Are people REALLY this F-ing stupid!?

[Mallard]

This is from CNN.com

 

Port Fourchon, Louisiana (CNN) -- It sounds like a Hollywood movie. An impending disaster -- think the disabled spacecraft in "Apollo 13" or the asteroid hurtling toward Earth in "Armageddon" -- prompts a daring intervention by engineers to save the day.

 

This time, the threat is real -- oil gushing from a broken well on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico that could destroy livelihoods and irreplaceable coastal wetlands.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/03/oil.spill.desperate.measure/index.html?hpt=C1

 

Secondly:

Equally real is the attempted engineering marvel -- a four-story metal container that will be lowered onto the leaking pipe to try to suck in the flowing oil.

I don't think building a giant metal box qualifies as an 'engineering marvel.'

[Gergwheel1647545492]

 

I don't think building a giant metal box qualifies as an 'engineering marvel.'

you're right, its pure genius!! BRILLIANT!

[Tractor]

a giant metal box aint a big deal, until you try to install it over a pipe 5000ft down and spewing oil. It then gets pretty cool.

 

Especially since yesturday the best idea was to drill a second well to try to stop it. That plan was gonna take 3-4 months to complete whle the oils still coming out.

[sol740]

You should go down there and show em whats what.

[ImUrOBGYN]

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00676/diver-404_676902c.jpg + http://www.bored.com/billboards/images/cork_outdoor.jpg

 

Problem solved.

[justinwebb]

we will be lucky if the valve that is broken and letting the oil seep out (yes a few thousand barrels a days is seeping lol) if it breaks we are fucked it will dump millions of barrels a day out. Someone needs to be shot over this.

[Mallard]

a giant metal box aint a big deal, until you try to install it over a pipe 5000ft down and spewing oil. It then gets pretty cool.

 

Especially since yesturday the best idea was to drill a second well to try to stop it. That plan was gonna take 3-4 months to complete whle the oils still coming out.

The box idea has been in process since almost the start of the leak. I've seen pics posted of the construction of them since late last week. I think it's a good idea, and I'm not saying it's not a good solution. I challenge the author's belief that it's an 'engineering marvel' though. They great pyramid is an engineering marvel. The supercollider is an engineering marvel. This is a solution to a problem.

 

Not to mention that later in the article the author said they've already started drilling the relief well (last I heard it was going to be quite a while before the second rig could get out there). Not to mention they think Apollo 13 is fiction.

 

My gripe is that this level of fact checking and crappy reporting is something I expect from a blog, not a worldwide news source like CNN.

[Furloaf]

By the same logic you can just claim that the great pyramid is just a bunch of blocks stacked together.

 

It was the stacking of those blocks that makes the pyramid great; it is the installation of the containment pipe (5000ft below the gulf surface) that makes it great

[morabu]

ancient aliens built the pyramids, EVERYONE knows that...

[Mallard]

By the same logic you can just claim that the great pyramid is just a bunch of blocks stacked together.

 

It was the stacking of those blocks that makes the pyramid great; it is the installation of the containment pipe (5000ft below the gulf surface) that makes it great

No. Not even close.

 

The Great Pyramid is an engineering marvel because of the size of the blocks, the tools that existed, the timeline in which it was built, how intricately it's decorated with little to no light available, and the precision in which it was constructed. Even today we can not say how they actually built them, given the language, tools, and the supposed time it took to construct. That's why they are a marvel.

http://www.europa.com/~edge/pyramid.html

 

This CNN 'engineering marvel' is a giant steel box that will be lowered into the water by a crane and rest over one of the 'seeping' holes in the drilling boom. Yes, it's 5000 ft down, but the pressure is not an issue (unless they pump all the water/oil out after it rests on the bottom). The box is hollow and open at the bottom, the pressure inside and outside the box will be the same. It has a hole on the top, which will be hooked to a tube that feeds the oil into a ship at the surface.

[Mallard]

ancient aliens built the pyramids, EVERYONE knows that...

This is true. I watched it on the History Channel and it's very convincing.

[Moe7]

I've welded up a few "engineering marvels" in my day..

 

By the same logic you can just claim that the great pyramid is just a bunch of blocks stacked together.

 

LOL, no.

[Furloaf]

My point was that the original post was ignoring the the installation. Feats of engineering can have several factors that contribute to them being feats, the design, the fabrication, the construction, the installation, etc. Considering the blocks of the Great Pyramid, just a single block isn't all that hugely impressive, but all of them stacked together so precisely is astoundingly impressive.

 

Granted the pyramids and this steel pipe thing are no where near being on the same level of impressiveness of being engineering marvels. I was pointing out, though, that the fallacy was in overlooking the installation and only considering the design.

[jeffro]

No. Not even close.

 

The Great Pyramid is an engineering marvel because of the size of the blocks, the tools that existed, the timeline in which it was built, how intricately it's decorated with little to no light available, and the precision in which it was constructed. Even today we can not say how they actually built them, given the language, tools, and the supposed time it took to construct. That's why they are a marvel.

http://www.europa.com/~edge/pyramid.html

 

This CNN 'engineering marvel' is a giant steel box that will be lowered into the water by a crane and rest over one of the 'seeping' holes in the drilling boom. Yes, it's 5000 ft down, but the pressure is not an issue (unless they pump all the water/oil out after it rests on the bottom). The box is hollow and open at the bottom, the pressure inside and outside the box will be the same. It has a hole on the top, which will be hooked to a tube that feeds the oil into a ship at the surface.

 

o hi c why didnt i think of that.

[koolrayz]

Especially since yesturday the best idea was to drill a second well to try to stop it. That plan was gonna take 3-4 months to complete whle the oils still coming out.

 

The above is the only answer.

The "box" is just to buy time. The longer it leaks the closer it gets to complete failure.

The relief well is the ONLY method once the preventors have failed in a deep water situation or when the casing has failed below the well head or the blowout preventors. I worked on big rigs in WY for 10 years. I have friends that are drilling superintendents in the gulf. The three to four months is a best case.

Imagine they have to drill thousands of feet into the sea bed in a mile of water. After they set at least one string of casing and have there own blow out preventors they have to drill into the side of the existing well casing with a milling bit. Only then can they kill the existing well, talk about threading the needle. The reason they have to drill thousands of feet before they attempt to merge with the old well is they have to have enough hydrostatic pressure in there well to overcome the pressure in the existing blown out well.

[koolrayz]

if it breaks we are fucked it will dump millions of barrels a day out.

So full of fail,,,,, Millions WOW