1st try to divert oil fails; tar blobs hit Alabama

Pretty good article, summing up lots of information. On a side note, I appreciate the translation to metric units, but it would be nice if the US would adopt the world standard system so this step would no longer be necessary.

I had high hopes that this would work, even if it only captured 50%. But it seems till they think of something else, the oil keeps escaping.

Where is Sarah Palin when I need her. "Drill...Baby...Drill"

I think I heard they are getting another shut off valve, but it'll take a couple more weeks. And can you imagine trying to change anything a mile underwater, let alone when oil is spewing out?

After this, it'll take years again to get permission to drill offshore. At least within US limits. < :-)

if this doesn't get people to buy electric cars or ride a bike -I don't know what will.

“I wouldn’t say it’s failed yet,” BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said. “What I would say is what we attempted to do last night didn’t work.”

Ummm... that's called denial. If the attempt failed, the attempt failed. But then, Doug Scuttles has been causing problems since Day 1 by covering up the extent of the spill. The PLAN may not yet be a failure, but the first attempt certainly was, which is a shame.

if this doesn't get people to buy electric cars or ride a bike -I don't know what will.

Don't know know that bikes and electric cards are steps towards communism?! Only by staying fat/out of shape and polluting our environment can we preserve our freedom!

this is not an "oil spill". An oil spill is a predetermined size. This is an oil volcano, that's erupting even right now, putting more and more oil into the Gulf. By the time anything is done it might be equivalent to 8 to 12 Exxon Valdez spills. One a week.

Congrats to America for their hatred of government oversight. The irony is amazing.

wind baby wind ....

@adaydream: Obviously you don't know much about the oil and gas industry let alone drilling. They are not attaching a new "shut off valve" to anything, the procedure is to drill horizontally into the well and pump cement into it. This is being done right now but it takes time. If the repair entailed work on the well head it is done via ROVs (remote operated vehicles - robots) and is not really that difficult even at this depth. The biggest collaterial impact to this disaster is that the same BOP (blow out preventer) that failed here is installed on hundreds of other rigs.

@af2k: The government DOES have oversight on rig safety, they mandate that BOPs be installed. So if the equipment fails is that the government's fault? The biggest fault here seems to be the crew's failure to maintain gas tight integrity of the machinery modules where the gas cloud found a source of ignition.

if this doesn't get people to buy electric cars or ride a bike -I don't know what will.

Nuclear power plants are not without risks.

Lets all buy electric cars and plug them in for recharging when we get home. Doubt that most electric grids could handle the extra load, when many have brown-outs during summer etc.

Also all the clean vehicles use a lot of plastics, etc which come from oil.

Not too perturbed about the current failure to gap it. unexpected depth = unexpected problems. Still a pity about the pollution but recovery attemtpts normally don't go smooth(unless it is a hollywood movie).

Environmentalism is socialism. Anybody who is trying to fix this mess can go and live in Mexico. Pollution is freedom. Freedom!

techall. No, I've never worked on a drill rig. But I do know that I was listening to an interview with BP executives lasr week and I am just repeating what they said. Link for the video broadcast, I don't have, but unless you heard the broadcast, you can't tell me where I am wrong.

Have you worked on an oil rig? Yes, they are drilling horizontally to pump concrete into the well. Yes, that it one plan. But it isn't the only plan. < :-)

if this doesn't get people to buy electric cars or ride a bike -I don't know what will.

You'd have to hold me at gunpoint to buy one of those. Then hold my banker at gunpoint to give me a loan to buy it.

Nuclear power plants are not without risks.

Nuclear power kills less people than the oil and gas industry. Little fire risk, no foreign dependence, and the only byproduct is steam and a some compact, easily transported, radioactive material. We need every energy resource we can get including gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass in addition to new research into how to increase output of current sources and future possibilities such as fusion.

@adaydream: I have built and worked on many rigs and vessels. This is a link to a photo of my last project vessel. My primary responsibility was insatllation of the drilling equipment and related modules (basicaly the middle 1/3rd of the vessel). They are trying other methods to but the directional drill and fill is the proven way. The block structure they are still trying is new and this is the first time it has been tried. I sincerely hope it works because it will give us another tool to deal with blowouts.

http://www.shipsandharbours.com/picture/number10812.asp

techall there is also another plan to try to pump shredded tires down the pipe to jam it up. There's probably several other plans they you nor I am aware of. Your expertise is sweet, and it might be beneficial to the novices like myself, but it doesn't negate the information received from other sources. < :-)

These rigs are miles away from shore and drilling in much deeper waters than is safe all because we don't want to have to see them when at the beach. It's madness.