"When these things go, they go KABOOM"....

[Junkdrawer]

...

As bad as the oil spill looks on the surface, it may be only half the problem, said University of California Berkeley engineering professor Robert Bea, who serves on a National Academy of Engineering panel on oil pipeline safety.

"There's an equal amount that could be subsurface too," said Bea, who worked for Shell Oil Co. in the 1960s when the last big northern Gulf of Mexico oil well blowout occurred. And that oil below the surface "is damn near impossible to track."

Louisiana State University professor Ed Overton, who heads a federal chemical hazard assessment team for oil spills, worries about a total collapse of the pipe inserted into the well. If that happens, there would be no warning and the resulting gusher could be even more devastating because regulating flow would then be impossible.

"When these things go, they go KABOOM," he said. "If this thing does collapse, we've got a big, big blow."

BP has not said how much oil is beneath the Gulf seabed Deepwater Horizon was tapping, but a company official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the volume of reserves, confirmed reports that it was tens of millions of barrels.

...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36870222/ns/us_news-environment/page/2/

[Junkdrawer]

1. And, if this thing collapses, would we be told, or .....

would we just hear that the spill size tripled overnight? :shrug:

[babylonsister]

2. My neighbor just informed me gas went up today. So

prices can get raised at will. Oh, who am I kidding, of course they can.

[izquierdista]

3. Put a cork in it

The problem that people have in relating what is happening with the oil well to their common experience is that the pressures and distances are so vastly different. At distances of tens of thousands of feet, steel drill pipe behaves more like angel hair pasta. But once you have gotten your mind into the new pressure and distance regime, it is not so difficult to understand. What they are probably going to have to do is put a stopper into the hole, or get someone to put their thumb on it to stop it from squirting out. Those of you who understand order of magnitude scaling can get extra points figuring out what the cork has to look like, or how much pressure the thumb would have to exert.

[Ruby the Liberal]

5. Would sticking Rush's big doughy ass into it work?

I would donate to that cause.

[izquierdista]

7. Size is right....

But mass is all wrong. All that hot air would just pop to the surface. Now Beck, there is something really dense that would sink quickly.

[BrklynLiberal]

8. I made the same suggestion, but it was Blankenship's ass I reccomended. LOLOOLOLOL

[Ruby the Liberal]

9. Happy to donate to either cause.

:D

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. This has been my biggest fear - that pressure could blow the sea floor apart

If that happens, we will have a mess of biblical proportions on our hands.

[chill_wind]

6. This is some seriously scary shit. n/t