Things continue to look terrible, to be sure, but observing the flow over time, it is obvious that the amount of oil and gas escaping from the funnel-like device that was put on top of the non-functional blowout preventer has diminished by a substantial amount. Most of the time, there is half or less the amount of oil going into the water than was the case before this device was put on top of the gusher. Sometimes you can actually see discreet drops of oil coming out from below the control device.
When I checked the flow yesterday, it almost looked like the gusher had burst into flames, with a bright orange glow visible through the awful muck coming out around the bottom of the control device.
Then it dawned on me. What I was seeing was not flames, it was the painted metal of the device itself, for the first time visible through the gushing oil and gas. Amazing. So they are capturing most of the flow and delivering it to the surface where the gas is burned off and the oil is deposited in ships to be taken away and sold (no doubt) to fluff up BP's deteriorating bottom line.
So my question was, "Why didn't they do this before?" The device itself is fairly simple, and it seems to be working very well, all things considered, especially given how poorly other fixes have "worked..." ie: not at all.
It is frustrating.
When I've watched from time to time, I've seen what looked like little white scraps of something that seem to float or sometimes scurry on their own. At the Oil Drum site, they are sometimes thought to be pieces of debris or possibly flakes of hydrate. Yesterday I was watching and I saw little legs and feelers: these things are shrimp. They seem to be attracted to the lights of the ROVs -- or maybe it's the oil. Sometimes they get caught up in the maelstrom. But most of the time, they just sort of dart around for a while, sometimes closer, sometimes farther away. Then they shoot off somewhere else.
Shrimp.
Who'd a thunk?
The image above is from one of the Skandi robots. All the BP robot cameras can be accessed here.
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