Mauro Lacy wrote:
I can't believe they can't stop the oil spill after more than six weeks. At this point it sounds like something intentional to me.
That can't be! BP will lose billions of dollars. There is no way anyone would cause this situation on purpose. No saboteur could get within a kilometer of the place, or know how to trigger this disaster.
Don't they know about mechanical vices? As they have access to the base of the leaking pipe, a powerful enough mechanical vice can be used to slowly compress the pipe, until closing it.
I doubt that would work. If thousands of tons of mud do not stop it, I doubt that would. The pressure would just push the pipe open again.
The thing you have to remember is that BP and Uncle Sam have every expert on the planet on speed dial. I am sure if any expert out there in major equipment company or oil company knows a way to fix this problem, he or she can get a message through. Yes, these people have heard of mechanical vices. And cutters. The cutter they finally used is the size of a truck.
The only criticism I have is that they should have done more in parallel, getting read to do Plan B and Plan C while Plan A was still underway.
I do not feel sorry for BP but I feel awful for the engineers and equipment operators out there, in the spotlight, trying to deal with recalcitrant equipment in a dangerous, unforgiving place. On a scale a million times smaller, with absolutely no physical danger . . . I have been in their shoes.
It reminds me of Kipling's poem, "The Secret of the Machines:" But, remember, please, the Law by which we live, We are not built to comprehend a lie, We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die! - Jed
