What if...an experiment in solution sourcing the spill
So we’ve all been sitting around reading about this oil spill. It’s a real bummer. It doesn’t seem like there are many great ideas for stopping it or dealing with the resulting situation. And now it looks like they’ve just given up. Often times it seems like creativity has the power to generate solutions that out-perform the conventional approaches that we follow due to “expertise”, functional fixedness or cultural pressure. So the seeming luxury of not being able to look at a problem the same way others have or simply with a beautiful naiveté is what human advancement has been built on. I’ve always felt I learn more from watching someone play guitar that can’t actually play than someone that can. Their complete lack of knowledge actually opens them up to the possibility of innovation. So when three CP+Bers came to me with the idea of asking the agency to take a crack at solving this oil spill thing, I jumped at the chance. It’s just so crazy it might work. The initial results are down below. But why stop there? What’s your idea? Add your ideas to the comments section for the world to see. But please try not to make it offensive or just a joke. Not that a great solution can’t be funny because it might be really really funny. Also, if you are a scientist, engineer or work at BP and want to use one, please help yourself. We are not looking for any credit, money or patents; we just like using the weird parts of our brain. Enjoy.
1)
build a giant pop-rivet
From what I can guess it would be a foot in diameter minimum. You would lower it into the tube and pull back on the central shaft. It would distort the outer collar out and friction fit against the pipe wall.
It could even be built so that the center shaft is drilled out and has an oil fitting on the other end. That way they could connect a pipeline and keep sucking the earth dry!
2)
So there is all this pressure under the ocean floor and the oil was and is bursting to get out, yes? That means there is a huge amount of oil under the ocean floor in that area. Build another rig and drill another hole and start pumping out the oil properly, sucking from the well the oil is pouring out from. This may relieve the pressure enough on the uncontrolled hole to help stem the flow a bit. Once the flow is lessened, capping it with a giant cement block or “top hat” should work. Right now it’s just pushing the caps away because the force of the flow is so powerful.
3)
Get those organisms from Lake Baikal in Russia that eat oil. Clone them. Bring them here.
4)
Previously, BP tried a containment dome over the top, which effectively was a large structure that lead to a small hose attached to ships on the surface. This failed because of the oil being pressurized as it entered the smaller hose that lead to the formation of gas hydrates. So, what if we did a similar idea, but used a 10’ diameter tube over the leak. This tube would go all the way to the surface where tankers would pump out the oily water. Since there is no change in the diameter of the tube, there is no pressurization that occurred with the containment dome. Also, 10’ pipes are readily available in 20’ sections and would just have to be welded into place on site (I think the well is 5000 feet from the surface). Might be too simple, but who knows?
5)
I think the use of explosives to close the well shaft (well below the well head) is the best approach.
Planting explosives capable of crimping a well surrounded by soft limestone at that depth should not be very difficult. I’m surprised it has not been done already given the public outcry. It does pose some engineering challenges.
What sort of force would these explosives need to produce to bury the well shaft enough to outweigh the escaping pressure of the oil pocket? At 5000 under water, you would find 2164 pounds per square inch of pressure. Given that the oil is being jetted from the well head, the escaping pressure of the oil pocket would have to be greater than 2164 pounds per square inch. This is a great deal of pressure, but only a few tons of rock would be enough to stop it. Given the nearly 20inch diameter of the well, every 100 feet of limestone toppled into the well would weigh about 45 tons. Given the conflicting pressures, getting the explosives even 100 ft into the well, could prove challenging, but one method might be to simply place the explosive device into the well with a cylindrical porous pipe. Allowing the oil and water to free-flow through the pipe would negate most of the effects of pressure. It could also house any type of wiring needed for detonation. Given the path of least resistance and the pressure difference causing the oil to jettison upward, most of the force of the explosion would follow the upward path. Some method would have to be used to direct the explosion outward as much as possible or a very large explosive would have to be used. Perhaps even a small nuclear device. Given that the fallout from a nuclear device would very quickly be buried under hundreds of tons of rock and kept there by thousands of pounds of water head pressure, the environmental impact would be negligible.
Smarter men than me would have to figure out the details.
6)
THIS ONE ABOVE KIND OF SEEMED LIKE A JOKE. BUT MAYBE NOT.
7) 
8)
We spread a combination of hay, sawdust and baking soda atop the surface oil. The compound will absorb the oil, making it easier to collect.
9)
Create a series of inflatable rubber structures that can be deployed rapidly to plug any gaps and holes causing oil leaks. The rubber balloon is lowered into the whole and an air pump inflates it until it seals the hole. Each Oil cargo and platform at sea should be equipped with such an emergency kit.
10)
The redemption project. Create a website dedicated to our Collective Consciousness. This allows users to subscribe and commit to doing various actions to compensate for the eco footprint of this disaster in order to re-balance the use we make of the planet ( ex less oil consumption by walking instead of driving, or avoiding buying products that contain petroleum based products.) If 1,000,000 people take small actions, it will compensate in terms of eco footprint for this major disaster and also create awareness and change consumption habits.
11)
Design a series of mobile fauna & flora cleaning stations that are solar energy powered and can be deployed on site within minutes.
12)
eBay Guilt. We can't help not feeling guilty as a society, and as humans for what happened. Why not sell guilt packages on eBay to gather funds to help out communities affected by this disaster? You can buy a package of guilt and seek some peace of mind knowing that you contributed to repairing the damages.
13)
Donate vacation days to volunteer in the cleanup. These should be matched by the employers.
14)
Develop a fabric in collaboration with textile and fashion genius Hussein Chalayan that filters oil from water and acts like a strain.
15)
land art : collaborate with land art pioneer Cristo to wrap in textile up all affected shores and auction off the resulting piece to gather funds for cleaning & prevention
16)
To raise awareness for a fund to help affected communities: A creeping black overlay that takes over the web in the same scale. Websites donate their page. Or, they can just turn their page black.
17)
18)
...Fire some kind of strong motored missile into the pipe. Detonate it half ways down with some kind of highly compressed glue/concrete/mud mixture and some kind of mechanical expansion cork...
19)
According to news reports, the depth where the well head is located is approximately 5000 miles below see level and according to the Internet that equates to 5058 PSI of pressure. I have an idea of creating some sort air filled metal tube that can fitted around the well head or even the bent riser. The idea is that when we disturb the integrity of the tube it will collapse/implode crushing itself around the well head and hopefully crush the well head at the same time. The pressure will clamp like a twisty tie on a bag of garbage and theoretically stop the leak.
20)
Instead of using robot arms to guide a "top hat" over the pipe...Prepare a robot submersible itself to be the plug/cap, and use its propulsion to thread or force a plug mounted on the sub onto the pipe, and its weight to hold it there.Mount a thread cutting tool, or a friction-fit cap or plug, on the bottom center of the sub. Position the sub with this tool dead center on top of the pipe. Run the sub in stationary circles around its vertical center-line, spinning the threading tool mounted on its underside, to cut down into the pipe, threading or forcing the plug fitting onto the end.Have the sub take on water ballast. Leave the whole sub/plug assembly in place and ready to run again if necessary.Easier said than done, no doubt....Great challenge. I support the idea about creative thinking outperforming the conventional approach.
