![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Oil Volcano Apocalypse
May. 25th, 2010 02:16 am(I want some more dynamic content on my new website, so I'm starting a blog there and putting more thought-out blog entries there. For now at least, I'll be cross-posting. So, cross-posted.)
The story of the Gulf oil spill have been on my mind a lot lately, I've been following it since the initial disaster, and there are some interesting recent developments, so it's as good a topic as any to start with. Basic background: On April 20, there was an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig (belonging to Transocean, leased by BP, operating 80 km off of the Louisiana coast). The resulting fire could not be extinguished, and after two days, the rig sank. The disaster killed eleven crew and caused a massive oil spill.
The oil spill should have been stopped by the rig's blowout preventer device. It's unknown if the crew tried to trigger the device manually. The failsafe dead-man's switch failed to trigger the device. Subsequent attempts to activate the device with ROVs failed. Some countries require an acoustic remote control for the blowout preventer on offshore wells, but BP had successfully lobbied against US regulation that would require that. It's not clear that would have helped. Yesterday, the well casing collapsed.
( More to it... )
The story of the Gulf oil spill have been on my mind a lot lately, I've been following it since the initial disaster, and there are some interesting recent developments, so it's as good a topic as any to start with. Basic background: On April 20, there was an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig (belonging to Transocean, leased by BP, operating 80 km off of the Louisiana coast). The resulting fire could not be extinguished, and after two days, the rig sank. The disaster killed eleven crew and caused a massive oil spill.
The oil spill should have been stopped by the rig's blowout preventer device. It's unknown if the crew tried to trigger the device manually. The failsafe dead-man's switch failed to trigger the device. Subsequent attempts to activate the device with ROVs failed. Some countries require an acoustic remote control for the blowout preventer on offshore wells, but BP had successfully lobbied against US regulation that would require that. It's not clear that would have helped. Yesterday, the well casing collapsed.
( More to it... )
