remind myself of the story about the truck stuck under the bridge because it was a few inches too tall. As the experts and engineers devised elaborate plans to remove the bridge or cut away the truck, a child asked, why don’t you just let the air out of the tires?
Therefore, I submit two different ideas for consideration to slow or stop the flow of oil:
The first idea uses a large clamp to crimp or crush the pipe at the break. I envision a tool similar to the jaws of life used by Fire and Rescue workers to pull apart cars. The difference here being the machinery would squeeze instead of expand. This procedure isn’t the final solution, but could dramatically reduce the flow of oil until the relief wells can be completed.
The second idea is to provide a splice over the top of the break in the pipe. Similar to how plumbers fix breaks in water pipes. The splice plate could be equipped with additional pipes or hoses to relieve the pressure and draw the oil up to ships on the surface of the gulf. Again, this would not be the final fix, but could provide a temporary solution until the relief wells are completed. — Jim Viviano
http://thephoenixsun.com/archives/9943
After some setbacks, BP has successfully severed a riser pipe, preparing the way to lower a containment dome over the well in the Gulf of Mexico, that should, according to BP’s plan, capture a large quantity of the oil that has been gushing out of control since April 20th. Operators are now (11:15 CDT) using a circular saw to smooth the edges of the pipe to ensure a tighter fit for the dome.
Special thanks to Osha Davidson
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/06/02/lubchenco-doubts-plumes/
Why is NOAA in such denial? They should be out there spraying microbes to eat the oil now in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary’s Tortugas Ecological Reserve, home to spawning groupers. DV
The foreign oil giant BP has come under withering fire for questioning the existence of vast undersea oil plumes from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. BP’s skepticism is nearly matched by the federal government’s top ocean official, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the ocean scientist in charge of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), raising more questions about the wisdom of the unnecessary federal collaboration with this environmental criminal.
In a teleconference with reporters, Lubchenco said that numerous teams of ocean scientists have found only “anomalies” that might or might not be oil which might or might not be from the BP disaster. She said that only chemical analysis to fingerprint water samples as being contaminated with the Deepwater Horizon’s oil should be considered confirmation of the plumes. Questioned by the Wonk Room, Lubchenco dismissed the findings of the University of Georgia research vessel Walton Smith team – who took physical samples of water contaminated with oil – as “circumstantial evidence.” After further questioning by Huffington Post’s Dan Froomkin, she then conceded:
It is quite possible there is oil under the surface. I think there is reason to believe that may be the case.
Although it is certainly true that chemical analysis of water samples will be definitive, the evidence for these “possible” oil plumes is far stronger than “circumstantial,” as today’s ABC News report about the Walton Smith mission shows:
Lubchenco’s expressed doubt of the existence of oil plumes is consistent with NOAA’s approach to other scientific questions about this environmental calamity. Like BP, she has dismissed the oil entrained in the loop current as a “very small amount of light sheen” which is “likely to be very, very diluted.” Like BP, Lubchenco claimed the 210,000-gallon-a-day guess for flow rate – which was questioned by independent scientists the day it came out on April 28 – was the “best estimate” for an entire month. Eventually NOAA admitted the actual flow rate was at least 240 to 500 percent greater.
Below is a timeline of the scientific research about these undersea plumes:
A 2001 experiment of a deepwater discharge of oil conducted by an industry consortium that included BP found that “a portion of the most toxic compounds is left in the water column.”
An April 26 BP document estimates that “at least half of the oil released” will “evaporate or disperse in the water column.” The document was made public on May 27 after an investigation by House global warming committee chair Ed Markey (D-MA).
On May 6, BP retracted its request that Woods Hole scientist Richard Camilli lead a team to directly measure the undersea plume at the Deepwater Horizon wellhead.
On May 10, the environmental consulting company Applied Science Associates took the NOAA-commissioned research vessel Jack Fitz and found the “presence of oil beneath the surface.” The final laboratory tests were completed Monday but are being held by NOAA.
On May 16, the multi-institution Pelican mission led by Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia and Vernon Asper of the University of Southern Mississippi reported plumes based on multiple instruments from 2300 to 4200 feet below sea level, flowing southwest of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead.
On May 25, Good Morning America correspondent Sam Champion and Philippe Cousteau Jr., the chief ocean correspondent for Planet Green, filmed dispersed globules of oil “forming large plumes under the surface of the water as deep as twenty-five feet.”
On May 28, the multi-institution Walton Smith mission led by Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia and Vernon Asper of the University of Southern Mississippi detected plumes of suspended oil at three different depths west of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead.
On May 28, the University of South Florida research vessel Weatherbird II mission detected a “6-mile-wide plume of invisible oil” more than two miles below the surface in the DeSoto Canyon, about 20 miles northeast of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead. They found the plume guided by computer modeling by USF oceanographer Robert Weisberg.
On May 30, NOAA released a map of a “subsurface plume detected” traveling southwest from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead by the R/V Brooks McCall mission using a CDOM fluorometer.
On May 30, BP CEO Tony Hayward claimed, “The oil is on the surface. There aren’t any plumes.”
UPDATE
Dr. Asper tells the Wonk Room in an email:
The samples from these “features” look like oil and sure smell like oil and of course they fluoresce like oil. But it might be something else. Honestly, we are after the truth so any leads we can get will be greatly appreciated.
Special thanks to Richard Charter
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0603/bp-paid-officials-meals-airfare-polar-bear-trip/
By John Byrne
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 — 9:42 am
The embattled oil and gas giant BP paid for a slew of travel and dining arrangements for senior government officials in the years leading up to the massive oil leak in the Gulf.
Critics say BP got too close with regulators, neutering the government’s safety watchdogs.
The Washington-based newspaper The Hill revealed a series of BP-funded trips after a review of files at the Office of Government Ethics.
Among the more notable was a BP-sponsored trip to Alaska for officials of the Food and Wildlife Service, which involved “maintenance of video surveillance at polar bear den” and a “polar bear study.”
The paper adds:
In June 2004, BP paid for meals and airfare for a trio of Interior Department officials, including then-deputy secretary J. Steven Griles, while they visited an offshore oil rig off New Orleans, La. BP split the cost with the National Ocean Industries Association.
Story continues below…
Griles later pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for his involvement in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.
In February 2005, then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton and then-Minerals Management Service (MMS) Director Johnnie Burton attended a dedication ceremony for BP’s Thunder Horse oil rig off the coast of Texas. BP paid for travel and meals for the officials.
BP also paid for airfare and lodging in 2006 and 2007 for a trip by officials from the Fish and Wildlife Service to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, for “maintenance of video surveillance at polar bear den” and a “polar bear study,” according to documents.
In August 2004, six EPA officials attended a meeting on Alaska’s North Slope near Prudhoe Bay, where they stayed at BP facilities. In 2006, BP was responsible for a large oil spill in Prudhoe Bay.
Former government officials are also an important part of BP’s efforts to keep regulators and Congress at bay.
“In the first three months of this year alone, the company at the heart of the current crisis, BP, has hired at least 27 lobbyists who formerly worked in Congress or the executive branch,” Huffington Post’s Sam Stein noted Wednesday. “The revolving door between the oil giant and elected office is spinning fast — so much so that good government officials are hard-pressed to name a comparable organization with that much institutional clout on tap.”
“In the first three months of 2010 — the three months that immediately preceded the explosion of its Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig — BP spent more than $3.8 million dollars on lobbying the federal government,” Stein added. “The cash was spread around seven prominent lobby shops within the D.C. area (including BP’s own internal operation), who in turn employed 39 lobbyists to help the company push its legislative interests. That nearly 70 percent of those hired guns have experience in elected office doesn’t surprise good government officials because those are after all the most sought-after hires on K Street.”
BP also hired a spokeswoman this week who served in the Bush Administration.
Anne Womack Kolton, former head of public affairs at the Department of Energy and Cheney’s onetime campaign press secretary, took over BP’s public relations message this week.
While at Cheney’s side, Kolton defended the secrecy of the Vice President’s Energy task force, a group which held secretive meetings with energy company executives. When the General Accounting Office — the research arm of Congress — sued the Administraton for records relating to Cheney’s meetings, Kolton (then Womack) was at his side.
Special thanks to Richard Charter