* Having experience in science and engineering, I suspect that excessive specialization may account for the failure of BP to stop the tragic oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts tend to be wedded to familiar materials and methods. Generalists are better at imagining a wide range of materials and methods.
* Judging from diagrams of the deep water BP well, it seems that there is an open cylindrical pipe in sections of greater diameter at greater depths, the pipe being unobstructed from the top of blowout preventer to the bottom, the geometry and material at the bottom being unclear from the diagram. Materials and methods so far discussed in the media to master the well have failed, are likely to fail or will be suboptimal. At this time, there is doubt that the well can be controlled at the top. When a successful solution is devised, one may ask why it wasn't the first solution tried.
* If the diagrams of the well that I have seen are accurate, then there is a simple solution for taming the gusher--simply drop long narrow lead rods in the top of the cylinder through the blowout preventer. I imagine them being about an inch in diameter and quite long, at least 20 feet long, so that they would fall readily through the upflowing oil (possibly tapered to a point on each end to minimize lifting action of upflowing oil). The soft lead rods would be placed in the well head by a robot-arm attachment that cradles the rod in a steel shell that can be opened once the cradle and rod are properly placed in the well head. These rods would accumulate, pack and stack at the bottom of the well, eventually imposing enough resistance to upflowing oil and slowing its flow enough that it can be easily harvested through one pipe from well head to the surface. Owing to their softness, the rods would deform each other to pack without stressing the steel casing of the well bore. Since the resistance is at the bottom, there would be no problem of escape through flaws in the casing.
* The connection of the riser pipe to the well head stump is a problem that can also be solved by use of a soft lead collar or bushing around the new riser where it engages the cut-off riser stump at the top of the blowout preventer. The new riser and its collar should be conical and fit inside the stump, not over or outside the stump and blowout preventer as the attempted capture domes have done.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
Anti-liberal screeds
* Susan Lynn's anti-liberal screed in The Tennessean Sunday, Jan 3, seems excessively haughty and self righteous. Our founding documents are indeed noble and probably gave rise to "the freest country in the world"--considering other governments at the time.
* But those documents were crafted by and for white, land-owning, slave-holding, ethnic-cleansing males. Justice for everyone else had to be won by liberals or by liberals collaborating with excluded, oppressed or exploited groups. In each case, injustice was considered the natural order, and liberal questioning of it resembled tilting at windmills. Some beneficiaries of liberal-won justice think the justice project should be closed down when they get theirs. Ms Lynn is that sort of beneficiary.
* Our economic system has been rigged (by Reagan & Bush) to protect and increase wealth of the already rich. A hedge-fund manager, receiving several million annually to transfer wealth from 99% of investors to the richest 1%, has an income tax rate lower than that of a successful plumber whose trade serves all citizens.
* If it was OK to rig the system that way, then rigging it to provide dignified health care to the average worker and the less fortunate seems OK, ethical, civilized, just. As a practical matter, the cost of health insurance is out of the average family's reach and is overwhelming our economy.
* If too many citizens don't have a stake in our economic system, we could experience social unrest, possibly a million-poor-people's march on Greenwich Connecticut, where most of the hedge-fund bankster bonuses are sequestered.
* Ms Lynn might someday wish we had treated our less fortunate citizens better. Professor Richard Grant (whose anti-tax, anti-government, anti-liberal treatise appeared in the same issue) might also. Either could someday be less fortunate.
* But those documents were crafted by and for white, land-owning, slave-holding, ethnic-cleansing males. Justice for everyone else had to be won by liberals or by liberals collaborating with excluded, oppressed or exploited groups. In each case, injustice was considered the natural order, and liberal questioning of it resembled tilting at windmills. Some beneficiaries of liberal-won justice think the justice project should be closed down when they get theirs. Ms Lynn is that sort of beneficiary.
* Our economic system has been rigged (by Reagan & Bush) to protect and increase wealth of the already rich. A hedge-fund manager, receiving several million annually to transfer wealth from 99% of investors to the richest 1%, has an income tax rate lower than that of a successful plumber whose trade serves all citizens.
* If it was OK to rig the system that way, then rigging it to provide dignified health care to the average worker and the less fortunate seems OK, ethical, civilized, just. As a practical matter, the cost of health insurance is out of the average family's reach and is overwhelming our economy.
* If too many citizens don't have a stake in our economic system, we could experience social unrest, possibly a million-poor-people's march on Greenwich Connecticut, where most of the hedge-fund bankster bonuses are sequestered.
* Ms Lynn might someday wish we had treated our less fortunate citizens better. Professor Richard Grant (whose anti-tax, anti-government, anti-liberal treatise appeared in the same issue) might also. Either could someday be less fortunate.
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