Raw Video: BP's Oil Funnel Contraption Starts Its Journey To The Leak Site

Run time: 01:26 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOw0UKnFBaM   Posted on YouTube: May 05, 2010 By YouTube Member: AssociatedPress Views on YouTube: 311   Posted on DU: May 05, 2010 By DU Member: Turborama Views on DU: 1389

 
A 100-ton contraption that has been designed to help funnel out oil spewing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico has been loaded on to a barge so it can begin its journey to the leak site about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana.



Video of what it looks like inside: http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2010/05/04/todd.dome.special.access.cn

I think there is purpose to their having painted the cofferdam white.

They'll be using ROVs with cameras, the easier it is to see the thing the more effectively they can work.



:patriot:

I.
DON'T.
THINK.
SO.



This looks like make-work by BP so they can say they tried.

Good thinking on the part of the BP lawyers.....



Science fiction becoming science fact ---


•••••• Video - BP's "Crack In The World" - from 1965 movie to real life nightmare ••••••


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8269354&mesg_id=8269354

It's not a little tin can at all. It remains to be seen whether it will contain the flow, but I would think that pumping from above should suck that baby down hard on the ocean floor oil nipple. Here's to hope! :toast:

You're saying they're going to pump concrete into that thing?


When? Before or after they send it down there?

The coffer dam will sit over the wellhead. It won't be "filled" with concrete-- it's made of concrete and steel. That's why it weighs close to 100 tons. As I understand it, the plan is to set it down on the seabed over the wellhead. It will fill with oil, which will presumably begin leaking from the loose sediments around the rim-- the coffer dam probably won't contain the leaking crude for long, even with 100 tons of mass plus all the water weight above. But if a pipe is connected to the top of the dam, and negative pressure applied, the dam will suck down into the sediment even tighter, and the crude will be pumped to the surface rather than oozing out from around the periphery of the dam. Five thousand feet of water pressure should suck that puppy down over the wellhead pretty tightly when the pumps go on, I would think.

sort of conical paraboloid that funneled the oil to the surface, attached to a tanker that could feed surrounding tankers. The natural flow of the oil is up...If it was rising in a large air and water tight pipe/hose connected to the paraboloid, the oil would rise to the top only in that enclosure...that could be then piped to a stationary tanker and to those surrounding it...pumps should not be needed because of the pressure of the oil leak. This is sort of the same idea except these are columnar and square and would form a sale in the currents and a cone would hug the bottom with its sheer tonnage holding it in place. This looks to me, a bit Rube Goldberg-ish.

I hadn't heard of Rube Goldberg until you mentioned him but they do have a lot of similarities...