Boat/Ship engines/cooling system.

I've seen designs for them. Pretty simple really, relying on a "water hammer" effect to force a bit of water through a check valve on each cycle. Only pumps a small portion of the flow through it, but simple and effective. Good for pumping from a flowing stream up to an elevated storage tank for gravity feed to a cabin.

The recovery bell did not function as they had hoped. Now they are scratching their heads and trying to find an alternative.

There was really no argument, Chuck....As things are beginning to become known, a lot of information, and suspicion, is going to come out.. In fact, more information is already coming to light, and it doesnt look good.

Mistakes were made, and people died from them. The entire Gulf will suffer environmental damage that can last for years.

The technology exists to drill rather safely in deep water...but it is expensive and I think we will find that this particular situation didnt take every precaution that was available to it.

Our government is probably going to have to get off their duffs, and become involved in the regulation of offshore drilling. It is a shame, because the government is so incompetent in other matters, I can only imagine they will bring chaos to an already troubled industry.

This is probally a dumb question, but why couldn't some sort of super tough inflatable device be lowered down into the hole and then inflate the device and stop or at least slow down the leak? cuhulin

"hls" wrote in news:PdKdnfcl9K2953XWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Well, they're pretty much out of practice in such things. At least

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@storefull-3173.bay.webtv.net:

Air pressure required? at one mile down it would be immense.

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@storefull-3173.bay.webtv.net:

These days Clint sticks to trees and forests as I understand it.

Too much of a battle to fight action movie actors.

Also getting it in place against the flow of oil wouldn't be easy. It also presumes a clean open pipe to be able to fit such a thing in, and they believe that the blow out preventer that is on the well mostly worked and is mostly closed since the oil flow is apparently considerably less that what would be expected if the BOP was wide open. Really difficult to get a close look into the end of the BOP with oil spewing out though, so you have to take educated guesses.

"Pete C." wrote in news:4be8a035$0$11422$ snipped-for-privacy@unlimited.usenetmonster.com:

I doubt you could get anything near enough to even have a chance of seeing it. There'd be too much turbulence. I haven't followed this closely enough to know what happened to the last cap, but that would be my first guess: turbulence leading to it being damaged.

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@storefull-3172.bay.webtv.net:

send a scuba driver down to light a match

Not even close. The collection dome had issues with gas hydrate crystals forming and both clogging the pipe at the top of the dome as well as making the 98 Ton? structure buoyant. I believe they are investigating pumping methanol into the dome as an antifreeze to prevent the hydrate crystal formation. They had expected some crystals, and had the pipe to the surface double walled with warm water pumped down the outside jacket to help prevent problems, but they had more crystal formation in the dome itself than they expected.

Good idea, I nominate you. I'll even lend you my dry suit.

Had to strike a match to see if that light was lit.

Why don't they put that box back over that hole and fill it up with concrete? Seems to me concrete would fall down that pipe and into the box all by itself. cuhulin

On the web, Oil rig workers forced to sign papers not to talk cuhulin

I saw that form, but it is not as sinister as it might look.