Separating Oil and Water
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010Author Linda Brady Traynham
Anger is not a problem-solving tool. Anger will not choose a profitable stock, nor will it lead to peace in the Middle East. Anger cannot reveal the identity of the “unknown” solution in your beaker in a chemistry lab, it cannot produce harmony in your marriage, and it has yet to reveal an answer to how many pounds of coffee of three different prices are required to make ten pounds of coffee that can be sold for $8.42.
Anger is an emotion, the most deleterious of emotions, and absolutely nothing of value will result from Mr. Obama’s vow to discover “whose ‘ass’ to kick,” a goal I find as offensive intellectually as I do for its vulgarity. The President of the United States is expected to refrain from coarse language, bowing to foreign leaders, and bankrupting the country. IF Mr. Obama should be doing anything whatsoever other than cutting red tape to assist in dealing with the oil in the Gulf–a proposition I do not support–losing his temper is not it, and neither is shutting down drilling in the Gulf in his typical high-handed way.
There are many ways to view the situation in the Caribbean, starting with it is a dreadful waste of perfectly good oil which I would have preferred to be pumped more successfully by an American company. Controlling the flow will be a matter of chemistry, physics, and technology, and loud angry voices will be of no more use then King Canute commanding the sea, although it will teach the same lesson: no matter if one is King, one cannot control the elements, so go home, peasants, and stop demanding the impossible. One supposes it is possible that a modern day Moses might command the gulf to part to allow access to the rupture, but I would be more inclined to consult Dutch engineers, some of whom are affiliated with a small local oil company, while others have skills in building and maintaining dikes.
One of the most useful parenting skills is telling your children bluntly to admit to their transgressions immediately when asked because they will be in more trouble over telling lies than they will over the original failure to behave sensibly, honorably, or whatever rule they broke. The increasing anger at BP is not because oil continues to flow unimpeded but because those in command are perceived to be lying and procrastinating while they come up with a way to weasel out of whatever fault they may (or may not) bear for the original blow out.
We do not know what caused a very expensive system to fail. There have been several explanations, including an early report–hushed up quickly–that sabotage may have been involved. The most prevalent supposition is that a relatively small company will make a handy sacrifice for not keeping operating manuals up to date, a “solution” which will never suit those who prefer the blame game and multiple deep pockets to raid. US Government Ph. D.’s (who have not been allowed near the site) speculate happily on the severity and cause of the spill, couching themselves in terms of certainty and not mentioning they do not have actual working data.
What I reported to you early on from private sources is that our experts in Texas had been told firmly and not particularly politely that their assistance was not needed and would not be accepted, far less paid for. Shell oil, in the Netherlands, has just been given the same brush-off. This makes no sense any way I look at it. BP surely plans to rely on the cap on liability established after the mess with the Exxon Valdez. That is BP’s oil spilling into the sea, and very valuable stuff if it can be gotten into tankers and out of cruise line sea lanes. Perhaps the oracle to consult is Tom Clancy, to see if he can concoct an explanation for why BP would rather muddle along, losing oil, while being screamed at and threatened.
What secret or dereliction could be so dreadful that attempting to conceal it is a “better” choice in the eyes of BP’s CEO and Board of Directors than openness and taking all the help they can get? Why pass up a chance to see what competitors and experts may reveal in new technologies? Cui bono is easy to discern for many power groups, starting with the Greenies, power-hungry Statists, and OPEC, all of whom benefit from wasted oil, public outrage, and hysteria over “ecological disasters,” but what is in it for British Petroleum to dally, prevaricate, or conceal?
Why are known recovery or abatement techniques (including flaming) failing? All it takes to burn oil is oxygen and oil (both in abundance in the area) and raising the oil to ignition temperature. If the oil level is too thin the ocean will act as a heat sink and prevent burning, just as a cup made of birch bark will heat water to boiling without the bark burning so long as the level of the flame never rises above the level of the water…but if the layer of oil is that thin, what is the problem?
I know virtually nothing about the oil industry and I’m no McGyver, but “herding” the oil to a location where burn-off conditions could be met sounds do-able–a fleet of tugboats moving oil retaining walls will work well so long as the wave action is not too high, and effective to some extent even if some of the oil is thrown over the barricades, so long as we do not get gale force winds. Oil skimmers are in action.
They don’t call me “Low Tech Linda” for nothing, and while the simplest solution I can concoct might be a little hard on ranchers this year–one reason the hands are putting a thousand dollars’ worth of hay in the barn as I write–is to spread hay upon the oil upon the waters. Hay will absorb oil readily, will not sink, might easily burn more readily in situ, and could be gathered for processing further. After all this fuss it would certainly be nice to recover at least some of that sweet light crude.
So what if oil comes ashore? Never mind that oily pelicans are a pathetic sight, we know how to de-grease birds, although volunteers fail to see that if they turn clean sea birdies loose they will promptly go get oily again, not being very bright. If one is determined to be maudlin about birds, relocate them to temporary, netted sanctuaries.
If oil can be extracted from sands in Canada, for example, why can oil not be extracted from sands along the Gulf coast? There is ample sand in America to replace that removed from recreational areas, and we have plenty of heavy moving machinery and operators.
If Mr. Obama and Congress want to “help” I suggest putting them in rowboats with gravy separators and five gallon buckets. For those of you who do not cook, the device suggested is a container with a spout that devolves from near the bottom edge. Oil rises to the top and water-based substances sink to the bottom and can be poured off until the oil level sinks to spout height. “Mrs. Traynham! You cannot possibly be suggesting that millions of barrels of oil can be removed from a sea with a kitchen gadget!” Actually, it could, although it would be a lengthy process. I’m suggesting as usual that common sense will get the oil out of the water more quickly, safely, and surely than Mr. Obama assaulting someone. Unless we suppose that BP management and ownership is procrastinating deliberately for reasons that only they know, and are afraid of Mr. Obama, it is ludicrous to suppose that the solution is a hissy fit by the Temper Tantrum Thrower in Chief.
Work with me, Chickies. If there is anything the world has in profusion it is oil tankers. Mount a crane (if there isn’t one there already) on a tanker. Construct an oil-separating device to dip into the sea which can be lifted by the crane once the oil separator is full. At that point, either (a) tip the separator, thereby returning clean water to the sea and swing the boom to decant the oil into the tanker, or (b) use a true industrial strength wet vac to pump off the oil floating on top into the tanker, or (c) both. Water remaining in the oil could be separated at a port facility by any of several techniques.
One of life’s great lessons is “Do any part of the problem you DO understand first.” Do anything straight-forward and sensible, including putting a mile of flexible hose in the general vacinity of the oil plumes and start pumping. In both cases the most immediate task is not deciding who needs to be blamed, but to contain the problem by capturing oil before it can rise to the surface and containing that already at the top either literally or figuratively. Everybody is having fits about oil in the water, but emotion never solves problems. Get as much oil as possible into floating containers as quickly as possible and put the boffins in Houston and the Netherlands to work.
For that matter, what’s nonsensical about drilling another two or three wells in close proximity to relieve pressure, diverting it from the damaged well head and removing oil before it has a chance to flow into the sea? Oh, that’s right. Our Head Political Petroleum Engineer put a six-month moratorium on drilling in the Gulf.
Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham
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Lynne says:
June 17th, 2010
12:08 am
Linda, never ascribe to malice what can be easily explained by stupidity.
The issue is not the oil spill it’s the agenda. He just has to act angry cause Spike Lee and others said so.
His expert in charge is a Nobel prize winning Physicist. There is no one dumber when taken off topic of his specialty. Not saying he’s dumb but he spent his life’s work on physics and not engineering of any sort. Well he has a Nobel prize; so does Obama. How’s that working out?
I’m not sure what is more insulting? Obama and the elites treating us as idiots or assuming we are idiots.
Steven Foste says:
June 17th, 2010
4:50 am
“Never let a good Crisis go to waste” Rahm Emanuel,
I really don’t wish to offer solutions to the problems or bash BP or the government today, but once again the Government has managed to get their hand in the till to plunder and misallocate new funds to the tune of 20 billion dollars. How much of that money will be siphoned off into administration fees and to the corrupt and criminals, and anyone who can fabricate a claim associated with loss due to the gulf spill.
Rahm will use the crisis for political gain, if it were me I would use the crisis to mobilize the people. I would as Linda says, building siphons, hiring the public with boats, building equipment to clean the sands, and investing the money in industry to produce the products and hire people to perform the work. The very people who are now out of a job. It is in there best interest to Save The Gulf.
But no, the 20 billion will become a slush fund for government purposes and another handout and a vehical of corruption, rather than a benifit to the people, environment, and economy, It will just go to waste.
We will watch and see, but rather than invest the money in the cleanup and pay for productive process to rebuild the destruction which would soon put the Gulf back in a prosperous growing economy, and support the current local micro economies all across the region, the funds will be wasted in buerocratic waste as always.
Steven Foste says:
June 17th, 2010
5:16 am
Linda,
Hay and straw, gives a whole new meaning to biofuels, I don’t know what the cost of alfalfa is right now, but how are you going to winter all the livestock if you divert it to sucking up oil, let alone the resulting price increase. That 1000 dollars of hay may soon be worth 3 or 4000 dollars.
Desertrat says:
June 17th, 2010
11:31 am
As to the decisions which led to the blowup:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/06/documents-bp-cut-corners-in-days-before-gulf-explosion/1
“n the design of the well, the company apparently chose a riskier option among two possibilities to provide a barrier to the flow of gas in space surrounding steel tubes in the well, documents and internal e-mails show. The decision saved BP $7 million to $10 million; the original cost estimate for the well was about $96 million.”
And:
“BP also apparently rejected advice of a subcontractor, Halliburton Inc., in preparing for a cementing job to close up the well. BP rejected Halliburton’s recommendation to use 21 “centralizers” to make sure the casing ran down the center of the well bore. Instead, BP used six centralizers.
In an e-mail on April 16, a BP official involved in the decision explained: “It will take 10 hours to install them. I do not like this.” Later that day, another official recognized the risks of proceeding with insufficient centralizers but commented: “Who cares, it’s done, end of story, will probably be fine.”
The lawmakers also said BP also decided against a nine- to 12-hour procedure known as a “cement bond log” that would have tested the integrity of the cement. A team from Schlumberger, an oil services firm, was on board the rig, but BP sent the team home on a regularly scheduled helicopter flight the morning of April 20.
Less than 12 hours later, the rig exploded.”
Linda Brady Traynham says:
June 17th, 2010
5:38 pm
What great facts, Desert Rat. The world is full of very short-sighted people, isn’t it? Sounds like the eternal struggles between the been counters and those who believe in insurance.
Desertrat says:
June 18th, 2010
11:23 am
Lotsa pressure on the operating staff who made the decisions. For one thing, the project was 43 days behind schedule, with a platform rental at $300,000 per day. The added cost for centralizers, etc., would have added that $10 million or so onto an original project estimate of $95 million. So you have a guy or two looking at adding another hickey on top of a $13 million hickey, which is more than I make in a month.
Gas pressure below, money/time pressure above.
C Harriger says:
June 19th, 2010
7:08 am
One brief story to add. At the ripe old age of 19 i was hired to work on a cementing crew for a well in Pa. We had solid ground under us and could see the casing. It was an exhausting task. I can’t imagine doing the same thing to a well 5000 feet below my shifting feet on the deck of a ship after a blowout. No matter what they (BP) might be hiding the crew of everyday laborers has a monumental task before them. Hats off to the guys who are expected to rescue this situation in far less than ideal conditions.
lynne says:
June 20th, 2010
4:23 pm
I think there is a “major disconnect” from reality from some folks. Yes getting angry may get you a special type of bottled water. Or berating a chef or shopkepper may get you a certain product. Those are things/choices a person can control. BP has no control of the the spill. Maybe they “screwed the pooch” to start off on blowing off safety or buying regulators. But the US Government was culpable in that as well as not enforcing safety standards.
I don’t think anyone wants this spill ended more than BP does. From a PR standpoint not to say all those gallons of oil they can’t sell.
Problem solving:
1. Contain all or most of the oil.
2. Protect the beaches with extra measures if # 1 does not work.
3. Pay off folks hurt by spill. To get the economy going. Hell, Hire them to work on contaiment and testing. No one will care more on protecting or building the fish population.
4.All oil companies are given an incentive to drill to take the pressure off the well. All drilling into that well/pocket that drops the pressure gets a lease and may develope that pocket. Sorry BP is not eligible for any additional leases.
5. Raise the moritorium on drilling for all companies with a good safety record. Less than 10 infractions in 5 years per company and reveiw all safety plans and base them in reality. Not this protecting Walrus in the Gulf crap that BP gave.
6. Open up cleanup to everyone. We want Biologically sound ideas for cleanup. Turn folks loose to try. Do an X-prise project, Top of water, water at depth and recovering the land and animals. I don’t know that hay or straw won’t work on the ocean as well as it works in tubs or tanks. Heck let them try to win a prize. Dawn works pretty good on scrubbing animals but there are problems with that process. Maybe someone can do a better job on saving critters. A beach recovery tool or process.
A million dollar X-prize for 5 or 6 ideas would be cheap compared to the estimated cleanup costs. Plus the US Gov or BP would seem to be proactive and trying to fix things.
Oldmanriver says:
June 22nd, 2010
7:32 am
Maybe someone should nominate Lynn to head the effort to deal with the disastor. Thats the first actual plan I have seen to deal with this mess.
Lynne says:
June 22nd, 2010
10:27 pm
Well I admit I’m not in the spotlight. I may react differently then. I’m no engineer, but most engineers I’ve met love solving problems. I do know what leadership can be and how it can help solve problems. I’d be happy to do it if I could grab a military hop or a gas paid for that all. I’m already on SSD so I’m being paid. I may need some reimbursement on my RV parking. And some gas money. $6000.00 tops I’m driving from Idaho, I don’t make money but I don’t lose to much either. I’ll buy my own food.
It really has a simple if not easy fix.
Lynne says:
June 22nd, 2010
10:54 pm
It really isn’t that hard. Define the problem. That is always the first step on troubleshooting. Now what we see as a problem. Is not what DC see is a problem.
I simply want the spill fixed. I have no time for blame. Afterwords from the crap I have heard so far I’d hammer BP. But 1st things 1st stop the oil or mitigate the effects. I lots of time to sue BP I only have short time to affect fisheries, beaches and wildlife.
Shucks most folks would come up with the same ideas given time.
Lynne says:
June 22nd, 2010
11:14 pm
OMR I’d love to be nominated to do the stuff I laid out and to watch folks heads explode. I am one of the least PC people in the world. I’d just do my job you nominated me to but I’d actually want to get the job done. Doesn’t play well back in DC. But it was fun imagining stuff.
Lynne says:
June 22nd, 2010
11:25 pm
I will cherish your warm and fuzzy OMR it means a lot to me though most don’t pay attention.
Oldmanriver says:
June 23rd, 2010
5:45 am
True true, its not that hard to lay down a simple plan like you did. Sometimes its the simple things that are hard for others to understand. Im guilty of that myself sometimes. I actually think that most people would feel a lot better if BP would do something like this. Just a simple bullet point plan of how they plan on dealing with the problem. A 30000 ft view like this would go a long way.
LOL I dont know that anyone has ever told me that I am warm and fuzzy lol, but thanks! and you are welcome.
James the Wanderer says:
June 23rd, 2010
3:00 pm
The engineer inside me cringes…
It takes real stupidity to cut corners on a well 5,000 feet down. If true, BP deserves every knock it gets, and then some.
That pipe looks about ten inches in diameter. Submarine floating hose (such as connects LOOP, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port to shore) can be made 18″ or 24″ in diameter (or greater); weight one end, drop it down near and robot it directly over the pipe, catch lots of oil and pump it onto a tanker to keep the circulation flowing.
My Lord, there’s got to be a better solution than the (six now?) they’re tried so far – get on with it, and keep the bureaucrats in Washington where we can at least shut them up from time to time!
Oh well, back to your regularly scheduled reality.
Lynne says:
July 3rd, 2010
9:03 pm
BP was hoping all that “green crap” and paying off politicians worked better than safety standards. Well not so much. Hell I can understand the basics of pressure and physics.
I assume they in the government can as well. So they want an evirommental and economic catastrophe. They must want it because the hold up all plans to prevent it is government directed.
Obama does not want the oil spill capped. He won’t rein in the EPA on fuel. He is going after coal in the east and natural gas in the west. And all oil anywhere.
If this was the hope & change you wanted be happy. Nancy Pelosi is working hard for that socialist state.
Most of us will remember in November.