My Idea To Prevent Offshore Drilling Disasters--Feasible?

[ChoppinBroccoli]

This seems very elementary to me, which makes me wonder why no one has thought of it before. In fact, it seems SO basic and easy that all I can think is that other people smarter than me HAVE thought of it and dismissed it for reasons that do not occur to me. That being said, I think I have come up with an idea to prevent any further disasters involving offshore oil rigs. My question to you is whether or not it is feasible.

My idea boils down to two simple words: retaining wall. Once your offshore oil rig is built, go out a sufficient distance from the rig in all directions and construct a retaining wall of whatever super-strong material is most popular at the time (although I kind of see it in my own mind as some form of plexiglass, but maybe that's just because I've been watching hockey), and completely surround/encase the rig inside it. The wall would go all the way down to the ocean floor and below it to whatever depth is safest, and it would extend out of the water to a height that is higher than the highest point of the oil rig (for reasons to be discussed later). Sort of like putting a big cylinder around the rig.

This way, if there's a situation like the one with the BP rig, the oil can gush and gusy all day long and it just stays within the cylinder until we can figure out what to do with it. The cylinder also protects the rig from other disasters as well. For example, if a fire broke out (which I'd imagine is more common than a spill), all that would need to happen is all the workers would be evacuated, and then a big helicopter would drop the "top" (a round piece of retaining wall material that completely covers the entire cylinder) onto the top of the retaining wall cylinder, and the fire would eventually burn itself out of air and burn itself out. Maybe the top could even be attached in some way, and closed mechanically (although I thought the idea of a big helicopter airlifting a giant circle out to the rig was a cool image).

So now I'd like to hear from the people who know more about this stuff than I do. The engineers and physicists and smart guys of all stripe. Would this idea work? Why or why not? And if it WOULD work, why am I the first person to think of it? As I said above, it seems pretty elementary to me.

[Shadow Creature]

1. I'm no engineer...

but that sounds crazy... cool... but impossible.

I don't even want to think of the paperwork and commitee hearings and comment periods and challenges from PETA wanting to save every little animal inside the rings etc.

Besides, why are there not even floating booms on these rigs? Shouldn't that at least have been mandatory?

[ChoppinBroccoli]

4. This Idea Germinated From A Conversation I Had With A Guy...........

........who was in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. He was telling me about how they used to build bridges where there weren't any. He said they put giant cylinders down into the water until they hit the bottom, drove them down into the river/sea bed, and then pumped all the water out. That's how they constructed the bridge supports. Once the cylinders were empty, they sent down the materials to begin building the supports, just like they were working on dry land. I thought that was cool.

Maybe that concept could be used as well. Put the cylinders down, then pump all the water out (and all the little fishies and animals with it, to keep the PETA people happy), and then construct your rig right there on the ocean floor.........but on dry land!!! It would still keep all the oil from a spill contained so it couldn't drift with the various currents.

As I said, I don't know anything about this stuff. I'm just spitballing right now.

[Shadow Creature]

8. hhmmm

I know they do things like that in shallower waters but a mile down is probably too far I would think.

[whoneedstickets]

2. I think they should just use force fields..

Projected from space by geosynchronous satellites.

[izquierdista]

3. No

It has to do with the lengths involved. Even the stiffest material is as flexible as cooked spaghetti if you have a long enough piece of it. That is why they can do "directional drilling" (Google that term) and snake steel drill pipe around like it was a piece of wire. To make your retaining walls stiff enough to do the job, they would have to be prohibitively thick.

[Poll_Blind]

5. It's a good idea but I think you're essentially talking about a nonporous, solid tube...

...big enough to fit around an oil rig, withstand the battering of the ocean currents and storms, and be affixed to the bottom of the ocean floor.

That's not possible at this time in human history. I like the idea though. Maybe something more flexible, like a circular skirt of weighted netting which could be dropped once the rig is initially in place or like a curtain runner, be pulled down to the bottom along some track until it basically makes the tube you describe. Instead of a hard material, a softer net-like material would allow at least some water to pass through it but have small-enough holes that the viscosity of the oil would mostly prevent it from passing through entirely.

Of course, even then, assuming it worked perfectly, once that tube filled with a viscous enough material it's going to become a danger to the rig itself because of the wave action and currents against it. Remember, the DeepWater Horizon was in almost exactly a mile of water.

But I'm sure they (the oil companies) could be doing more and ideas like yours are good to have floating around.

PB

[Cleita]

6. Here's an idea, no more off shore drilling anywhere in the world

ever. We need to switch to alternative energy now, so that coal and oil will be regarded as quaint as horses and carriages for transportation in the future.

[Chulanowa]

7. I have to agree

At least, with the "no offshore drilling" thing. if we can't fix a fuckup, then we don't need to be doing something that could lead to such a fuckup. This goes for any endeavor. Unforseen circumstances are one thing; But it's easy to forsee that an oil rig in a mile of water might spring a leak, so we need a contingency plan.

As for alternative energy... Well, first we need to figure out a way to make solar collectors that don' cost more energy to make than they'll produce. And to develop such things, we need to use the oil. Or coal. Just like back when we were setting up oil infrastructure, we had to use coal, and when we were setting up things for coal, we had to use wood.

[gmoney]

9. You should pitch it to Kramerica Industries

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GguJDlEu5RY

Actually, as I understand it, the technology is in use that prevents this type of thing, but the US doesn't REQUIRE it, so BP decided to save $500,000 and not implement it.