Whats the best way to stop the oil leak in the Gulf?

[yellowirenut]

i think the flow is to great..hmmm i wonder what the temp of the oil is?

[woodsman]

They need to shove an inflatable plug into the pipe and inflate it as fast as an air bag is inflated. Can't be any worse than what has been tried so far.

[DavyB]

Hire a bunch of illegals to swim out and soak it up with rags? Solves a few problems.

[DavyB]

They need to shove an inflatable plug into the pipe and inflate it as fast as an air bag is inflated. Can't be any worse than what has been tried so far.

like you, there's more than one hole. J/K!

[maintenanceguy]

I've heard a few reports that makes it sound like the pressure is too great to just put a cap on the pipe. I'm picturing bolting on an open valve and closing the valve.

If the pressure is too great to just cap it, why didn't the pipe burst when it was connected to the surface before the explosion?

There's obviously stuff I've missed but it seems like somebody could have machined a fitting that could have been split, placed on the pipe from opposite sides, bolted together, and then just close the valve.

[Vinpadalino]

Does anyone think it's a conspiracy?

[jayhawker]

Send 36 of those bunker buster bombs down at the well head on 10 degree intervals around it. Explode them all at the same time and the shock wave will ( I hope) crush the well into the middle and seal the leak.

[secorp]

A 5 mile long hydraulic line with a heat source to keep the hydraulic fluid from slugging. then crimp it shut with the jaws of life to slow the leak until a relief hole can be drilled.

Or give the pipe a bad case of VD.

[Prettyricky]

Believe me, theres much more to the story than what they're saying.
we can put a man on the moon, but we cant stop an oil leak....go fly a kite!
they're not saying what really happened and who knows it coulda been another terrorist atack

something to think about.....

[ga-hvac-tech]

I've heard a few reports that makes it sound like the pressure is too great to just put a cap on the pipe. I'm picturing bolting on an open valve and closing the valve.

If the pressure is too great to just cap it, why didn't the pipe burst when it was connected to the surface before the explosion?

There's obviously stuff I've missed but it seems like somebody could have machined a fitting that could have been split, placed on the pipe from opposite sides, bolted together, and then just close the valve.

As I understand it, the pressure is the reason it blew up in the first place... The pressures I hear about are beyond belief.

Think this way: What would happen if all of a sudden a R-22 unit was hit with over 10,000 (ten thousand) PSI on the LL (not ramped up, a sudden surge, which has unlimited juice behind it)? Yeah, BOOM!

OK, remembering how much a refrigerant burn HURTS, tell me how you are going to stop that unlimited flow of liquid R-22 at 10,000 PSI? Oh, and there is also a bunch of 10,000 PSI R-22 gas in the stream also... When they tried the large dome, the gas froze the thing and it came apart...

Too much pressure, too many extremes.

The guys at BP are doing what they can... and some of the best minds in the world are there helping.

IMO what Mr Obama needs to do is concentrate on containing the already leaked oil, and let the pro's stop the flow. Seems to me Mr Obama is getting a taste of what Mr Bush dealt with over Katrina... that is a public that cannot be satisfied regardless of what you do.

Someday we need to learn the government is not able to fix everything so we fell good about it.

[ga-hvac-tech]

Believe me, theres much more to the story than what they're saying.
we can put a man on the moon, but we cant stop an oil leak....go fly a kite!
they're not saying what really happened and who knows it coulda been another terrorist atack

something to think about.....

This is a sound-byte, and it makes for some warm-fuzzy feelings (I am not fussing at the poster). There is a problem with this thinking though:

Last year on Nat-Geo TV, there was a special on the Apollo program. One of the things they said was half the engineers were holding their breath during the entire flight, because they honestly thought it would NOT WORK... As in the 3 guys would not come home...

Engineers are great guys, but like everyone else, they have limits... What we need to learn is politicians have limits also... And one way to build those limits would be term limits... but that is an ARP comment.

[behappy]

Obama needs to park the Star ship Enterprise over it. I hear that they have a beam that can part the water. Then all they have to do is beam down and shut it off.

Geeesh, Don't you guys watch TV!

[ga-hvac-tech]

If I can find it, I saw a cartoon (photoshopped) of a barge lowering the domed capital building from Wash DC (upside down) into the gulf to plug the leak... sounds like a good use for a worthless building that generates too much trouble anyhow...