IRANIAN VOTERS - MARCH 3, 2012
SANTA IS THE TWELFTH IMAM
A site dedicated to the patriots of Machias, Maine who captured the British warship, Margaretta, on June 12, 1775 armed only with muskets, axes and pitchforks. This was the first ship-to-ship combat of what was to become the U. S. Navy. This action has been described as the "Lexington of the Seas".
BP’s alleging that Halliburton co. destroyed evidence in the weeks following the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010 that demonstrated that the cement formula the firm used on the drilling operation was flawed. The claim, made Monday in a federal civil-court filing in New Orleans, is the latest in a continuing volley of accusations between the companies as they face potentially huge civil and criminal penalties stemming from the 2010 accident in the Gulf of Mexico that killed a total of 11 people and led to the largest offshore oil spill in the U.S. history.
Halliburton has previously said that it believes the cement mix it recommended that BP use on the well was stable. It has argued that the well failed because of poor engineering and design choices made by BP.
Given that the chief counsel to the president's commission on the oil spill agrees that the blowout occurred through the cement in the shoe track, it is unacceptable that no administration official has yet commented on what the commission's own researchers have discovered. Here's the link to the Halliburton experts on nitrified cement who state in their last paragraph "Typically, only 2 1/2 to 5 % of gas by volume is required downhole to produce enough compressibility to help prevent gas entry into the cement column." Per Halliburton's OptiCem program, Macondo was allegedly
going to suffer "severe gas flow potential" at 19% gas by volume!
Even a novice ought to be able to imagine what the consistency of the cement would be with about four times too much gas in the mixture!
KRUGMAN: Think about World War II, right? That was actually negative social product spending, and yet it brought us out. I mean, probably because you want to put these things together, if we say, "Look, we could use some inflation." Ken and I are both saying that, which is, of course, anathema to a lot of people in Washington but is, in fact, what the basic logic says. It's very hard to get inflation in a depressed economy. But if you had a program of government spending plus an expansionary policy by the Fed, you could get that. So, if you think about using all of these things together, you could accomplish, you know, a great deal. If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months. And then if we discovered, oops, we made a mistake, there aren't any aliens, we'd be better –It seems Mr. Krugman needs some serious re-education regarding the nature of the creation of jobs to man Franklin Roosevelt’s “Arsenal of Democracy”. I expect that he and most readers would agree that the massive shipbuilding programs undertaken during World War II created a lot of jobs, as well as technological advances and improved America’s competitive advantage in global trade. I have some personal knowledge of those shipbuilding programs learned from my father Robert Thompson. He was a marine engineer with the naval architecture and marine engineering firm, Gibbs & Cox. Here is a very brief summary of their work during World War II from the company website
ROGOFF: And we need Orson Welles, is what you're saying.
KRUGMAN: No, there was a "Twilight Zone" episode like this in which scientists fake an alien threat in order to achieve world peace. Well, this time, we don't need it, we need it in order to get some fiscal stimulus
The company was founded on June 29, 1929 by lawyer and engineer William Francis Gibbs, his brother Frederick H. Gibbs and Daniel Cox, a noted yacht designer. Mr. Gibbs was a lawyer by education but a ship designer by avocation. Prior to forming Gibbs & Cox, Inc., Mr. Gibbs had extensive experience in shipbuilding. During World War I, he was the Assistant to the Chairman of the Shipping Control Committee. In 1922, he and his brother formed Gibbs Brothers, Ind. to convert the liner Vaterland to the Leviathan.
Gibbs & Cox designed the famous, standardized cargo-carrying Liberty ships of World War II and was instrumental in the implementation of modular construction, centralized material and equipment procurement, and design-for-production features that are the foundation of cost-effective shipbuilding today. The firm developed and implemented many improvements in ship design and construction based on fleet feedback during World War II, constantly improving the designs of surface combatants and other ships throughout the war.
During World War II, Gibbs & Cox was a leader in the shaping of the U.S. maritime forces. Over 5,400 ships were built to Gibbs & Cox, Inc. designs during the War. These
included destroyers, destroyer escorts, light cruisers, landing ships and amphibious assault vessels, liberty ships, minesweepers, icebreakers, tankers and tenders. In addition to the design work, Gibbs & Cox, Inc. was also responsible for the central procurement of all materials and equipment. At its peak, the firm issued 10,000 blueprints a month and 6,700 purchase orders per day.
Since 1933, the firm has designed every class of destroyers built for the U.S. Navy, with only one exception.
For oil spills in the coastal zone, the President of the United States delegates removal authority without abdication in Executive Order 12777, Section 3, FWPCA 311(c) to the DHS Secretary. HSPD-5, paragraph 4, establishes the DHS Secretary as the PFO and focal point regarding natural and man-made crises and emergency planning. Pursuant to HSPD-5, the DHS Secretary is always the PFO for domestic incidents. The amount of governance the DHS Secretary chooses to exercise is scalable to the scope of the event. From the first day of the Deepwater Horizon incident, the DHS Secretary exercised governance, without delegation, in coordination with the National Response Team (NRT) and U.S. Coast Guard Commandant (later, the National Incident Commander).
Prior to the Deepwater Horizon incident, the Coast Guard successfully employed the National Response Team (NRT) Joint Information Center (JIC) model as its crisis communications structure for hundreds of incidents, including Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake, and the Tintomara collision/oil spill on the Mississippi River.
• The Unified Area Command (UAC) JIC, and its subordinate JICs, were prohibited from
releasing information or imagery without prior approval by the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) Office of Public Affairs (OPA).
• The decision by the White House and DHS to create a centralized National Response
Framework (NRF) crisis communications construct negatively impacted the Coast Guard’s
establishment of a more decentralized JIC within the response organization.
• Several layers of review and approval by the White House and DHS prevented timely and effective crisis communications and hindered the Coast Guard’s ability to meet National Contingency Plan requirements for keeping stakeholders informed about the status of the Response.
• The National Incident Commander served as an effective spokesman for the response
organization and “whole of government” effort during the incident. The National Incident Commander and the National Incident Command (NIC) organization assisted the UAC by responding to many of the information needs of elected officials and senior level Government officials.
• During crises similar to the size and scope of the Deepwater Horizon incident, the public
expects there to be one authoritative figure who is “in charge” of the response to the incident.
• There is a need to have fully qualified leaders in place who are well trained and experienced
in crisis management and who are ready to effectively and forcefully answer the “who’s in
charge” question when a significant national incident occurs.
• The National Incident Commander concept proved to be successful in dealing with the
national-level concerns of the response, including presenting the public with the “face” of the
response.
• Superb crisis leadership is essential for effective response to a major national domestic
incident.
• The characteristics necessary for crisis leadership are well documented and identifiable.
• Leaders who are expected to perform as crisis managers need to be trained and experienced
in crisis management, and should not be placed into such positions without applicable
training.
• Many Federal, State, and local officials and industry executives do not have crisis leadership experience and training or are not temperamentally suited to the role of crisis manager during a significant oil spill incident. (emphasis added)
The Regional Response Team (RRT) VI ISB Plan lists quantities of fire booms available from the Texas General Land Office as well as fire booms located in Alaska. The BP OSRP catalogs quantities of fire booms in Louisiana and in Florida, in addition to fire booms available from the Marine Spill Response Corporation (MSRC) “for purchase” from unspecified locations. Additionally, the Region IV ISB Plan lists slightly different quantities of fire booms from similar locations as those in the Region VI ISB Plan. Fortunately, the diversity of ISB equipment inventory did not appear to affect the effectiveness of the ISB operations for this incident. More than 23,000 feet of fire boom were ultimately used during this response, involving five different boom types, far in excess of that which was in stock in the Gulf, but made available by cascading the equipment to the incident.
The use of ISB for this incident, coupled with dispersant applications, significantly reduced the amount of oil that might otherwise have impacted near-shore habitats and environmentally sensitive areas (ESAs). Of the estimated 206 million gallons reportedly released, approximately 5 percent (10 million gallons) was reported to have been removed by ISB operations. In comparison, mechanical recovery (i.e. skimmers) removed approximately 3 percent (6 million gallons) and approximately 8 percent (16 million gallons) was dispersed. Some residual oil remained following burn operations and efforts to recover it were unsuccessful. The amount of residual oil is unknown.
There were a total of 411 burns initiated during the Deepwater Horizon incident, of which 376 were determined to have burned a significant quantity of oil. The longest duration burn lasted for more than 11 hours, and there was some limited night burning. Sixteen ISB operations were conducted on June 18 alone, accounting for the removal of approximately 2.5 million gallons of oil. The typical “window of opportunity” for the use of ISB was significantly expanded in this response due to the continual renewal of fresh oil from the well.
Two ISB Task Forces were established for the operation, consisting of a command and control vessel, a fire boom supply vessel, safety and ignition teams, and aerial spotters. Hand-held igniters were used for ignition; no “burn agents” (surface collecting agents or demulsifiers) were used for these burns. Site safety plans were developed for each unit and air quality was monitored with portable gas detectors to ensure worker safety. Additionally, EPA monitored air quality in accordance with their prescribed procedures. A protocol was developed to standardize estimates of oil burned. Spotter aircraft were used to direct ISB operations to the heaviest concentrations of oil. Wildlife monitoring, including the use of qualified turtle observers, was conducted.
Vessels of Opportunity (VOOs) were provided for in the Region VI ISB Plan and were utilized extensively during the Deepwater Horizon incident. Additional training was required for crews of VOOs conducting ISB, and it was judged that use of such trained crews enhanced operations. The ISB Application for the Deepwater Horizon incident indicates that ISB was to be conducted 40 miles offshore. Visual reports indicated that black smoke from burning operations dissipated less than three miles from the source of the burn. No impacts or visual opacity were reported in shoreline areas. Monitoring of air emissions exceeded what was necessary to establish safe air quality levels for exposed shoreline populations, which increased the complexity of the response by increasing the risks posed by additional response operations. It was noted that some of the policy for ISB in various plans dates to as early as 1994 and, at least, needs to be revalidated or updated to include current doctrine regarding ISB. Additionally, equipment inventories need to be re-examined in light of the intensive and highly successful use and subsequent depletion of ISB equipment; most ISB equipment is designed for multiple use, but will not last indefinitely.
Burn agents are sometimes used to facilitate and enhance the effectiveness of ISB. They are defined by the NCP as those additives that, through physical or chemical means, improve the combustibility of the materials to which they are applied. Their acceptability is determined by the National Products Schedule, which is maintained by EPA. Neither the RRT VI ISB Plan nor the BP Oil Spill Response Plan (OSRP) identifies burning agents for use in ISB applications. Under the NCP, pre-authorization for burning is only required if burning agents are employed; however, other statutes, such as the Clean Air Act, apply as well. As a result, many RRTs have undertaken to establish pre-authorization protocols to assist FOSCs in determining if ISB is a viable oil spill response tool for their area of responsibility (AOR) and under what conditions.
Further, burning agents cannot be used unless they are listed on the National Product Schedule. However, none are currently listed on the National Product Schedule or are known to be commercially available.(emphasis added)
Well, I ran my model and if you can fill the well with marbles, the marble matrix has a permeability of 200 darcies, and the tube length is 13,000 feet, then you do get one hell of a pressure drop, the well flow would be restricted to less than 500 BOPD.Dropping the flow from 62,000 BOPD down to only 500 BOPD seems to be a major advance! That means that what had been one day’s flow would now take 124 days, enough time to drill a relief well! Note his big “…if you can fill the well…”, but the practical example of hailstones informs our confidence. You know that growing hailstones remain aloft only until they grow big enough to fall against the viscous uplift inside the thunderstorm. And we observed from the “junk shot” that the golf balls sank rather than rising into the mostly closed shear ram in the blowout preventer. A golf ball sized hailstone weighs only a tiny fraction of what a golf ball does, and the marble is nearly twice as dense as a golf ball. We can be confident that the marbles will sink. Admittedly there were skeptics of which Sticks was the most cogent
The Formation is porous sandstone - and if you look at it through a magnifying Glass it looks like millions of Teeny weenie marbles all stuck together, and between all these teeny weeny marbles there is even smaller teeny weeny spaces. Now that pesky oil is nice and hot and thin and can flow quite freely through these teeny weeny spaces - So at a guess - I would think it would flow right past your marbles.But notice that he chose a porous sandstone when the glass marbles are impermeable, which is why glassware is the global standard for science labs. And slklinecam interjected a voice of experience
Even if you kept reducing the size you would have to get down to the size of mud particles before you could stop the flow, and if you already filled the tube with marbles you have to get the mud stacked up real high on top of pile marbles - Couple feet of mud on top of marbles wont do the job - you still got have the mud column high and heavy enough to generate the pressure to stop the oil flow..
Drawing Board that way ---------------->
I think the plan needs a little bit of adjustment.
They do this already, Marbles that is. Called a Gravel Pack isn’t it? Designed for Sand control and increasing the flow.But an open question is whether the follow on technique of injecting progressively smaller glass particles to form a plug will work. Which is where our young expert from Gold Rush Alaska comes in. He advises the adult miners of the flaws in their duplex jig.
The perfect symbol for the awfulness of 2010 was the BP
oil spill, which oozed up from the depths and spread, totally out of
control, like some kind of hideous uncontrollable metaphor. (Or "Jersey Shore.")
The scariest thing about the spill was, nobody in charge seemed to know what to
do about it. Time and again, top political leaders personally flew down to the
Gulf of Mexico to look at the situation firsthand and hold press availabilities.
And yet somehow, despite these efforts, the oil continued to leak. This forced
us to face the disturbing truth that even top policy thinkers with postgraduate
degrees from Harvard University -- Harvard University! -- could not stop it.
The leak was eventually plugged by non-policy people using machinery of some
kind. But by then our faith in our leaders had been shaken…
The administration deployed “top policy thinkers” not engineers (AKA the non-policy people using machinery). Even the OCS now regrets that decision and has called for the regulators (BOEMRE nee MMS) to find a well paid engineering hotshot to lead the organization in the future. Conservatives should call that bet and raise them one. Chairman Reilly has been involved in the Exxon Valdez accident, the Kuwait oil fires and now the Deepwater Horizon. Somewhere along the way one hopes he has run into enough capable engineers to know one when he sees one.
Let’s start with the greatest well intervention of all time, the Kuwait oil fires. Saddam Hussein’s troops sabotaged over 750 wells setting most of them alight. The then EPA Administrator, Chairman Reilly, had contact with the specialized well control contractors called in the fight the fires. The first thing to recognize is that the oil companies, such as BP, contract well control out, they have limited in house knowledge or capability. The most famous of those contractors was Red Adair, whose legend was so big he had to be played by John Wayne in the film Hellfighters. When those august experts arrived in country they sent out a public appeal for suggestions as the task was so daunting as to make even them blanch. An interesting factoid, unknown to the general public, is that both the first and last fires extinguished were deliberately relit. The first well fire was initially fought by the standard water deluge technique which failed, so the contractor Boots & Coots tried one of those suggestions now known as raising the plume. It worked so well that they relit the fire to try the technique several times to learn its subtleties.
IRAQI-SET OIL BLAZE QUELLED BY TEXANS
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Chicago Tribune-April 8, 1991
Author: Associated Press.
A Texas firefighting team on Sunday extinguished the first of 500 oil-well fires set by Iraqi troops, and declared a ``small victory`` that could mark a turning point in the operation. The team from Houston-based Boots & Coots, using liquid nitrogen and
water, extinguished a small fire on its second attempt Sunday morning.
``I think it`s very important,`` Boots Hansen said of his team`s achievement. He said the method-injecting nitrogen into the fire through a large cylinder attached to a giant bulldozer while spraying water at the base of the cylinder-was less time-consuming than other methods, such as the use of dynamite.
``It`s a small victory,`` said Larry Flak, a Houston oil engineer coordinating the entire firefighting effort. ``Now we can go from well to well to well without a lot of rigging up or preparation.`` Sunday`s operation was experimental. After the initial success, the team
re-lit the oil spewing from the well a few more times, and again put the fire out to refine their techniques. Eight days earlier, Boots & Coots failed in an attempt to put out a blaze using only water. Hansen estimated that the nitrogen method, which deprives the fire of needed oxygen, probably could be used on half the fires set by Iraq in late February, before allied troops liberated Kuwait. Flak said the Iraqis blew up about 600 oil wells in Kuwait. Most have been on fire since then, blackening the sky across vast areas of the emirate, while about 80 wells were spewing oil without burning. More than 20 of those wells have been capped. Kuwaiti officials estimate they are losing 6 million barrels of oil a day, worth more than $100 million. Fighting the fires will cost an additional $1 million to $2 million a day. Oil Minister Rasheed al-Amiri says it could take two or more years to quell the fires
The salvage officer . . . must know sufficient naval architecture to be
thoroughly conversant with the subjects of ship stability, buoyancy, and trim.
He must know something of the strength of ships so that he can estimate the
stress that can be placed on a ship’s structure with safety. He should be an
engineer conversant with the laws of mechanics, of the strength of materials and
of gases, especially those pertaining to compressed air. He must know about the
nature of soils and rocks upon which a vessel may strand and he must be most
thoroughly versed in the principles of salvage. He must know something of the
valuation of ships and of their cargoes, for, in addition to salvaging ships, he
will have to decide whether or not a ship offers sufficient salved value to
warrant the expense and risk involved in its salvage. The salvage officer must
be a man of experience and decision. He will have no time when he arrives at the
scene of a wreck to make long surveys and to consider a plan of action. He will
have to decide upon this very quickly and he is not apt to hold his position
long if he makes many mistakes.
What is his legal authority to act?
Public Law 513 (10 U.S.C. §§ 7361 et seq) authorizes the Secretary of the Navy
to provide "by contract or otherwise, necessary salvage facilities for public
and private vessels upon such terms as he determines to be in the best interest
of the United States." As unnecessary government competition with the salvage
industry would not be in the best long-terminterest of the country, peacetime
salvage services provided by the Navy and other military services are
largely
limited to salvage of government owned assets. Salvage services may
be provided to nongovernment assets if commercial salvors cannot or will not
provide the required services. Salvage operations conducted by military forces
and assets during peacetime generally
fall into one of the following
categories:
· Salvage of publicly owned vessels and clearance of Federally
controlled harbors.
· Salvage assistance to allied navies/governments.
·
Clearance of critical waterways at the request of the U.S. Coast Guard or U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers.
· Salvage or removal of vessels presenting a severe
pollution hazard, when no commercial assets are available, and when requested by
the U.S. Coast Guard.
· Salvage of vessels that present a unique training
opportunity, as determined by the Supervisor of Salvage.
· Recovery of
aircraft components to support mishap investigations as required by military and
civil agencies.
· Recovery of valuable or sensitive objects belonging to
government agencies.
· Support of oceanographic research.
· Assistance to
state and municipal governments.
· Salvage of commercial vessels when no
adequate commercial assets are available and the government is contracted by the
vessels’ owners.
More Big Government is not the answer, a public-private alliance of big men with confidence, experience and knowledge is.
BTW - I originated the “raising the plume” concept mentioned above, which cut the time needed to snuff out an oil well fire down to only 33 seconds, as can be seen in this video between 5:30 and 6:03.