Hi Windward, thanks for your reply. Much better than the one I got over the 'phone from Thom Hartmann a couple of weeks or so ago, who cut me short ('phone call literally disconnected) with the same 1st reply I got at the physicsforum.com website:
I wonder if they're one and the same person? One must be careful, however, to remember that Thom Hartmann is the font of all wisdom and knowledge - no matter what the subject. Watching/listening to his TV/Radio program for just a short time should establish that this must be the case ...
And so to my reply to some of yours:
"Dennis, your comments are interesting and I will read the information at your links."
Thank you.
"Regarding the possibility of starting a fire in the flow at the 5000 foot depth, I haven't had time yet to review Le Chatelier's principle and the chemistry of it. Maybe it wouldn't work because of the high pressure, but if it would, I believe the fire could be managed to prevent any damage to the piping."
I think you'd need more than Le Chatelier's Principle, which is, pardon me, kind of "airy-fairy" and hand waving. You'd need to get deeper into Gibbsian Thermodynamics: Chemical Potentials, Law of Mass Action-Equilibrium Constants, Degrees of Reaction, Chemical Affinities, van't Hoff Isobar (for combustion temperature calculations), and the like. The calculations can, in principle, be done, but would be horrendous - a different one for each fraction in the gunk, then the whole lot "summed" together, or as one huge most likely intractable heterogeneous system (which is what we have here). I had occasion to (re-?)read, and understand - though a lot of the stuff is ... er .. tricky - an old copy of Zemansky's "Heat & Thermodynamics" from soup-to-nuts, beginning a couple or so years ago. I have the 5th edition, and in that the relevant chapters are Chapters 16 ("Chemical Equilibrium") to the end of the book (Chapter 18: "Heterogeneous Systems") - few in number but all "heavy" chapters. In addition a reader pretty much has to understand most of the stuff in the preceding chapters to follow the relevant materials in those last chapters!
My copy is probably unreadable by anyone else now - as virtually every page is covered in my pencilled scribblings - but they're legible to me, and so though I'm now rusty on it (as you get on pretty much anything not used every day), a quick glance prompted by your post makes enough it come back comprehensibly. And indeed the calculations would be horrible. Hence in light of a) not having information on the gunk fraction makeup b) only guestimates as to the gunk flow rate c) It being extremely likely that combustion reactions of the various gunk fractions have not been characterised under the P-T conditions at the sea floor - so you'd be guessing, for example, at a value for the Ks - the Equilibrium Constants, or at best making very rough calculations/extrapolations, I decided not to bother! Hell, even
assuming if I could do it, I haven't the time to do everything myself ;-)
So I looked for a contemporary comparison: No doubt there are others, but I figured the Space Shuttle main engine combustor chamber has no problem whatever maintaining a very intense burn at a pressure of 3,000 psi. Of course, there are important differences: we're talking H2 & O2, with undoubtedly very well known thermodynamic characteristics, and a Degree of Reaction almost infinitesimally close to unity under virtually all imaginable conditions. In addition, the external pressure is 14.5 psi and not ~2,000 psi. So, this is my handwaving part: it's difficult to imagine that the Shuttle main engine would not burn its fuel well even fighting against a much higher external pressure of ~2,000 psi. Oil fractions are also normally extremely flammable - even the more exotic ones, as a quick read of the "high flammability" warnings on the more exotic HC derivatives in my garage reveals. I therefore think it more than reasonable to conjecture that the Degrees of Reaction for most of these fractions will also be close enough to unity under the conditions pertaining at the sea floor - assuming an appropriately sized incinerator chamber of appropriate geometry, of course.
In fact, I feel so strongly that this is the case, though, as said proviso'd as still being hand-waving, that currently I see more reason to be more concerned with the burn temperature being just too high. That's why the PDFs I've prepared pretty much all now insist on a refractory lining for the incineration chamber; so I'm more concerned with the "knock on" heating effect on oxidiser feed pipe(s), and now that they've cut off the broken riser (darn) the effect on what's left of the LMRP/BOP. A complication, but it may be best to provide some heat insulation mechanism between those and the incineration chamber. That's why I "lifted" Fig. 2 into the latest PDF update - that, or a variation on it does seem to give more opportunity for heat/combustion chamber insulation from the LMRP/BOP.
"If we can't collect all of the oil, either at first or after many attempts to do so, I agree that it would be better to burn it rather than allowing it to enter the water. However, burning it at the 5000 foot depth would require an enormous flow of oxygen, far greater than what would be required for the fire I am suggesting."
Yes, it would be an enormous flow. My concerns here are 1) I'm not happy about using pure O2 for likely combustion temperature reasons given above - perhaps some "happy compromise" mix between pure O2 and air - to prevent associated steel items from burning up themselves? Also I've wondered if it may be possible to feed some non-gaseous chemical high oxidiser down with the air/O2, to reduce the prodigious volume requirements for the latter? 2) The shock of the oxidiser gas flow would have to be considered - this is why I show two "balancing" oxidiser inputs in the first figure in the PDF. In addition the law of the conservation of angular momentum may be put to good use here: If the inputs are angled (looking down against the plane of the sea bed) more than shown in that figure, a vortex flow would be established. In addition to these being known to be extremely stable, lateral shock/forces on the incinerator system would be minimised (in theory would be zero).
"On the Oil Drum, I proposed that they burn all of it at the surface, if that could be done safely. This would require a tight seal on the BOP. I believe that is what they are approaching now, very cautiously, because of uncertainty about the condition of the casing below the mudline. There is much more to say about these things, too much to go into in one post."
That would be ideal. I'm forced to believe, however, given the "progress" on this catastrophe, that either i) A tight seal is impossible to achieve or ii) BP/others are now pretty well convinced it would wreck the stuff below the sea bed - which they most likely caused some damage to themselves in their, IMO, inadvisable "Top Kill" attempt.
...
"On the clathrate problem, I now have a copy of the book by E.D. Sloan that whammet listed above. I will comment later on what I find there."
Well, I can only imagine that the only thing of use would be accurate Clathrate Phase/Eutectic diagrams. Those would pretty much be the "deciders". I did some more arm-waving here, more intuitive than not, I hope: Obviously (and sadly!) blocking Clathrate build up does not occur with unrestricted flow - so the "trick" is that whatever collection method is had better not make the Thermodynamic State drift too close to an undesirable place on those phase diagrams: so (without external heating) the flow rate (and so the back pressure) can not be too much interfered with. Catch 22 somewhat.
"I also agree, if they need any equipment, requisition it now and settle later."
But according to some, even
not counting the Supreme Court, that would be interfering with the "God" given rights of Corporations as living breathing individual souls ... ;-) ... .
"If you have been right about this thing all along, ... "
That may have been a slightly overenthusiastic claim on my part ;-). More specifically, I started looking at this thing because I was immediately quizzical that the 1st large dome (the 125 ton thing) appeared not to have "sluice gates" or pressure relieving mechanism of some sort, and its top seemed rather restricted. Apart from the more obvious problem of the dome becoming buoyant when the lighter that sea water gunk started to fill it, it seemed to me that the Thermodynamic State would also be changed somewhat drastically - leading, I'm convinced, to the very Clathrate build up that was alleged to be the cause of abandonment of that attempt. Indeed, whether they know it or not, and even if they do, I certainly don't expect BP to acknowledge it, their current attempts, with their "flapped" domes are a pretty convincing mimic of my "sluiced" dome "Submission#1". Cack handed attempts IMO: the smaller "dome" makes undesirable back pressure more likely. I'd guess they've figured pics. on the TV of the intitial badly failed large dome, but "sluiced", would be oh, such bad PR, even though it would probably work better. Of course, it too, would not be capable of collecting all the gunk.
"and I have no reason to doubt that since I haven't studied your proposals yet, then that is probably why you are not in a position to do much about it. Corporate culture and government agencies - should I say the human race? - do not like those who don't conform to groupthink."
That's how it feels to me! Even Bill Nye the "Science" Guy, or at least those in his orifice, must figure he's some kind of rock star, prima-donna or something ... not to be bothered by we "hoy-polloy". I E-Mailed him, and called his office - from the number given on his resume at his website - to confirm receipt and the hope that the E-Mail would be brought to his attention ('cos I realised he must get a lot - esp. after his TV appearances on the GOD). All the lady I spoke to could talk about was insisting that I tell her how I got "this number". She was all but calling me a liar even when I insisted it was on his website! I managed to avoid using expletives on that occasion, but I probably will not in any future similar situation.
"Sometimes this makes sense, for example when sea monsters and 100,000 psi gas bubbles and sinking a million ton nuclear battleship (must build one first) on the blowout are being discussed by some in this case."
Yeah, I realise and appreciate all that. But be assured I have almost literally been banging my head against a brick wall to get some attention paid to this - just one reply, for example from Prof. Chu, or Prof. Michio Kaku, say, to the effect that the combustion temp would reach 4,500 degs C, and no known materials/mechanism that would withstand that can be quickly assembled would have stopped me from pestering all these apparent rock stars (bad example: I'd have just said make a bigger chamber! ... ;-) ... ).
"But so far, I haven't seen any good ideas from those in charge either. In particular, why weren't we prepared for a blowout like this? That was assured on paper but never in practice. This is what we get from the free market ideologues who have been running things for a long time now, who believe self-regulation always works and corporations always act responsibly."
Yes, the Milton Friedmanites and the Grover Nyquisters will be lauding the "Free" Market right up to the very day it puts an end to us all.
All the Best,
Dennis Revell.
P.S: I've uploaded a file (at least I tried to) that
"zengineer" posted at the innocentive website (you have to register there even just to view the threads - so I'm pretty much stopped going there). The upload should be with this post. It's extremely simple, and as I said to him in a reply there, I can't figure why it wouldn't work (well at least before BP compromised the piping/equiptment with their ill-advised "Top Kill" attempt).
H(n+2), ignoring Benzene & stuff!). 'Course the flow rate is a problem, I guess Prof. Wereley's (Purdue Uni.) approx. 25 gals/sec. would be a good first assumption.