How to Stop Gulf Oil Flow, Scientists Submit 250 Ideas in 24 Hours

“It’s a gusher of creative tactics,” announced Leslie C. Norins, MD, PhD, president of Principal Investigators Association, upon seeing more than 250 novel ideas pour in from scientist-readers of the group’s weekly ezine P.I. e-Alert. “We figured the 300,000 recipients of our ezine cover all fields of research, so they could generate some ‘outside-the-box’ thinking to get that Gulf oil blowout harnessed.”

“We figured the 300,000 recipients of our ezine cover all fields of research, so they could generate some ‘outside-the-box’ thinking to get that Gulf oil blowout harnessed.”

On June 4 an emergency e-edition of P.I.e-Zine was rushed out, asking researchers in all fields of science to email their “nuggets” of innovative solutions. Response was immediate, reported Norins. Within the first 24 hours, over 250 submissions were received. Click here for the post.

Five themes predominated in the thoughtful proposals: crimping the pipe, explosives, freezing, inserting inflatable or expandable objects, and capturing the rising oil in discarded vessels inverted over the gushing oil.

The “crimper” faction maintained the pipe never should have been sawed off cleanly. Rather, it should have been slowly crimped at various points till outward flow was reduced sufficiently for easy capping or cementing.

“Explosives” advocates were quite confident their devices would collapse and stop the well. The conventionalists wanted “bunker buster” bombs, or torpedoes fired into the pipe. A surprising number of experienced scientists advocated tactical nuclear weapons, asserting the overlying ocean would shield all radioactivity.

The propensity of oil to gum up or solidify when very cold led several to suggest copious use of liquid nitrogen. A variant was liquid oxygen, which proponents said would also nourish the biosystem as it dissolved in the water.

Many drew on medical analogies with cut arteries, to recommend insertion into the pipe of inflatable balloon catheters, or inverted “umbrella” devices inserted point first, and then expanded within the pipe.

A final group proposed buying time, by temporarily collecting the rising oil in inverted old tankers or water towers, tethered over the gusher and periodically harvested for collected oil.

The list of suggestions was forwarded to the White House and BP.