If the siphon picks up 15% to 20% of the flow it would be lucky to trap 15% to 20% of the gusher pressure. The original riser pipe is broken —in several places (three?)—; the pressure is spilt,

The above percentage of captured gusher energy means that 80% to 85% of the pressure is spilling out into the gulf with the oil. The longer it gushes, the more pressure is lost.

Except, the oil is under so much pressure that it would take a very long time for it to equalize and stop spewing forth. Also, the visual image of the spill cam indicates that much heavier crude has now begun pouring out based on the much darker color.

All of your experiments are irrelevant. What about Michael's observation that the oil is already under great pressure as it's over 3.5 miles down, with the weight of the earth on it?

Does all that pressure mysteriously dissipate at 5000 ft?

He was using that figuratively of course because they only need to match the well not outperform it. What he meant was that for environmental reasons they have to funnel as much oil into the tanker as was coming out of the damaged riser. 'Siphoning' has been the usual word to distinguish the procedure from pumping although that's also figurative in that the fluid extracted is not collected at a lower level than the source.

km

If you rewrite the experiment with all the complete instructions and the results i should get i would consider it. Sorry, but i'm not going to lose my effort on an experiment that right now, as i see it, doesn't make any sense. If anyone could follow it, i'm amazed!


Visit if you please: My take on the BP siphon —up till now.

This circle jerk is pretty much moot at this point. The siphon/pump/soda-straw-in-a-wine-glass business has been largely ineffective. Now (or in the next day or so) supposedly comes this top-kill procedure. If that doesn't work, BP says they'll try the containment dome again. And if that doesn't work — again — maybe they'll hire a shaman to throw a few chicken bones in the Gulf and do a happy dance.

In the meantime, they continue spraying (with a hearty fukkyou, EPA) the highly toxic, banned-in-England dispersant that they were ordered to stop using.

I'll bet if they air-dropped a few top BP execs into the Gulf waters, their arrogance would repel the oil out of the ocean and past the Moon!

You wrote:



Then you wrote:



Then you wrote:



All of which are descriptions of buoyant effects ...

Then you wrote:



And now you write:



Which amazingly is an almost exact paraphrase of what Sarge wrote in the first place:



And seemingly directly contradicts examples you provided previously:




At this point, I honestly have no idea what forces you believe are at work here ...

It always was moot -- nothing we say here really matters anyways in a practical sense. I'm still in this thread mainly for the entertainment value ;-)

Instructions are already in the thread.

Alternatively, think about what BP is doing and how you can simulate it in your own home experiment. They have oil in a well underneath the ocean. Because it's been spilling into the sea out of a broken riser pipe, they've plugged the breach with a Riser Insertion Tube Tool (RITT) and attached 5,000 foot riser pipe to bring the fluids to the surface.

Simulation

1. The 'oil well'

I poured oil into a wine glass so it was about one third full and sealed the top with cellophane made watertight by an elastic band wrapped around the bowl of the glass.

2. The 'RITT and riser pipe'

I inserted a plastic tube into the cellophone so that the lower end was immersed into the oil and the top end sticking out a few inches above the rim of the wine glass.

3. 'Siphoning to the surface'

I immersed the wine glass into a plastic bottle three quarters full of water so that the oil was deep beneath the waterline but the tube was sticking out into the air above the waterline. Oil rose all the way up through the tube to reach the waterline.

In all material respects the experiment simulates what BP has done.

km

Gravity and pressure, I should have thought that was quite obvious. All of my statements are consistent, by the way.

km