http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/

June 3, 2010, 10:47 am

By ROBERT MACKEY

As my colleague William Broad reports, the United States is not planning to heed calls from armchair engineers to fire a nuclear weapon at the damaged BP well still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico — simply because, in the words of one official, “It’s crazy.” That said, as Mr. Broad notes, ideas about how to cap the well are flowing onto the Web nearly as fast as oil into the water.

While thinking outside the box, and even the bun, comes naturally to many Americans who spend a lot of time online, some of this brainstorming has been generated in response to requests for help from BP, the government and news organizations like CNN.

BP’s Web site has a “citizen response” section appealing for information and ideas. One blogger, a lawyer named Michael J. Evans who runs BPOilNews.com, reported this week that the company “finally opened a telephone hot line to take oil spill suggestions from the public.” He added:

Whether the suggestions will be seriously considered by BP remains to be seen, but I am happy to report that I had a satisfactory experience when I checked out the Oil Spill Suggestion Hot Line. When I called (281) 366-5511, the phone was actually answered by a live person (in my case, after only two rings) who was polite and actually seemed to be putting my information into a computer. The operator took my name, city and state of residence, ZIP code, telephone number, and e-mail address. She then asked for my suggestion and requested that I speak slowly so she could write it all down.

 

According to the “Suggestions” page of the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command Web site:

Thousands of people have submitted possible ideas on how to stop or contain the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. More than 20,000 ideas on how to stop the flow of oil or contain the oil spill have been sent to BP since the Gulf of Mexico incident. These ideas have flooded in from people across the world, ranging from ordinary members of the public to oil industry professionals, and in many languages from Arabic to Russian.

According to the site, “BP has implemented a process to review and evaluate all of these suggestions.” Callers are asked to submit their ideas in written form, and then each scheme “is sent for triage by a team of 30 technical and operational personnel who will review its technical feasibility and application.” Although “the technical review can take some time,” eventually:

Each idea is sorted into one of three categories:

* Not possible or not feasible in these conditions;
* Already considered/ planned or;
* Feasible.

The feasible ideas are then escalated for a more detailed review, potential testing and field application. So far, around 100 ideas are under further review.

CNN’s call for ideas encouraged readers of its Web site to “share a video or photo explaining your thoughts — bonus points for awesome visuals.” After several hundred responses came in, the network asked Bill Nye to explain why none of the suggestions for cleaning up the spill or capping the well were better than those already devised by experts.

After looking at several of the proposed solutions, Mr. Nye urged viewers to keep in mind that “the people working on these problems are engineers, these are people who nominally can do calculus, people who are very good at physics, people who’ve studied chemistry, people who have dedicated their lives to learning about nature, to learning about science, to learning about the process by which we understand the world.”

Although The Times has not joined CNN in soliciting ideas, that has not stopped our readers from submitting dozens of possible fixes in just the past week. My colleagues who usually field helpful notes about typos or angry screeds about split infinitives and our coverage of ethnic conflicts from readers of our Web site have lately been getting notes they’re filing under “I Know How to Fix the Oil Spill.”

Here, with some corrections of spelling errors, are a few of the more creative ideas to come over our transom in recent days:

Recently when they were widening the roadway 287, whenever they would use explosives they would lay a very heavy steel woven blanket over the area to protect the public. These blankets were 40’ x 40’ hoisted into place with cranes. Why not put several of these blankets over the hole then several steel roadway plates over them! Or why not just sink a ship over the hole! — C. Guntner

My dad, an old barge owner, suggests (and I concur with changes) that an upside-down barge (or I say circular, bowl-like object) filled with concrete (or other heavy material that pours into a mold, then hardens), is lowered onto sea floor on top of and encircling pipe end. Then other heavy objects added on top if needed until the pressure of escaping oil is equalized and spill stops. Further encapsulating and stabilizing measures can then be added to bunker the area down. — Pat Hoffstatter

Create, by sewing, a mile-long tube of impermeable fabric with enlarged ends, a two-ended funnel, the bottom end circus tent sized, the top lake-reservoir sized. The bottom is loosely floated over the leak, then tacked to the ocean floor. The top gradually fills with the rising oil-water mixture floating up to become a lake-reservoir held in place by buoys, increasingly oil rich, as the seal at the bottom is improved. The lake-reservoir is emptied continuously by a tanker fleet. CONTAMINATION OF THE GULF CEASES. — Dr. Lawrence F. Wasser

I came up with a SPINNING TOP PLUG with toggle clamps. The spinning top has grooves on it, like a tap and wings to make it spin from the oil flow. Once the top is over the the pipe, it is lowered very fast or dropped into the out flow pipe. And the toggles hole the top in place. It also has a movable coupling holding the SPINNING TOP SYSTEM. Good Luck. — Jim Fox

It is difficult to add a cap on top of a high-pressure tube. However, it is relatively easy to insert a long metal stick with a long thin tip and gradually increased radius and backward hooks into the well. First put the thin tip of the stick into the well and then push the stick into the well and let the thick part matching the well’s radius deeply into the well and the backward hooks to keep the stick in the well. — Xinhang Shen

I have one suggestion to stop oil flow. BP may consider using clay and/or sand in their top kill effort. These are natural constituents of the sea bed and perhaps heavier than oil. I am not an engineer or a geophysicist, but I am tossing with this idea. I am deeply concerned as is everybody and offer this naïve suggestion. — S.K. Dey

Please! Seal the Gulf Oil Leak quickly and at low cost by immediately dropping 100s to 1000s of tons of plastic bagged capsules of either cement/ concrete/ clay/ etc. select best available/effective material from readily available bottom door opening DREDGING BARGES towed to the site from nearby ports. – Jerry Pospisil

Could the riser pipe be squeezed shut, much as a soda straw be squeezed between thumb and finger? — Joe Kellen

I am engineer and I would like to suggest for BP to stop oil leak, an alloy of zinc of low-point fusion, like Zamak in Portuguese. — J.M. Solis

I LIVE IN RUSSIA. I KNOW HOW TO STOP CONTAMINATION OF MEXICAN BAY. I WOULD LIKE TO SELL THE IDEA. BUT I BADLY TALK FOR ENGLISH AND I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO CONTACT WITH GUIDANCE OF COMPANY. YOU WOULD NOT COULD TO ME HEREIN TO HELP. IT IS VERY GOOD IDEA. YOU WILL BE SORRY ME FOR BAD KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLISH. WITH KIND REGARDS. DMITRY

It seems the easiest solution would be to put a bladder on the end of a pipe, as far into the pipe as possible (to get past sharp edges). Pump air into the bladder, it’s done. The bladder can be designed to spread out into the pipe with the pressure from the oil.

Depending on how deep you have to go, you could also make it a mechanical seal instead of pumping air. Put the largest steel tube into the pipe that will still allow the oil to come out of the pipe, push a bladder through the tube, the bladder is anchored to the inner tube, like a parachute, oil pushes open the bladder. The bladder has to be designed to expand with the pressure.

Don’t know if it can be done, but from my armchair it seemed logical.
— John Cole

I don’t pretend to be an expert with this type of problem. However, I remind myself of the story about the truck stuck under the bridge because it was a few inches too tall. As the experts and engineers devised elaborate plans to remove the bridge or cut away the truck, a child asked, why don’t you just let the air out of the tires?

Therefore, I submit two different ideas for consideration to slow or stop the flow of oil:

The first idea uses a large clamp to crimp or crush the pipe at the break. I envision a tool similar to the jaws of life used by Fire and Rescue workers to pull apart cars. The difference here being the machinery would squeeze instead of expand. This procedure isn’t the final solution, but could dramatically reduce the flow of oil until the relief wells can be completed.

The second idea is to provide a splice over the top of the break in the pipe. Similar to how plumbers fix breaks in water pipes. The splice plate could be equipped with additional pipes or hoses to relieve the pressure and draw the oil up to ships on the surface of the gulf. Again, this would not be the final fix, but could provide a temporary solution until the relief wells are completed. — Jim Viviano