But you are looking at it bass ackwards. Your examples of pumping concrete and the aquarium pump are wrong because you are working on the wrong end.

Yes indeed, if I had to put a pump on the bottom end of a pipe and pump it vertically a mile above the pump I would say that is an epic fail. That is why a pump can have nothing to do with it. You are talking about pressure when instead you should be talking about vacuum. Because that is what you would instantly have if you put a pump on a boat and tried to pull any sort of liquid up vertically one mile. The liquid would immediately cavitate if it did not have an assist from below. In this case it would not cavitate because the pump would be spinning like a top without even being plugged in.

Keymaker's straw is correct. If he could make it to 33 feet and one atmosphere pressure it would work even better. Shoot, go get twenty straws and duct tape them together. Stick them vertically in water with your thumb on the top or not. The water will still go right up to sea level. If you have a tremendous pressure caused by the mantle plus you are dealing with lighter than water fluid the liquid will shoot out.

If there is a pump involved in what BP is doing it is only to get it off one collection boat and over to another.

Don't think about pressure or vacuum. Only think about one local chunk of oil and think where does it want to go. In this case, that would be up. I have not even made it complicated by knowing that as that liquid rises it will expand and become lighter. That nitrogen, helium and natural gas will tend to outgas and very quickly. It is the cause of nitrogen narcosis, the bends and also exploded lungs by untrained scuba divers.

This is all taken with a grain of salt because none of us have a clue what the conditions are on the top, bottom or insides of BPs pipe. That is why whining about them not doing the right thing is about as absurd as it gets.

If anyone thinks BP is not doing all they can do to stop the oil then you must also think that Bush flew the planes into the WTC. Because at the end of the day you have to ask yourself, for what possible reason would they be doing what some are claiming?

Oh wait, BP is undermining everything so their reputation is toast because you think keymaker is an aßßhole. Got it. I read the whole thread. Pard me while I go fishing instead.

Where exactly did I ever say that? KM and I are simply having a discussion about fluid dynamics. Don't lump me in with others who might be doing it. I disagree with KM, and am giving pretty good and valid reasons why. If anyone needs to chill, it's you.



Exactly. If water is working under the oil, the oil will rise. No sh!t. However, if BP has closed off the pipe to water, then it becomes a matter of work, not buoyancy, which is where my examples come in. The pressure of the well head becomes the pump in my examples - and is subject to phenomenon like head loss.

You are right and I apologize if that comment seemed pointed at you. Which since I was replying to you was a pretty good assumption. I wasn't. I was replying to the the thread and I guess pretty much every thread that keymaker is in which always ends in personal pot shots at keymaker. But it's also ridiculous of me in pointing out the obvious. He doesn't need any defending as he does a pretty good job doing that himself.





If you equate well head pressure as equivalent to a pump then you make complete sense. It does agree with pretty much everything keymaker has said so I take that as my time to bow out.

What BP is or isn't doing now, the science or dumb luck of it, and when what should have been done and how as a response are all secondary at best to the source of everyone's outrage toward them. Had BP been responsible, had they slowed down just enough to improve the safety of the operation, and had they been more diligent in their contingency planning, these threads would have never materialized.

If this had been caused by a U.S. oil company, the outrage here would be just as intense. Had this been some other country's shores, the outrage here would be just as intense. But we're seeing an indefensible defense rationale based on a nationalistic bias accompanied by a total disregard for the poor schmucks who've been hosed or killed as a result of BP's negligence. But no outrage. Ahole-like behavior, wouldn't you say?

Enjoy your fishing. The folks along the Gulf won't be so lucky for the foreseeable future. But that's not km's concern.

The great and powerful Oz has spoken.

Poly dealt with that in his reply to Bozo when he posed the question: "How could you, BP, or anyone know that the junk shot cap option is/was the viable option? Not even in hindsight can anyone say that."


Their contingency planning seems to have been spot on to be honest - you don't seem to know much about exactly what they've put in place.


You're just being ridiculous with that. Nationalism has nothing to do with it and Bozo's post is about the scale of the spill not the victims of the blowout. He didn't touch upon the human cost so that's obviously not the discussion he was inviting. Everything you've posted on this subject has been ill thought out in my opinion and prejudiced against BP. The explosion however goes back to a hidden defect in a gasket which Transocean ought to have discovered and cured before delivery of the rig.

km

Hey, no problem remember I'm an F'n Jerk

Anyway thing to remember - the oil well is located below the water, under bedrock. Pressure is created because of weight of water pressing down upon the rock, not because of buoyancy.

Instead of a balloon at the bottom of a glass, is more analogous to a bunt pan filled with water pressing down on a ziplock bag of oil with a tube sticking up through the hole in the middle. The weight of the water rises the oil up the tube.

That of course depends on how well the pipe is sealed off.

The container itself doesn't matter... it's because the oil is under water that it rises up the through the pipe.

km

Speaking of "can't help yourself..."

And apparently you can't or don't want to read, because I've posted links or referrals to my sources for the information I've posted — such as TransOcean bringing the damaged gasket to BP's attention and BP's decision not to repair it. Just like their refusal to follow TransOcean's request to cap the well following a slower, safer process.

Regarding your unaffected and uncaring attitude toward the people who have been most undeservedly impacted by this event, if you have to wait for someone else to bring it up first, that just proves that you don't give a crap a/b anything other than trying to wash the blood off of BP's shoes. If this had happened to Exxon off the coast of England, you'd be calling for every head within reach. And you know it.

Your hypocrisy is epic in it's scope.

Transocean did discover that little problem, but BP chose to ignore it.