BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on the 20th of April, killing 11 men and losing containment of the well it was drilling.
It is what is called a “pressure fed” release. The upper limit of the Exxon Valdez disaster was limited to the inventory of oil on the tanker–about 11 million gallons. The upper magnitude of this release is limited to the quantity of oil in the reservoir. This is a high pressure reservoir with volumes in the billions of gallons.
I can’t tell at the moment whether the “blow out preventer”—the temporary device they install to preserve pressure integrity until the permanent valving is installed—is functional or not. If it isn’t, then to contain it, they will have to drill another well near the original, then deviate to intercept the original borehole and pump cement into it. The borehole will be about thirty inches in diameter. The well is in five thousand feet of water.
Drilling the original well was at the limit of the industry’s technological ability. Drilling the intercept is way beyond it. By the time they get the well planned, the materials organised and a drilling rig capable of operating at that water depth, it will be hurricane season. They will probably miss on the first attempt.
One of the technology optimists main arguments is (or was) that the pace of technology will outpace depletion and that the supply of energy will be maintained.
10 years ago, amid the hubris of the early deep water discoveries, a new era of the oil industry was announced. New reserves were booked on the basis of the expectation that they were accessible and speeches were made that the peak oilers had got it all wrong again.
Of course, deep water exploration peaked about 5 years ago, BP almost sank their “Thunder Horse” and we now have the first uncontrollable deep water well failure. Yet a significant chunk of the oil that you were told would be supporting us would be coming from such sources. Meanwhile, the companies are eyeing up the Arctic (think “oil rig plus iceberg equals titanic plus oil spill”) the way a vein-collapsed junky eyes up the gap between his toes.
BP, like most major oil companies, are self-insured. The companies have such large capital reserves in relation to “ordinary” risks (like a platform blowing up) and the premium to insure would be so high that it is much cheaper to self insure since they can cover almost any liability.
Until now.
What about collapsing the borehole using explosives? I'm sure the depth of the borehole matters, but involving even a small nuclear device seems preferable to the damage of an uncontrolled flow. Is this idea sensible or is there a great chance of it creating a doomsday situation such as collapsing the seabed over the oil reservoir? How deep was this well?
It seems like all options should be considered/catalogued at this point.