Starship Asterisk*

The effort to plug the flow of oil from the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico has achieved a crucial milestone. BP engineers and US coastguard officials say the flow of oil into the ocean has stopped, although the well has not yet been successfully capped.

BP engineers yesterday began the so-called Top Kill operation to pump thousands of tonnes of mud into the well in an effort to fill the bore hole and block the passage of oil to the sea. Once the pressure in the bore had dropped to zero, they planned to cap the hole with concrete.

This afternoon, BP announced that the operation had succeeded in stopping the flow of oil but that there was a still small amount of pressure in the well which prevents them from capping it, according to the LA Times.

A live video feed of the leak from the bottom of the ocean now appears to show a plume of mud coming from the well.

We've featured many satellite views of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, here on Universe Today, but this time-lapse video puts them all together. The video reveals a space-based view beginning on April 12 before the accident, then after the April 20 explosion, with the burning oil rig. Later, the ensuing oil spill is captured through May 24. Two NASA satellites are constantly capturing images Earth, focusing on particular areas of interest, the Terra and Aqua satellites which both have the MODIS instrument (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer.) The oil slick appears grayish-beige in the image and changes due to changing weather, currents, and use of oil dispersing chemicals.

The latest word on the "top kill" effort to stop the gushing oil well is that it has seen initial success.

Yesterday, BP began pumping heavy mud into the leaking well, and currently, no oil is seen coming from the well, only the mud. According to MSNBC, engineers will not know until at least Thursday afternoon whether this attempt to stop the leak is having some success.

If the risky procedure stops the flow, BP would then inject cement into the well to seal it. The top kill has worked above ground but has never before been tried 5,000 feet beneath the sea. BP pegged its chance of success at 60 to 70 percent.

You can watch a live video feed of the underwater well at MSNBC.

The images in the time-lapse video times series were selected that show the spill most clearly. The full image archive is available at the MODIS Rapid Response webpage.

NASA also has a webpage with more information about the oil spill

NASA's Earth Observatory Natural Hazards Web page has a gallery of the images, and more information, too.

ON BARATARIA BAY, LA. -- In the Louisiana marsh, oil-coated pelicans flap their wings in a futile attempt to dry them. A shorebird repeatedly dunks its face in a puddle, unable to wash off. Lines of dead jellyfish float in the gulf, traces of oil visible in their clear "bells."

These scenes, scientists say, are confirmation of what they had feared for a month. Now that oil from the Gulf of Mexico's vast spill has come ashore -- in some places, as thick as soft fudge -- it is causing serious damage in one of the country's great natural nurseries.

In nature, oil is a versatile killer. It smothers the tiny animals that make up a coral reef. It suffocates blades of marsh grass, cutting them off from air and sunlight. It clumps up a bird's feathers, leaving it unable to fly; then, trying to remove the oil, birds swallow it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37394541/ns/gulf_oil_spill/ wrote:
U.S. official: Flow of oil from spill has stopped
But BP says it will be 48 hours before success of 'top kill' will be known

WASHINGTON - <<The flow of oil from the broken well in the Gulf of Mexico has stopped, the Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen claimed Friday, but BP warned it would be a further 48 hours before it was known whether the "top kill" procedure had been successful.

"They have been able to stop the hydrocarbons from coming up the wellbore," Allen said on ABC's Good Morning America. "I think the real challenge today is going to be sustain the mud on top of the hydrocarbons and reduce the pressure to the point where they could actually put a cement plug in.">>

NASA's Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) instrument collected an image over the site of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil rig disaster on May 17, 2010. Crude oil on the surface appears orange to brown. Scientists are using spectroscopic methods to analyze measurements for each point in images like this one to detail the characteristics of the oil on the surface.

AVIRIS extensively mapped the region affected by the spill during 11 flights conducted between May 6 and May 25, 2010, at the request of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In total, AVIRIS measured more than 100,000 square kilometers (38,610 square miles) in support of the national oil spill response. The instrument flew at altitudes of up to 19,800 meters (65,000 feet) aboard a NASA ER-2 aircraft from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.

AVIRIS is using imaging spectroscopy to map the occurrence and condition of oil on the surface of the Gulf, and to estimate the amount of oil on the surface to help scientists and responding agencies better understand the spill and how to address its effects. In addition, coastline maps created from the AVIRIS overflights will be used to provide a baseline of ecosystems and habitats that can be compared with data from future AVIRIS flights to assess the oil spill's impacts.

• 
  PIA13167: NASA's AVIRIS Aids in Gulf Oil Spill Response
  AVIRIS airborne measurement acquired May 17, 2010, over the site of the Deepwater Horizon
  BP oil rig disaster. The oil appears orange to brown. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Dryden/USGS/UCSB)

Cowan said that his crew sent a remotely controlled submarine into the water, and found it full of oily globules, from the size of a thumbnail to the size of a golf ball. Unlike the plume found east of the leak -- in which the oil was so dissolved that contaminated water appeared clear -- Cowan said the oil at this site was so thick that it covered the lights on the submarine.

[snip]

Cowan said that the submarine traveled about 400 feet down, close to the sea floor, and found oil all the way down. Trying to find the edges of the plume, he said the submarine traveled miles from side to side.

"We really never found either end of it," he said. He said he did not know how wide the plume actually was, or how far it stretched away to the west.

[snip]

This discovery seems to confirm the fears of some scientists that -- because of the depth of the leak and the heavy use of chemical "dispersants" -- this spill was behaving differently than others. Instead of floating on top of the water, it may be moving beneath it.

[snip]

In the discovery described Thursday, scientists aboard a University of South Florida research vessel found an area of dissolved oil east of the leak that is about six miles wide, and extends from the surface down to a depth of about 3,200 feet, said Professor David Hollander.

Engineers pushed forward with efforts to plug a disastrous Gulf of Mexico leak Saturday as locals and officials crossed their fingers that the untested "top kill" process would work.

A day after President Barack Obama visited the region for the second time since the oil spill began in April, energy giant BP could offer little but assurances that the bid was ongoing, but that it was too early to judge its success.
...
Wine said crews were continuing to pump heaving drilling fluid called "mud" into the leak, and had also tried a "junk shot," where various type of debris are placed into the leak site to try to clog it up. But he reiterated that BP would not know if the bid was working until at least Sunday afternoon.
...
On Friday, Admiral Thad Allen, the former Coast Guard commandant charged with overseeing the spill response said intial signs suggested the "top kill" was working.
...
But the New York Times said Saturday that the bid was marked by "an apparent lack of progress," and suggested that official might soon move to their next available option -- a containment dome that could capture the leaking oil.

BP's "top kill" operation to plug the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico has failed in a stunning setback to efforts to stem the worst oil spill in US history.

BP and federal authorities said Saturday they are now turning to a new strategy to stop the leak, but it will take at least four to seven days before it can be put into place.

At least 20 million gallons are now estimated to have gushed into the ocean since the disaster unfolded five weeks ago, threatening an environmental and economic catastrophe across hundreds of kilometers of the US Gulf Coast.
...
Engineers had spent days pumping some 30,000 barrels of heavy drilling fluid into the leaking well head on the ocean floor in a high-pressure bid to smother the gushing crude and ultimately seal the well with cement.

But the effort failed, and when asked specifically why, Suttles had no direct answer.
...
The announcement marks the latest failure for BP, which despite a series of high-tech operations over the past month has appeared powerless to bring the disaster to heel since an explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig April 20 which killed 11 workers. The rig sank two days later.

The British energy giant had stressed that "top kill" was the best chance at stopping the leak other than drilling an entirely new relief well, a process that has already begun but is expected to take another two months.
...
Efforts will now focus on severing the damaged riser pipes that lay crumpled on the ocean floor, then installing a containment device that could capture the leaking oil and syphon it to the surface.

The new containment plan, scheduled to begin next week, is called the "Lower Marine Riser Package Cap (LMRP Cap)."

It is a complex operation that will be carried out by remotely operated robots on the ocean floor, BP officials said -- nearly one mile (1.6 kilometers) below the spot where the drilling rig exploded.

The robots, wielding cutting tools, will sever the bent riser pipe and replace it with the LMRP cap, BP officials say.

The cap will then be connected to a riser leading to the drill ship Enterprise, nearly above the robots.

Suttle said that even if LMRP works, it will only contain a majority of the oil and not all of it.
...

Chris Mooney wrote:Kenneth Chang covers the same basic ground as my Slate piece, and comes to the same conclusions. A slick is not going to slow down a storm, but a storm could fling a slick everywhere. Of course, it all depends on the particular path of the storm, etc.

Granted, the story becomes more pressing now because of the failure of the “top kill” method of plugging the well. We’re on to Plan C now, followed by Plan D, but if they all fail then the relief wells won’t be finished (allegedly) til August. That’s right when the serious part of hurricane season begins–although, again, if we’re in for a mega year like 2005, then you can have an early forming Category 4 (like Dennis) in July.

I’m trying to find the bright side in all of this…but I’m really not seeing it.

Below, incidentally, is the track of Dennis in 2005. A storm along such a path might actually push oil away from land, given that it would be approaching the nearshore part of slick from the southeast. In this scenario, the winds over the bulk of the slick would (I believe, just by eyeballing it) be blowing back out to sea. That isn’t the worst case scenario, but such a storm would also surely shut down all clean up or well plugging efforts….

• 
  Hurricane Dennis Track (2005) (NASA/NOAA/NWS/NHC)

• 
  This undated image from video provided by the Senate Environment and Public Works
  Committee, received from British Petroleum (BP PLC) shows oil gushing from the blown
  well in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Deepwater Horizon rig sank last month. Questions
  remained about just how much oil is spilling from the well. The impatient nation isn't
  getting answers fast enough in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. What exactly went
  wrong? Who messed up? How much oil is actually pouring into the Gulf? Can the oil get
  to Florida and even up the Atlantic coast? What will the environmental and economic
  consequences be? (AP Photo/Senate Environment and Public Works Committee)

AP - Independent scientists and government officials say there's a disaster we can't see in the Gulf of Mexico's mysterious depths, the ruin of a world inhabited by enormous sperm whales and tiny, invisible plankton.

Researchers have said they have found at least two massive underwater plumes of what appears to be oil, each hundreds of feet deep and stretching for miles. Yet the chief executive of BP PLC - which has for weeks downplayed everything from the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf to the environmental impact - said there is "no evidence" that huge amounts of oil are suspended undersea.

BP CEO Tony Hayward said the oil naturally gravitates to the surface - and any oil below was just making its way up. However, researchers say the disaster in waters where light doesn't shine through could ripple across the food chain.
...
But last week, a team from the University of South Florida reported a plume was headed toward the continental shelf off the Alabama coastline, waters thick with fish and other marine life.

The researchers said oil in the plumes had dissolved into the water, possibly a result of chemical dispersants used to break up the spill. That makes it more dangerous to fish larvae and creatures that are filter feeders.

Responding to Hayward's assertion, one researcher noted that scientists from several different universities have come to similar conclusions about the plumes after doing separate testing.

No major fish kills have been reported, but federal officials said the impacts could take years to unfold.

AP - Streaming video of oil pouring from the seafloor and images of dead, crude-soaked birds serve as visual bookends to the natural calamity unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.

But independent scientists and government officials say another disaster is playing out in slow motion - and out of public view - in the mysterious depths between the gusher and the coast, a world inhabited by sperm whales, gigantic jellyfish and diminutive plankton.

More than a month after the BP PLC spill began, the disaster's dimensions have come into sharper focus with government estimates that more than 18 million gallons of oil - and possibly 39 million gallons - has already poured from the leaking well, eclipsing the 11 million gallons released during the Exxon Valdez spill.
...
The deep Gulf is an area where light can't penetrate and researchers rarely venture.

Yet what happens there can ripple across the food chain. Every night the denizens of the deep make forays to shallower depths to eat - and be eaten by - other fish, according to marine scientists who describe it as the largest migration on earth.

In turn, several species closest to the surface - including red snapper, shrimp and menhaden - help drive the Gulf Coast fishing industry. Others such as marlin, cobia and yellowfin tuna sit atop the food chain and are chased by the Gulf's charter fishing fleet.

Many of those species are now in their annual spawning seasons. Eggs exposed to oil would quickly perish. Those that survived to hatch could starve if the plankton at the base of the food chain suffer. Larger fish are more resilient, but not immune to the toxic effects of oil.

BMAONE23 wrote:Oil prices could easily double in a case like that

YET another attempt is under way to control the flow of oil from the damaged Deepwater Horizon oil well. As New Scientist went to press, BP was taking a three-pronged approach to the situation.

Last week's efforts to plug the leaking well head with mud failed over the weekend. In a procedure called "top kill", BP pumped thousands of tonnes of mud into the 5000-metre bore hole. The thinking was that this weight would block the flow of oil, allowing engineers to cap the well with a concrete plug.

But BP called a halt to the operation after three days during which the company pumped 30,000 barrels of mud into the well at a rate of up to 80 barrels a minute.

"Unfortunately we were unable to overcome the flow of oil and gas," said Kent Wells, BP's vice president of exploration and production in a technical briefing on the web.

BP now hopes to exploit the same pipes and equipment but in reverse, to carry oil to the surface. The company hopes to have this up and running in the next two weeks.

In addition, it is also seeking to place a cap on the well head. The well head is topped with a now infamous "blowout preventer" (BOP) that is allowing oil to flow into the sea through a section of pipe that once led to the surface and now lies damaged on the seabed (see diagram). As New Scientist went to press, BP was preparing to saw this pipe off where it meets the BOP. This will clear the way for a cap that will sit over the BOP and channel escaping gas and oil through another pipe to the surface.

Finally, BP is drilling two relief bores into the leaking well, which should channel some of the flow away. The resulting reduction in pressure at the main outpouring should allow engineers to fit an additional BOP on top of the first to finally staunch the flow – an operation BP hopes to complete by early August. Despite previous setbacks, BP is confident it will succeed.

1. Saw stuck.
2. Criminal investigation.
3. Dreaming of a crude Christmas?
4. New wells will go on.

On the road somewhere in Tennessee tonight, I read the present top story at the NYTimes:

• Nuclear Option on Gulf Oil Spill? No Way, U.S. Says
  
  The chatter began weeks ago as armchair engineers brainstormed for ways to stop the torrent of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico: What about nuking the well?
  
  Decades ago, the Soviet Union reportedly used nuclear blasts to successfully seal off runaway gas wells, inserting a bomb deep underground and letting its fiery heat melt the surrounding rock to shut off the flow. Why not try it here?

Of course this won’t happen, but the idea isn’t actually all that far fetched. Furthermore, does anyone have a better suggestion? Now go read the article and let’s get an interesting discussion going in comments…

BP on Thursday successfully cut off a fractured oil pipe using giant shears, pressing ahead with its latest bid to seal the leak as President Barack Obama announced a third trip to the region.

After a diamond-blade saw got stuck in the pipe lying a mile down on the sea bed, the British energy giant was forced to use rougher means to slice it off.