More details - When asked whether the dome effort had "failed," the BP official said, "I wouldn't say it has failed, yet, . . . but it hasn't worked."
Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fUZ2kriJ-Q --- In [email protected], "do.rflex" <do.rf...@...> wrote: > > > BP Effort To Use Dome To Contain Oil Disaster Fails > > > The Wonk Room has completed its live blogging > <http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/tag/oilpocalypse> from the Gulf > Coast. > > [Cofferdam] Efforts to contain the Deepwater Horizon oil gusher with > a 100-ton, four-story concrete-and-steel box have failed, BP officials > announced. The giant box, known as a cofferdam, was lowered onto the > leaking wellhead > <http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/slick_contraption_BTfl8PIuVB0Vfsp\ > OeffAJP> yesterday, with the intent of pumping the leaking oil up a > pipe to the sea surface a mile above. However, BP Chief Operating > Officer Doug Suttles announced in a press briefing this afternoon that > the dome effort failed. After the cofferdam was lowered onto the leak > site, a slurry of methane crystals formed on the inside of the > dome's surface, making it bouyant and clogging the outtake at the > dome's roof. > > The giant box has been moved 200 meters from the disaster site, and is > sitting on the sea bed. BP had anticipated that methane hydrates could > form within the pipework from the dome to the surface, but not within > the dome itself, especially at such a rapid rate. > > Suttles, clearly chastened by this setback, had a much less confident > tone about containing the leak than he had at previous press > conferences, such as the one attended on Tuesday by the Wonk Room when > he announced the cofferdam was being shipped out to the disaster site. > "It's very difficult to say whether solutions will work," he > admitted. > > The methane hydrates <https://www.llnl.gov/str/Durham.html> > natural gas that under the extreme pressure and low temperatures of the > ocean floor is in a semi-frozen state have also been implicated in > the oil rig explosion > <http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jiumTOLf3f7WF4W_\ > dtlNyHallMmw> , according to rig worker testimony acquired by the > Associated Press. The liberal blog FireDogLake was the first media > source to discuss the role of hydrates > <http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/44349> , noting a presentation > from November, 2009 by Halliburton, who was responsible for cementing > the Deepwater Horizon well, that warned of blowouts caused by hydrate > destabilization: > > Destabilization of hydrates during cementing and production in deepwater > environments is a challenge to the safety and economics. > > Suttles also admitted that David Rainey, BP's VP for Gulf of Mexico > exploration, was on the rig celebrating its safety record when it blew > up. Although 11 workers were killed, Rainey and the other BP employees > on the rig safely escaped the inferno. > > Also during the briefing, Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry was > unusually optimistic about the preparations being made for the oil that > is just now reaching the shores of Louisiana, but looms closer to the > entire Gulf Coast as each day passes: "We're ready for it." > > http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/08/bp-dome/ >
