Plan for mitigating Gulf tragedy -- your help is needed

Dems to Win

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Tue May-25-10 05:58 PM
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Plan for mitigating Gulf tragedy -- your help is needed

Moderately informed poster, here (B.S. Petroleum Engineering, 1982, U. of Texas, but I only worked in the oil industry for five years after graduating -- then I developed an environmental consciousness and quit).

Sadly and tragically, it is very unlikely that any solution other than the pressure relief wells, already underway, will stop the flow of crude into the Gulf. But, there are things that could be done now to lessen the disaster.

Two important steps that need to be taken to mitigate the damage from the BP blowout in the Gulf:

1. STOP releasing dispersants. NOW. It is crazy to add more poison to the Gulf. Dispersants do nothing to assist the environment in naturally cleaning the oil; they just prevent (mostly) the ugly pictures of birds covered in pure black crude. Dispersants prevent the water surface being coated with a continuous, thick layer of crude, instead breaking it up into smaller globs. It does allow crude to somewhat mix with water to produce the goop that looks like chocolate ice cream, but that is no progress for the Gulf and it's creatures. Dispersants are just a toxic PR stunt, and the government needs to order BP to cease and desist immediately.

2. Mobilize every possible tanker to siphon up crude from as close to the leak points as possible. Dangle mile-long pipes down into the crude spewing from the wellhead and at each breach in the riser pipe, and pump the crude / water into a tanker. Allow the crude and water to separate out in the tanker, then pump the water out on the spot. Continue until the tanker is full of oil, then take it to a refinery for processing, with another tanker ready to immediately take over siphoning the crude from the ocean floor. Submersibles can be used to monitor the uptake into the dangling pipes, moving them as needed to keep them picking up as much crude as possible.

BP currently has only one spot where they have inserted a tube into a riser, or pipe, that is leaking oil from the sea floor. The company is gathering the crude oil and siphoning it up to a drill ship for storage. They should have at least a dozen collectors.

There are several leak spots where tankers should be siphoning up crude, and they should be dangling several siphon pipes into each leak spot, if possible. To provide enough residence time to effectively separate the crude and oil, several tankers might be needed at each uptake point. Even after some separation time in the tankers, the crude will be contaminated with water, beyond the typical water contamination levels acceptable at refineries. Government power will probably be needed to order the refineries to accept the crude with high water content. And the refineries will operate far below their standard efficiency, given the contaminated crude. Especially any crude contaminated with those nasty dispersants.

Why are the tankers not yet mobilized in great numbers? Because of the economic impact.

There aren't a lot of spare, empty tankers sitting around. In order to make this happen, the government would need to force tankers to depart from their regularly scheduled routes and order them to clean up duty in the Gulf. (I note that the tankers are not American-flagged ships, so I have no idea what would be required for the U.S. to forcibly mobilize them. But I'm sure the U.S. military could do it, if real force was required. Desperate times call for desperate measures.)

If this plan were enacted fully, suddenly all of the oil tankers in the country and the world would NOT be delivering the maximum crude to refineries, to maximize the production of gasoline for our cars. Refineries along the Gulf Coast would NOT be operating at maximum throughput, to maximize the production of gasoline for our cars. This is why it hasn't happened yet -- because BP and the politicians want us all to drive and consume oil as normal. The politicians, especially, do not want the economy to be throttled as a result of dramatically reduced supplies of gasoline.

The president needs to go on TV and ask all Americans to cut their gasoline and energy usage in half, as an emergency response to the disaster in the Gulf, so that tankers and refineries can enact these far-from-perfect cleanup measures. President Obama should also use all necessary force (or money, if that will do the trick -- send the bill to BP) to put as many tankers and refineries working on the task as needed.

I am sending this note to Thom Hartmann, asking him to bring it to the attention of Senator Bernie Sanders. I'm also sending this to my senators, and will post it at other sites. If you can help get this to the attention of the Obama Administration, please do so.

Tell the politicians that we WILL make any sacrifices necessary to prevent further tragedy in the Gulf. We need leadership and strong action!