BP: What reason do we have to believe the second hole won't blow?

[darxus]

Since I heard that BP's long term solution to the oil leak, which was going to take until August, involve drilling a second hole, I've wanted to know:

What reason is there to believe the second hole won't blow?


(Also, why don't they put an upside down funnel over the hole, with a valve at the top, and anchor it with cables?)

Comments

[milktree.livejournal.com]

The ocean floor isn't flat, or smooth, or hard, so an upside down funnel wouldn't seal against the ocean floor. The oil would just spurt out around the base of the funnel.

What would you anchor the cables to?

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Big bolt thingies driven into the ocean floor.

And just make the funnel big and thick enough that when you torque it down, the ocean floor flattens to seal it.


My other idea is to take all of the lead, melt it into a ball, and drop it in place.

[milktree.livejournal.com]

imagine trying to bolt into the sand at the beach.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

So drill until you hit rock, and then screw in the bolts. If drilling the second hole is taking months, there's something there that will hold.

[milktree.livejournal.com]

Then what? Do you imagine squishing the funnel down until it hits rock too? The squirting oil will just displace the sediment on the ocean floor around the funnel's rim.

[feng-huang.livejournal.com]

You've got the entire weight of the water in the Gulf of Mexico pressing down on the earth's crust, which is pressing down against the oil pocket, which is spurting upward through a hole more than a foot across bored into the earth. It's like popping a pimple, only on a geological scale. I've heard numbers in the range of 40,000 PSI for the pressure there at the wellhead. We simply don't really know how to deal with pressures that great.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, oil is lighter than water. Thanks. That helps.

Stupid Humans.

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

I've heard numbers up to 170k psi. It's just plain nasty.