Brilliant People Don't Always Have Brilliant Ideas

From Newsday, today, June 5, 2010:
FORGET "top cap" or "junk shot."

How about "seabed retread"?

That's what Northport native Alia Sabur, 21, a college grad at age 14 and youngest-ever professor at 18, calls her plan to stop the gushing BP oil well.

The proposal: Insert a diversionary pipe into the damaged well, then hold it in place by inflating rubber tires fastened around it, creating a firm seal. Sabur went to Louisiana Thursday to discuss the idea with a BP executive and has talks scheduled next with company scientists, she said.

I'm hoping that Alia's solution didn't depend on using compressed air to inflate the tires. Water pressure at 5,000 feet is approximately 2,200 pounds per square inch (psi). For oil to flow out of the broken pipe, its pressure must exceed the water pressure.

So, lets assume that the oil pressure is 2,250 psi. Whatever you pushed into the pipe to be inflated, must be pressurized to something in excess of the opposing oil pressure or it would simply blow back out. To obtain a good seal, the pressure would have be nothing less than 75 to 100 psi greater than the oil pressure. Fairly simple fluid mechanics...

The problem is that you must pressurize the required 5,000 linear feet of 4 inch pipe to approximately 2,350 psi. That volume of air required would be 3,349,530 cubic feet of air.

Therefore, in what pressure vessel do you store this 3,349,530 cubic feet of air, compressed to 2,350 psi? How do you compress such a vast volume to that pressure? What means do you have to maintain that air pressure over time? In short, air pressure cannot succeed.

A possible solution is hydraulic pressure. Although I have not seen any reference to Alia's choice of fluid (gas or liquid). If using liquid, you don't need a vast volume of pre-compressed fluid.

What you need is a carefully designed, multi-o-ring seal plug. This seal would have to be installed on the end of the pipe. The pipe must be thick enough to avoid expanding under pressure, except at the plug end that inserts into the oil pipe. When pressurized, the thinner wall adapter at the end of the pipe would expand, stretching the o-rings until a seal is obtained. An external (around the outer diameter of the pipe) compression seal should be employed as well. Fluid within the pipe (sea water and oil) would be an acceptable pressure medium. The limited volume of natural gas will compress, but will eventually compress into a liquid.

On the outside of the pipe, an externally threaded compression seal ring would be pushed onto the leaking pipe's outside diameter. A compression nut would then be threaded onto the seal ring. This would squeeze onto the pipe very tight, providing a redundant seal and retain the internal plug in place.

The big problem now is that when they failed to cut the pipe cleanly, they used shears instead. This will prevent inserting a plug seal or an external seal because the end of the pipe is no longer round. It was a mistake not to try cutting the pipe again after the saw became jammed. A clean cut would have provided vastly more options.

Likewise, I do not understand why if they were going to shear cut the pipe, why didn't they simply pinch it off as much as possible. If you reduce the orifice, you reduce the volume of flow. Flow velocity would increase at the leak, but the volume of oil would be greatly reduced. A reduction in flow is desirable is it not?

It seems to my reasoning that BP panicked when they realized that the saw had became stuck. Rather than expend a day or two to make another attempt to cut the pipe cleanly, they over-reacted and used shears to sever the pipe. They succumbed to the political pressure rather than use sound engineering judgment.

Having shear-cut the pipe, BP elected to try and contain the leak by capturing the oil with yet another dome.

I'm trying to understand why they didn't try to pinch off the pipe off as much as possible first.

Say goodnight, Nancy

There is now no doubt in my mind that the Democratic Party leadership has completely lost touch with reality. This is a party hurtling down hill at breakneck speed while lacking the basic common sense to step on the brakes.

Obama, Reid and Pelosi must be three of the most myopic politicians ever to hold national office. They continue to push a Senate healthcare bill that is unwanted by the vast majority of Americans. This is not quite like the blind leading the blind. It is the fundamentally stupid leading the blind.

Fundamentally stupid? Think about this....

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released February 26th say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.

This is what happens when the government ignores the will of the people. This is what happens when small-minded, power hungry bureaucrats place their political agenda before the desires of the people they so miserably serve.

Today, government workers on average earn bigger salaries, have better health and retirement benefits than those who work in the private sector. Ponder that for a moment or two.

Government workers are no longer public servants. Indeed, the public has become the servant of the government, who taxes them near to poverty to maintain this ever increasing monolithic menace to the principles of American liberty and freedom.

Why do we tolerate this?

Especially in light of the fact that government jobs simply don't draw the best and brightest. Those folks are in the private sector, they are the ones who actually do create jobs and grow the economy. Government creates nothing beyond more government. They produce nothing, except waste and corruption.

Now, we have the Democrats trying desperately to shove an unwanted healthcare bill down our throats. This is little more than an overt attempt to consolidate even more power in Washington, at the expense of all Americans. Obama believes that his presidency hangs in the balance. He completely misses the point that by passing this bill, he guarantees that the Democrats will lose the House and Senate. That will cement his presidency as the most epic failure in the history of American politics. No other president will have lost so much, so fast. Within that context, you find the root cause as fundamental stupidity.

Former President Clinton's pollster wrote today, "Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats' current health-care plan.

Voters are hardly enthralled with the GOP, but the Democrats are pursuing policies that are out of step with the way ordinary Americans think and feel about politics and government. Barring some change of approach, they will be punished severely at the polls.

Now, we vigorously opposed Republican efforts in the Bush administration to employ the "nuclear option" in judicial confirmations. We are similarly concerned by Democrats' efforts to manipulate passage of a health-care bill. Doing so in the face of constant majority opposition invites a backlash against the party at every level -- and at a time when we already face the prospect of losing 30 or more House seats and eight or more Senate seats.

Unless the Democrats fundamentally change their approach, they will produce not just a march of folly but also run the risk of unmitigated disaster in November."

Come next January, Nancy Pelosi will no longer be Speaker of the House. Harry Reid will no longer be the Senate Majority leader (and likely not even be a Senator). Obama will face his next two years greatly weakened and destined to be a one-term president; the Ebony to Jimmy Carter's Ivory.

Some of the Dumbest People on Earth

Over the years, I have concluded that you can find some of the dumbest people on earth on automotive internet forums. Well, at least the dumbest people on earth who drive.

I was visiting a Jeep forum (dedicated to the newer JK Wrangler) and found a poll had been posted. It was a general interest poll, just to determine who was driving what and with what option packages. Simple enough.

Understand, that unlike owners of a new or late model Benz or Range Rover, Jeep Wranglers draw owners from the full spectrum of society. From CEOs to Blue Collar types, from college professors to guys who missed their 6th grade graduation because they were attending the birth of the 5th child.

Thus, I expected to find the results to be interesting, to say the least.

The first question related to the model year of their Jeep. Check off the box corresponding to the year of your Wrangler.

The second question was, do you own a 2 door or 4 door (Unlimited)? Check off the appropriate box.

Third question was, select the model you purchased. X-Sport, Sahara or Rubicon. Check off the appropriate box.

Fourth question was, select the type of transmission. 6 speed manual or automatic. Check off the appropriate box.

Here's the results:

98.74% of those responding picked a model year. 1.26% apparently didn't know what year their Jeep was made (nearly correlates to the percentage of chrystal meth users in society).

84.17% drive either a two door or an Unlimited. 15.83% drive a mystery Wrangler or never bothered to count the doors (you can leave your shoes on for that exercise). Perhaps they thought that two half doors only add up to one and there was no check box for that option.

82.91% own an X (Sport), a Sahara or a Rubicon. 17.09% own something else, which I assume is that mystery Wrangler again. Perhaps they did what many do and just removed the stickers and forgot what they bought....

92.96% have either the manual or the automatic. 7.04% obviously don't have a transmission. Must be the Flintstone model.

To obtain the above percentages, the person taking the poll would have had to not check boxes to all questions. All they had to do was check any box for each question, simple enough. Guess not.

Internet polls contribute at least one positive... They provide a nearly perfect corollary to the premise that you can't fix stupid.