Perspectives on Innovation

Not the most politically acceptable of solutions, but a focused nuclear explosion did work for previous similar events in Russia: http://bit.ly/9lvIgK

Thank you for this update.
Is BP the only party to send solutions to? Is not also the US government a ’seeker’?

first idea was to slip a giant fire hose over the end & run it to were it should go, up to ships or to the othe end of the broken pipe the next was to bolt a sleave around the pipe with a capped tube on one end & an open pipe on the other end insert a drill bit the same diameter as the inner dimention of the oil pipe mill the bit above the drilling end to the top & slide on a rubber sleave then a washer & thread the top of the drill bit shaft so when you drill through the pipe the bit tip enters the capped tube leaving the rubber sleave around the shaft of the bit & tighten a bolt on the top to compress the sleave in the pipe. a hand drawing of my mental picture avalable on request. this would have to be a 2 piece system that bolts around the oil pipe

Too late by one day with Idea – Shut off well using age old wild well tech – unbolt/disconnect riser at flange upstream of bent riser above the BOP. Using a standard hydrulic, or electric, or manually actuated valve with a flange matching the flange just disconnected, place the valve (valve in open postion) in the stream of oil and mate up flanges. Using nut and bolts (bolts pre welded to valve flange), or explosive bolt anchors, or hinged “C” clamps preattached to the valve flange, secure the mated flanges – then close valve.

large steel funnel(10m thick) at the end where leakage is occuring,with lots of channel pipe to distribue the oil to take it to surface.

One simple solution that is being consistently ignored is the following to block the hole. Put tetrahedral shaped stars (concrete) somewhat smaller dia than the hole, in the hole. They are famous for getting blocked on the way. As they are just star shaped tetrahedrons, they will not stop the flow (this is important; otherwise they will be thrown out like a vomit) but will reduce the flow somewhat. After some 50-100 of these down the hole, put smaller such blocks; they will get stuck half the way. They are famous for their strength and will get jammed but not break. Once the flow is reduced (say half the original value), we put now a mixed shaped blocks. Important is that the shape must get jammed to the walls, even a smooth one.

Under water, the apparent mass is far less (heavy drilling mud is just slightly heavy; concrete blocks are far better) and the important thing to focus is the first few blocks must jam to the wall instead of reducing the flow. Concrete blocks in this shape and size are easy to make and if the size is right they will certainly get stuck on the way, even if the wall is smooth. After a few of these are jammed, the flow will start getting reduced. They must have embedded sensors to tell how deep they have gone.

I do not know the size of the hole; but concrete blocks (tehrahedral stars of concrete) of the right size can be made easily. If the shape is not right, both the buoyancy and current of oil gushing out will not allow the hole to be plugged. It is also not difficult to design the optimum shape.

Why are they not pumping the oil/seawater mix into tankers? It might not mitigate the flow, but it would help dissipate the underwater plumes.

I believe a simple system built out of a fabric similar to the type of materials used in atmospheric balloons flexible and long in tubular form, resistant and chemically stable to the type of oil and gas, very long, as long as to near the sea level, could be placed around the oil outlet, that would in this way stay inside this type of funnel, and fixed to the bottom by strong cables like when you fix a tent, to collect and direct the oil upwards in a controlled fashion, inside this flexible system, that would not be clogged by any material being formed like the one that clogged the hard structure already tried. I believe this system would behave like a siphon because the entrance is not completely blocked around the pipe outlet, so the driving force of the oil going up will drive the water around this entrance also upwards preventing oil to come out from the side, and so collecting all the oil coming out of the pipe. The top of this structure should be rather large in diameter and designed to allow the recollection of the oil to a vessel with appropriate gas separation and venting to a safe flare system or equivalent. This system will allow no more oil to be lost to the sea, up to a point when other solutions will allow the oil to stop flowing, like the relieve drills under construction. I sincerely Hope this idea as a whole or parts of it make sense and will allow results to finish with this nightmare.

My thought for oil collection was to place a turbine underwater, facing the surface (deprth to be determined by an engineer). Affix it to a shark-age-like device at four courners. Have a large hose/pipe fitted to the back of this trubine that leads to a BP oil tanker that can collect the oil/water mixture for separation (preferably at a BP refinery in Britain).
In addion to the turbine, the “walls” of the shark cage, or some eminating feature, could be made from large pipes with gaps between them. The pipes would vibrate at a frequency that breaks down the oils into manageable pieces so it would not clog the turbine as the oil water mixture enters the whirlpool created by the turbine. The turbine could be placed low enough to catch the underwater oil cloud as well. Most, if not all of this technology already exists..I’ve spoken to a deep-water oil rigeer who said this sounds plausible….any thoughts?

Whoops…that should say shark-cage like device!

You’ve been collecting ideas for 3 weeks and are only now sending the best ones to BP?

OK, here’s mine. This is an idea for collecting the oil, not for stopping the flow. In brief, cover the leak area with a large plastic sheet, and let the oil collect float up into the center of it. When it has a manageable amount of oil, move it away from the leak and replace it with another one. It would be better to use a dome-shaped sheet like a parachute or the top half of a hot air balloon, rather than a flat square, but use whatever works.

In more detail, this is how I would do it. Make a very large square sheet of thin plastic, maybe a hundred yards on an edge. It would be best to put a “dart” into the center of each side so that it is more dome shaped and can catch more oil. Attach weights to the four corners. Attach a float of some kind to the middle, so that it rises up in the center. Use a submersible to position three of the corners on the sea floor, positioned on three corners of a square with the leak at the center of the square, then pull the fourth corner over the leak and position it at the fourth corner of the square. Assuming the escaping oil is lighter than water the oil will rise into the raised center of the square making a dome shape. When it has a manageable and safe amount of oil in it, move the weights holding the dome away from the leak. Repeat with a new sheet.

The filled domes do not have to be dealt with immediately. They can be left for days or months until a ship can lower a suction pipe to empty them. There could be dozens of these domes used to catch all the oil while the leak is being repaired. They are easy to move, since the weight at each corner can be picked up and moved independently in order to “walk” the dome away.

I have submitted a couple of ideas through the normal process. I have 40 yrs of engineering experience fixing things, but I still come up with novel solutions. Currently I volunteer making devices for disabled people, the type of things that are not available off the shelf. One device has now gone through about 12 ideas, and at last we appear to be at a solution. My normal solving process has always been a site visit to eyeball the problem and then discuss the situation with the problemowner. This provides an enormous amount of information that contributes to knowing what will probably not work, and this contributes leads towards what might work.
To date the only information that I have is the video feed, which I guess is the nearest we can expect to a site visit. So I have the following questions:
How big is what we are looking at in the video feed?
Exactly what is the configuration of the piping, valving, bent pipes, sea floor, structural steel, etc?
How big is the pipe, how far down into the seabed does it go, how thick is it, what material?
Where are all the leaks? – I have heard that the earth is leaking in several places.
Is the seabed sand, mud, rock, what?
What would the drill hole pressure be if the leak were plugged?
Exactly what was the crystallization that plugged the top hat that was sent down maybe three weeks ago?
Could we use the crystallization effect to let us make a plug in the correct place or to make a pipe?
We all learn from our failures, so can we please know exactly why the ideas tried to date failed?
Why isn’t there a something like a big vacuum cleaner pipe close to the hole, sucking in maybe half the oil and five times as much water, and sending it to tankers on the surface – that would sure beat losing ALL the oil into the Gulf. Any system that works to some extent is a lot better than doing nothing at all, so at least stick the syphon tube back in and collect SOME of the oil.
Innocentive folk may be bright, but I think that they should they limit their review of ideas to eliminating duplicates. How are they able to know what criteria make a “best” idea, when the BP experts have implemented their own best ideas without success? Surely we are now after an oddball idea that has a minor glimmer of possibility. Maybe there will be a combination of features from two or three oddball ideas that together can make a gem.
The end. Colin.

I also submitted an idea through the solver process as i do not have engineering experience but have some mechanical abilities and have been working as a clockmaker for some years, i know if i can not get eyes on the problem or see the correct diagrams with material specs we are all shooting in the dark.
Like Hardman says what is under BOP besides a lot of oil and gas. What is the consistency of the oil? the pressure? the abrasive content? can the BOP be removed and the well plugged quickly with a low tech device such as very heavy tapered pin lowered into the gushing hole from ship crane above? anyway i am so new to this site i am not sure how to even get a hold of people like Hardman i wonder if i will be watching folk cleaning oily birds for the rest of my life.

A slution to the oil leak problem. About 100 yards/metres from the leak put an oil pipeline with the capalready in place and open the other end. In the end of the pipe insert one end of a flexible inflatable/deflatable pipe. The other end of the deflated fleible pipe/hose? is inserted a number of yards/metres into the fractured pipe and the opened. The oil pressure should force open the flexible pipe so that it grips the side of the existing pipe. The oil will then flow into the capped pipe.

The principle is that of a stent used to repair or make safe an Abdominal Aortic Aneurism.
What does BP and the White House think?

Maybe these solutions are almost impossible :

Note:Yours need take precautions,this solutions can cause physical damage environmental,health and others.

1.Empty part of the sea where the oil leak

a.Put concrete barriers that are beyond level the sea (form a circule and empty the circle and seal the oil leak

Some people say that dynamite in a controlled manner could be the solution but it could aggravate the situation.

The had of the well is a vertical pipe that is spewing pressurized oil directly from substrata. It appears to me that the pipe cannot be capped because of the pressure. I propose capping the pipe by relieving the pressure as so:
1) Drill multiple holes in the side of the pipe, like a sieve. This will allow capping at the top of the pipe, because pressure will be diverted to these multiple holes.
2) Cap the top of the pipe with a plug with a stop-cock in its middle. This stop-cock is then connected to a pipe that runs to the sea surface into a collection reservoir.
3) one-by-one plug the smaller holes on the side of the pipe. Sure, as each hole is plugged the pressure will increase in the remaining open holes. But this pressure can be lessened by opening the stop-cock and allowing oil to flow up and into reservoir.

Imagine an upside down large funnel.The large end is placed by dropping it over the oil
flow.The dimensions might be 30 feet diameter large end and 100 feet long.Top opening
of say 2 feet diameter.Use a flexible pipe attached to the top end which leads to the surface
were an anchored ship collects the oil in a floating tank at sea level.
The bottom end of the funnel would have a very heavy rim to act as a self stabilizing anchor.
Total weight of funnel maybe 500 tons or so.And drop it from a height to have it jam itself in place.
If its not in the right place then lift and repeat until correct.

Use a large arcamedies screw like drill to drill into the leaking pipe end.
Keep screwing down into the pipe until it jams.
then place a close fitting female nut over the screw to shut of oil.

I have read other ideas above and the one which really caught my attention
is the tappered pin.If the well head pipe is 2 feet in diameter use solid steel
tappered pin with enough length so that the weight will shut off the oil pressure.
With carefull selection of taper the pipe would be damaged by the taper.
Or at least one would hope not.Engineering calculations could verify this.

Puleeeze, before you offer an opinion, at the very least, familiarize yourself with the situation. As I understand it, this is not a simple pipe standing straight up spewing oil. It is a bent riser, without good vertical access. No christmas tree on top, no BOP, no valves, no flange, nothing workable, just a bent pipe spewing oil at pressure.

Has there been any thought to hydraulically closing rams on bop

Although not a rocket science, i am how ever a veteran diver of 17 years in the gulf. my solution would be to use oceaneering hydraulic hot tap below the bend and devert the flow of the oil to the topside and to recovery tanks. This would not be a perm fix but would recover the most oil from the well.

I’ve got an idea. In order to stem the flow pouring crude oil it will be useful to lower the temperature of a small amount of soil in which passes the line of the flow of crude oil. This can result in cooling of the particle flow of crude oil, and they would stick to the cooled walls of highway on which the flow of crude oil, like cholesterol plaques in blood vessels, and eventually cork free outlet stream.

How about they use multiple pipes that can suck up the oil and direct them all around the leaking pipe. If there is enough of them (Maybe 12-20) with good suction power you can suck up all the oil as it comes out of the pipe. This would be a water/oil mix but the water could be filter later. I am not an engineer so I know this is alot easier said then done but it seems this should work…

As per Vladimir’s suggestion, the use of dry ice blasting may very well cause a wax (plaque) to build up in the riser or non functioning valves and cause a simple blockage. I know the rate may be substantial enough to to wear off any build up, but in conjunction with other methods to stem flow it may be worth a shot…

Hi
Yes, Brian. My proposal is interim and can serve to be able to prepare and carry out essential work which will stop the uncontrolled flow of crude oil. The next stage will be the one which will be elected by the performers. It may be directed blast, or the installation of shut-off equipment on the surviving portion of highway, from which poured crude oil.
Unfortunately I do not have the full technical information about the disaster occurred. And also about the state of the remaining equipment rig. And that’s why for me, as well as for other solvers, it is very difficult to find the optimal solution. But I hope that the Lord will help us. And so we need to ask for help from the God before doing something in this direction.