BP Oil Spill Fix #12 – Expanding Sealant

June 17th, 2010. By AbiK

This one’s sort of like a virtual brainstorming session. Scott P. sent in a follow-up idea on how to fix the mess in the Gulf by adding onto a previously submitted idea (Fix the BP Oil Spill Idea #7, to be precise). As a refresher, this was what Caleb had said then:

“I believe that capping the well permanently is a very viable idea. In Geotechnical Engineering a technique for oceanic foundations design utilizes Suction Piles. They are very large cylinders which are floated to locations, filled with water, sunken into place, water is pumped out, and they are “sucked” down into the ocean bottom. They are large cylinders which could be used to cap the area which is discharging excessive volumes of crude oil into the gulf. This is a relatively expensive process, but with the bounds that have been made and the relatively low success rate, I think that some sort of Suction Pile retrofit would be a possible solution.”

This is what Scott P. now adds for consideration as a fix for the BP Oil Spill disaster…

Fix the BP Oil Spill Idea #12

“The other option is to maintain the cap size, retro fit them with quick connect couplers, just like you see on air guns. Possibly suck some of the water out of the caps. Through the quick connect couplers inject urethane grout. It is water activated, expands like “Stuff” that you use in your home to seal air gaps. Same concept. The thought is it would expand and eventually into the leak itself (path of least resistance once the cap was filled). The cap would obviously have to be permanent.
 
Possible drawbacks, at 5000 feet would the water temp be so cold that the urethane may not activate? Another unknown is the effect of the oily water on urethane. In my applications the water source was always natural groundwater that we would try to prevent from leaking. But just a idea, a expert in urethane could answer those questions and along with a engineer on site could decide if this even has a chance of working.”

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Thanks Scott P.!

Tags: BP, BP Oil Spill

This was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Environment . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.