Is the BP Gusher Unstoppable?

Short summary, the integrity of the well seems to be compromised below the layer we can reach. Therefore attempting to cap it will just cause it to leak out the sea floor below anything we can reach. The only choice is to let the oil out and try to catch it. However this will erode the already compromised well structure.<p>At that point it is a race between erosion and the relief wells, which hopefully will relieve the pressure on the existing well.<p>If the relief wells fail to get there in time, there is a real possibility of the sea floor collapsing and letting the entire oil pocket out. The potential oil spill if that happens could be up to 2.5 billion barrels.

BP definitely understands, better than anyone else who pretends to what is going on. The problem is that what is really going on is incredibly scary proposition. The truth is that from the beginning the only real way to fix this is with relief wells which they are in the process of drilling. The problem with the relief well is that it takes about 6 months to implement. Do you really expect BP to come out with that to the American people?<p>I have this on good authority by a petroleum engineer in a rival oil company. Believe me or not but I think that the people in the oil industry probably no better about how to fix this problem than Obama or anyone else in government who are just going to get in the way. First, I do not at all agree with offshore drilling, however it bothers me that people assume that BP is holding out or that this is really an easy thing to fix. They aren't because letting the disaster continue will destroy their company and it isn't easy considering they are composed of people who studied petroleum engineering and actually no what they are doing. Johnny's silly, uninformed ideas aren't going to work either. Hell, the petroleum engineer I know also said that Russia's idea of nuking the leak would be the quickest way to fix but the government, or sane people, wouldn't allow that.<p>The bottom line is that we should never have been drilling in the first place. This spill is terrible but it happened and we have to deal with it. It bothers me though that people really think BP isn't doing the best they can and has the best people in the world working on this. The entire oil industry is helping them. The government and other entities should worry about supporting them and helping the people affected by this cope with the fallout. Leave the technical details to the professionals because everyone else ideas are uninformed, will slow things down, and will not work. Only a relief well will and thats 4 months away so why not worry about helping the people of the golf? The truly sad thing is that Americans will still get up tomorrow and drive their gas guzzling SUVs 2 miles to work instead of riding bike and those bullet trains and public transportation efforts are still decades away...

This MotherJones article is entirely based on an anonymous comment on another blog, which is sort of interesting in and of itself.

Not so quick question: if this indeed does happen could more extraordinary measures possibly fix the problem? For example:<p><pre><code> Bombs Bombs \\ | // --------|-------- ########|######## </code></pre> Or is it basically oil ocean forever? And: how catastrophic of a situation is this? Not, I would guess, an existential risk. Could it be measured in terms of percentage of world GDP that will be lost trying to fix or mitigate the symptoms? And if so, what approximate percentage would that be? Another nice thing would be if it could be measured in terms of the overall historical benefit of offshore drilling.<p>Edit: I'm not really suggesting bombs; that's just something off the top my head. The main idea is that I want to know if there is any potential mitigation if the story is true? And just how bad is it if there isn't?

The largest two oil spills in recorded history:<p>Lakeview Gusher: around 9 million barrels, est. Gulf War Spill: around 6 to 11 million barrels<p>Deepwater Horizon has a ways to go. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_spill#Largest_oil_spills" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_spill#Largest_oil_spills</a>

So the direct consequence currently is that millions of barrels are venting directly into the gulf. I'm not too clued up on crude oil, but as far as I'm aware, oil is less dense than water, thus rises. Gulf currents will dissipate this as seen from aerial photos, so without containment, oil will end up in a lot more places than just the gulf.<p>How is the oil flow being contained, and how effective is this - remembering there may be billions of barrels to be contained...<p>What percentage of the oil will be sub-surface - a lot harder to contain. And how can this be contained?<p>What are the flow-on effects of a possible sea-floor collapse and how much of an impact will this have on the structure of the gulf?<p>And then the overriding question of all - is it worth it?<p>If there is a relatively easy way to extract crude from the water, it may in fact be more economically feasible to extract the oil by destroying the well than to repair the well itself. Of course, none of this is taking into account the environmental impact...

2.5 Million gallons per day. Years after the news stops reporting it in a couple months, the wildlife will never recover.<p>Relief wells must be made MANDATORY or we've learned nothing and it will happen again.<p>BP's deepwater Atlantis is poised to do the same thing in our lifetimes.

Ok - I haven't been following this event that much so far. Can someone tell me why the simplest solution of limiting the leak effects is not possible - namely building a large tunnel going from the surface to the leak point, making a space where the oil can safely leak, while it's being transported away? Is it the depth? area? size of the flow?

this post seems to suggest that Dougr's ideas that oil is escaping into the surrounding rock are wrong: <a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6611#more" rel="nofollow">http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6611#more</a>

What does a well look like under water?

What if we just sank something really big and made of concrete on top of the oil leak, like a cruise ship or an aircraft carrier? Just something really really heavy, and wide enough to cover the hole by a large margin.

+1 for the use of the word "Gusher"

It may be much worse than we thought. The well pipe is nearing collapse under the seabed and efforts to cap it from the top will eventually fail.

How about U.S. government finally uses some of it's many nukes for good of the world?<p>No, not on BP headquarters, but blast it in proximity to kill the well?