Oil slick

[frazil]

I keep watching the live cam (BP disaster cam) hoping to see some little robots moving around. When are they going to plug this thing up?

 

[Kephart P.E.]

This is all so much horseshit in my opinion, you made the mess you clean the mess up. Oil and gas companies are in this business to make lots of money, heck and I have had and continue to have several clients in the field, but all this sidesteping of blame is annoying.l

I guess they should have set aside some of those record profits they made a couple of years ago.

Our president has recently been notified about the oil spill, only took him 8 days to, I guess, find out.

BP did a fine job of covering it up. Forcing workers to sign no-fault papers before allowing them back on shore. Closing off the shores along the blast from the media.

I'm not sure I'd call that a cover up. And it wasn't BP's rig out there, it was Transocean's. My understanding is that it was Transocean's crew as well.

 

[Master slacker]

It's sickening seeing the live feed.

 

[frazil]

^agreed. but I can't stop watching.

It sounds like they've started the top kill procedure. now the video is showing a close up of some parts - I'm not sure what we're looking at.

 

[Master slacker]

I see the hoses for cement / mud injection. I hope this works.

 

[Paul S]

CNN has the live feed also, if the BP feed is not showing up.

 

[frazil]

I wish there was a live sound feed from the control room.

 

[Master slacker]

I can imagine that it'd either be NSFW or silent.

 

[Road Guy]

35 days and counting, you would think if they could bring Apollo 13 home they could get some people with some good ideas...

 

[Dexman PE]

Unfortunately, the guys who brought home Apollo 13 have long since retired...

 

[Capt Worley PE]

35 days and counting, you would think if they could bring Apollo 13 home they could get some people with some good ideas...

I think it is the deepest blowout ever, and some of the others have taken several months to plug. Give 'em a break, they are trying, trying stuff that hasn't been done before at that depth.

 

[Chucktown PE]

It's not as if BP did this intentionally. I'm sure they made mistakes but we've all made mistakes in our careers as engineers. It just happens that when they make a mistake in their subsector of the oil/gas industry the consequences are much larger than, if for example, I were to undersize a pipe by 2 inches.

The fact of the matter is that their equipment failed and while it might make some feel good to get angry at some rich CEO, no one could have predicted this. And while we are dependent on companies like BP to deliver oil and gas as part of our energy supply, we have to accept accidents like this as an unfortunate cost of what it takes to allow us to live our intensive energy consumptive lifestyles.

 

[Chucktown PE]

Looks like they stopped it.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...0,5782115.story

 

[Paul S]

Looks like they stopped it.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...0,5782115.story

This claims that report is premature: Reuters

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

It's sickening seeing the live feed.

^agreed. but I can't stop watching.

Like Meatspin!

 

[frazil]

exactly! "will it ever stop?!"

 

[frazil]

they're using some robot arm to move stuff around now.

 

[Master slacker]

It's not as if BP did this intentionally. I'm sure they made mistakes but we've all made mistakes in our careers as engineers. It just happens that when they make a mistake in their subsector of the oil/gas industry the consequences are much larger than, if for example, I were to undersize a pipe by 2 inches.
The fact of the matter is that their equipment failed and while it might make some feel good to get angry at some rich CEO, no one could have predicted this. And while we are dependent on companies like BP to deliver oil and gas as part of our energy supply, we have to accept accidents like this as an unfortunate cost of what it takes to allow us to live our intensive energy consumptive lifestyles.

I don't plan to accept this as an "unfortunate cost". The son of one of our pipefitters onsite was killed on that rig. From what I gather from numerous sources, this was very preventable. Of course, this is preliminary and there are a lot of different rumors flying around. However, each of the stories I'm hearing is that the operators / management knew something wasn't quite right, but continued their production as if nothing were wrong. We'll see how it plays out in the end, but "oopsie" doesn't come to mind with this incident. "Negligence" is the word I'm currently using and may very well be using in the months to come.

 

[frazil]

the robot arm is now hitting the pipe with a wrench.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

the robot arm is now hitting the pipe with a wrench.

To a robot with a wrench, the entire undersea kingdom is a nail.