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Uncategorized Sunday, May 23rd 2010 at 4:00 pm

Bill Nye The Science Guy Evaluates Oil Spill Cleanup Solutions

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Bill Nye the Science Guy, by now a bona fide cable news pundit, helped CNN evaluate different oil spill solutions submitted by YouTube users. Some, like one user suggesting further drilling, confused him, and the various items people suggested tossing over the oil– sand, hay, a ShamWow-like towel– he seemed to find were on the right track, but some might work better than others.

For a generation who learned everything they know about geology from Mr. Science Guy, watching Nye evaluate the quality of user-generated science projects is quite a treat, especially for the users who suggested using hay to mop up the spill, which got the highest praise from Nye.

Nye also ended his evaluations with a plea to the American people to respect the workers in the energy industry, and to gain an understanding for how complicated providing a country with energy is:

“People have this thing, like, why don’t ‘they’ do something about that? Well, the people working on these problems are engineers. These are people who, nominally, can do calculus, people who are very good at physics, people who have studied chemistry. People who have dedicated their lives to learning about nature, to learning about science, to learning about the process through which we understand the world. So, I hope that along with all the concern, we do get respect for how complicated it is to provide everyone with all this energy that we all use all the time.”

Video below:

(This post originally appeared on Mediaite.)

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  • Bambucha

    Where do I submit an idea for the oil cleanup, iReport.com? The heck with it, whoever can take this idea and run with it,; do it.
    First problem:
    Stopping the oil flow. Stick an insulated tube into the cracked pipe (you figure out the length and diameter after I give you the idea.). Make an insulated balloon type sleeve to fit over the pipe. It must be able to withstand a liquid gas that will be able to freeze the oil through the pipe.(Again, the length will have to be figured out.)
    You think there is too much flow to freeze? Wait….
    How far did you stick the first insulated tube into the crack? It must be far enough upstream to cool the oil before it reaches the sleeve. Through this tube inject a similar liquid gas that will begin to coagulate the oil from the inside. At some point it will plug.

  • D Martin

    So, I’m thinking that maybe capping under pressure may not be an option. You have to give the pressure a release – somewhere for the oil to go. This is really a big plumbing problem.

    Here’s my idea: Cover the current pipe with a larger pipe. Inside the opening of the larger pipe are a few doughnut shaped bladders, like tire inter-tubes, which can be filled with seawater or liquid foam to create a seal. The pipe is not capped, but the spill is now controlled and empties from the end of your working splice-pipe section.

    Using this method, attach another section to the end of that section and so on until you can bring / pump / suction the oil gas mix into a containment ship. To prevent the mix from freezing inside the pipe, large volumes of seawater or antifreeze mix (probably not the green kind from the auto store) must be pumped into the pipe, maybe from the surface, through a hose within the pipe sections all the way down to the first splice-pipe. The pipe sections will be guided through a cable attached to the first section.

    Basically it would be like a large beaded necklace: a strong guide cable and the seawater hose would run through each section. You would only need the special splice-pipe pieces every-so-often and use regular bp inventory pipe sections for most of it.

    If the ruptured pipe will not accept the splice-pipe, we will have to use another large capping dome. I suggest we cut a large steel tank in half lengthwise, with a fitting for the first section of splice-pipe pre-installed. That way we’d have two caps from a single tank (other spills). Once again, we pump high volumes of seawater/antifreeze mix down to try and prevent freezes at the junction.

  • rheymann

    I have been in commercial construction for more than 20 years and I agree that concrete is a great way to plug the well, but you must stop the flow first. Maybe use a test plug (like plumbers use to pressurize pipes to test for leaks) at the end of a small pipe that is inserted into the spewing pipe. The test plug is then inflated until the flow stops. At that time, concrete can be pumped into the pipe to stop the flow until a permanent fix is in place. I think every idea is valuable, so think of the best way to stop this oil flow and send it in. Let the experts figure out the details. This disaster is going to affect us all.

  • D Martin

    On second thought, cables and hoses inside the pipe’s not a good idea. Just running a hose down the outside to joint for delivery of something to discourage freezing and blocking is better.

    I wonder what the REAL rate is coming out of that pipe? Looks incredible…

  • mgreen

    One conceivable possibility is to polymerize the oil, causing it to become rubbery, slowing and perhaps even stopping its flow. To do this, use H2O2 to generate free radicals (OH.). The OH. should start polymerization for hydrocarbons. There are obvious problems, of which the first is to deliver enough H2O2 fast enough to get the polymerization started across all the leak; otherwise the polymer would be simply pushed out (although the polymer may be easier to deal with than the oil as liquid, if it does leak; in fact H2O2 is used to deal with small oil spills already). To make sure that the H2O2 decomposes fast enough in the right place, use Fe3+ as catalyst for the decomposition, or for still faster decomposition (I believe by way of OH., although I have not looked at this for many years), use Fe(EDTA) complex as catalyst. To deliver the H2O2 separately from the Fe(EDTA) solution, use an annular tube, with the H2O2 in the inner section, the Fe(EDTA) in the outer annulus. They should mix at the end of the tube, whereever that is placed; presumably this should be as far down in the well as possible. Hopefully, it is at least as easy to deliver this mixture as it is to deliver mud. I have not done calculations of the residence time vs reaction time of the H2O2 as I don’t know the flow rate, but if the solutions can be delivered at a position that allows several seconds to react, that should be sufficient. Anyway, a suggestion, for whatever it is worth.

  • D Martin

    Hey! I just saw my idea in the New York Post!

    Well almost my idea. I think they mention the toroids inside the damaged pipe and mine are outside. This allows for the relief of the pressure. The splice pipe could be fitted with a valve in the up-facing end that is closed once the seal is made.

    I sent this to BP last week, but haven’t heard anything.

    Why-Oh-Why did they cut the pipe off FLUSH?!? Dang!

  • D Martin

    So, Saturday I was thinking / worrying about this spill some more and it occurred to me that the top-kill method would have probably worked had the flow not been so great. So how do we reduce the flow inside the blowout preventer?

    I propose using a parachute to reduce the rate enough to allow top-kill to work. Maybe not an off-the-shelf parachute, but close. I wonder if a membrane of polyester fabric could be rolled into a canister which would be delivered to the leaking blowout preventer and “injected” into one of the kill or choke valves by a plunger. The canister would need to be lubricated with oil so the chute would plunge out easily. Three inch valve fittings are pretty small so hangups are a concern.

    The “parachute” would have lines attached to something like a regular parachute to resist the membrane being blown out of the top of the structure. A small drogue chute could be affixed to the top of the parachute to assist in the delivery of the main chute into main flow. Multiple parachutes could be used if necessary to reduce the flow.

    Ideally the chute or chutes would come to rest right at the ruptures in the structure and reduce the flow to almost nothing; then the top-kill could be tried again with this lower flow state.

    It’s sort of like when you emptying a kiddie pool and it’s taking forever, so you look and discover a leaf has floated up against the outlet valve and is blocking the water from escaping.

    I have more details but that’s the basic idea…