Yeah, I tried it before answering Sarge... I've never used the word 'buoyancy' in this discussion by the way.

km

I find it difficult to believe that if the results were as you described they would be attributable to oil being lighter than water ...

[edit]
KM replied as I changed this. The original text here was:

"And were the results as you described? I find it hard to believe the celophane would provide a reliable seal ..."

Apologies for the ninja edit ;-)
[/edit]


Good for you.

Yeah I posted what I observed... the cellophane remained surprisingly watertight even with the tube inserted.

km

Emersion, emergent, emerge mean the opposite of what you're trying to say. —— "to rise from or as if from an enveloping fluid : come out into view -a diver emerging from the water-"

Emerse doesn't exist, or i can't find it in the dictionary. Emersed is an adj. which is related to emerge.

You must mean immerse. —— "to plunge into something that surrounds or covers; especially: to plunge or dip into a fluid". Right?

***

As you can see, your experiment is not clear enough for others to follow to confirm or reject your results. [it's unscientific]

There remains confusion on point 11, where you immerse the "contraption". For the experiment, as i understand it, to maybe be relevant to the issue of siphoning through a 1 mile vertical pipe, without a pump, but solely by "buoyancy" —— a the tendency of a body to float or to rise when submerged in a fluid b: the power of a fluid to exert an upward force on a body placed in it; also : the upward force exerted (i accept that i introduced the word in the conversation) —— you would need to let the water into the "small balloon with cooking oil" and the attached "transparent tube". Did you?

Frankly, i don't understand if water gets into the tube or not.

To me, if there's no water and oil contact —which six of one pointed out—, this is an irrelevant conclusion to explain the siphoning pipe "solution" that BP masterminded to reduce the spill in the oil spill. In any functioning well, subaquatic or not, the oil may come out initially by pressure alone, after that they pump the well. Even later, they may pump water down another well connected to the same oil deposit to push the oil up into reach so it can be pumped out through the first well.

I don't think yours is a valid experiment.


Or is it just another one of those "jokes" you make up?

I suspect diversionary tactics. Sorry, i hope you're not offended, but that's what it seems to me, that you're playing here, there, and over there, spreading confusion when you wish; Unstable, unreliable.

At the end you put a photo of the "experiment's" equipment (what's the wine cup for?), but not of the "experiment" itself showing your point. Seems to me that all you have is contempt for some or all of us.

katpablo [ signed ]

I will agree that pumping is not necessary, and will speculate that they are pumping. I hope i'm getting it right.

This is the situation that i believe, maybe is, appears to be, could be, the situation with BP and the siphoning pipe. I have to speculate because BP is not telling nor i have been able to find a source of what exactly this type of siphoning is. If anyone has any reliable information about what that siphoning process consists of i would appreciate if it could be posted if possible.

***

Let's assume that the oil inside the pipe can reach the tanker by it's own buoyancy. [ —— a the tendency of a body to float or to rise when submerged in a fluid b: the power of a fluid to exert an upward force on a body placed in it; also : the upward force exerted —— ]

The top end of the pipe is connected to the bottom of the tanker, through the hull, to a container full of water that, being heavier, would seep down into the pipe as the oil seeps up into the tanker container.

The lower end the siphon pipe is also open so the oil can get in the siphon as it gushes out of the broken well pipe. The other reason for this side to be open is so the water displaced by the lighter oil as it goes up the pipe can get out.

I'm hoping we're assuming that it works!* Great! No pump!

*I cannot consider potential benefits nor difficulties that may exist in this example since i'm no expert. I'll list, as an aid, other factors that may be involved: the expansion and degassing due to depressurizing of the oil; the "micro-encapsulated bits of oil surrounded by seawater" that polymerase suggested in the post above; "different densities and temperature will stratify in layers beneath the surface" as MacBozo points out; differences in salinity in the sea water surface compared to the deep ocean floor that influence vertical displacement in the siphon; others(?)….

However… since both sides of the siphoning pipe are open the level of water inside the tanker can only reach the level of its floating line. This means you can't fill the container with oil any higher than that floating line…

No problem!We pump the oil out of the container into a "collection boat". That's it. I'm not sure if from time to time adding more water will or will not be necessary to maintain the flow of oil coming up(?).

***

Well,… i would believe that if I were going to have to use a pump i might as well attach the pump to a interchange tank on the same pipe and transfer the oil directly to the "collection boat". and let water into the pipe. It's easier and cheaper.

Better still, pump up with that same pipe, all the the oil that you can, even if part of it is water, you can separate the gasses, oil, and water on the tanker or in the collection platform even better. It's an active faster method instead of a passive siphon while an emergency is raging.

I'm not sure if all that's convenient technically but…

BP Senior Executive Vice President Kent Wells said:
"Ultimately, it's a winning game that we out-pump the well", according to UK Reuters
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN15214537.




Maybe they're not pumping!

I think that probably, if that's all they have, they'll have to keep on pumping.

Sorry for so much speculation… SF…

That's why I'm done, it's all just a game to him. We all nudge each other once in a while in fun, but all the allegory all the time gets old. And we all show respect for each others opinion sometimes, not so with km. Can't remember the last time any serious respect or acknowledgement was given to anyone else's opinion. is right.

It doesn't matter whether there is water or not. It has little to do with the pressure on the oil. That pressure is coming from the bottom of the well which is 13,000 ft below the sea bed. Drill a well 18,000 feet deep on land and the results will be the same - gusher.

No I don't agree with that... I tend respect considered opinions but disrespect wrecking or malicious comments dressed up as opinions - especially when they're wrong.


Well, higher up the thread for example when I endorsed Poly's observation:

"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."

or carp's:

"there is no pump on earth that can pump that fast of volume.

KM

Exactly. I've seen a lot of fancy formulas and such but that's the only logical answer I've seen, I didn't follow the whole thread though. The pressure on the oil doesn't start at 5000 ft, it starts 2.5 miles below even that. And the earth is pretty heavy, there's a lot of pressure on the oil. Pressure and heat is how it formed if my science classes were right in high school.

The stuff is under tremendous pressure 3.5 miles down, pop a hole in it and "thar she blows."

Correct, that was a spelling mistake.


No I think most people have followed it and indeed most have accepted the results. It was a scientific experiment because it showed that oil in subaquatic well rises to the surface through a tube without the assistance of a pump.

Your 'buoyancy' comments are misconceived in that I wasn't dealing with oil in water but oil in a pipe because it mirrored the procedure adopted by BP. Their aim is to keep water out of the riser but as Bozo has pointed out "it doesn't matter whether there is water or not" the oil is still coming to the surface.


No, the tube is connected to the 'well' or reservoir and the top end of it is sticking out of the water as does BP's riser when it funnels oil into the tanker. Sorry, if said "watch the water fall back down the tube" that was supposed to be "watch the oil fall back down the tube".


Try it for yourself then. In all material respects it's the same as what as what BP is doing but on a smaller scale. As poly has pointed out, the physics work even better on a larger scale i.e. with even deeper water.


In the picture it was a receptacle to keep the tube upright to stop the oil flowing out of it before immersion. Later I on I used it to prove that oil would rise up the tube from a solid subaquatic container as well as flexible one.

km