Oil Spill Clean Up Will Not Work
The apparent landmark – and admittedly “untested” – new theory currently under construction to try and collect the oil that is gushing out of the damaged well head in the Gulf of Mexico is to place a very large steel container over the top of the well with an inserted hose that is designed to recapture the oil from therein. Generally speaking, the rhetoric going around is that the British Petroleum Company (BP) plans on “pumping” the oil out of the steel container for transfer into an awaiting tanker; but other rhetoric is suggesting that the oil will be “siphoned” out of the container.
A very important point to make here is that "pumping" and "siphoning" are two totally separate ideals. A suction pump (including your mouth) can be used to start a siphoning process (also called “priming”), such as with siphoning gasoline out of a car gas tank; but once the cohesion of siphoning is actually completed then the pump is no longer used.
I have to assume that BP is not planning on siphoning the oil out of the container, since the physics of siphoning won’t work in that case.
The process of siphoning to drain a reservoir of liquid is accomplished by way of utilizing a continuous tube that allows liquid to drain from the reservoir through an intermediate point that is higher, or lower, than the reservoir. In this way, the flow of liquid is being driven only by the difference in so-called “hydrostatic pressure” without any need for pumping. However, the physics of hydrostatic pressure (also called “hydrostatics”) are the deciding factor here, since the phenomenon of hydrostatic pressure is actually considerate of the – "The Science of Fluids at Rest."
In short, a body of fluid at rest is just what it sounds like, an example of which is the gasoline resting in your car’s gas tank. Oil that is clearly being forced out of the ground into a reservoir is clearly not a liquid substance that is at rest inside the reservoir, which is why a conversion of hydrostatic pressurization within the tube (or pipe) running to an awaiting tanker on the surface of the water would not be accomplished.
The other consideration is that they (BP) would be attempting to continuously pump the oil out of the tank and into the ship.
There are two conceivable problems with this “pumping” theory that are based in simple physics:
1) If the upward force of the suction pump is actually greater than the outward force of oil escaping from the well head, then a vacuum effect will automatically be created inside of the proposed steel container. At such time (not very long afterward) that enough opposing vacuum force is exerted inside of the steel container, it would actually create a downward exertion of force against the outward pressurized effect of the oil escaping from the well head; and this effect would ultimately choke off the flow of oil out of the well head for as long as the greater opposing vacuum force is being exerted. In other words, the next thing everybody would know is that oil would suddenly stop coming out of the well.
The simple analogy to this is to place a paper cup over your mouth that creates a seal by fitting the cup securely around your cheeks, your upper lip and chin area and then proceed to inhale. The vacuum effect is created immediately; and if you inhale hard enough it will cause the walls of the cup to collapse inward, or to implode.
A more precise analogy to this scenario is to picture the same cup over your mouth, but instead with a straw inserted through the bottom of the cup that has water flowing through the straw into the cup receptacle. Assuming the outward force of the water flow through the straw is at 5 pounds per square inch (psi), but you are alternately exerting an upward suctioning action equivalent to 10 psi, then your greater suctioning action will actually create a vacuum effect not only inside the cup, but also inside the straw, that will stop the flow of water through the straw. In fact, if you were able to suck hard enough, you would ultimately succeed in collapsing (imploding) the walls of the straw itself. In this latter illustration, first the walls of the straw would collapse and then the walls of the cup would collapse.
A real-world example here is to first note that I have been employed as a semi-truck driver for the past decade and that I used to drive tanker trucks that were filled with various liquids coming from those very large silo tanks that you see along the freeways at industrial plants (e.g., oil refineries). The pumps used to transfer liquids from the tanks into the truck are on the semi-truck itself and not on the silo tanks. When transferring liquids in all cases under this scenario, the truck driver must ensure that he vents the tanker on his vehicle before turning on his truck pump, or it will COLLAPSE THE WALLS of the silo tank. This is because the silo tanks are pressurized and are not vented. (So if you’ve ever been driving down the road and seen one of those huge steel tanks in a collapsed – or imploded – condition, the reason it happened is because the truck driver forgot to vent his tanker truck when he started the loading process.)
The silo tanks are not vented for a very important reason, which is to prevent the displacement of air between the silo holding tank and the hose line running to the tanker truck, which would otherwise result in the pump mechanism of the semi truck to effectively end up “sucking air” and where either little or no flow of liquid would actually occur. (NOTE: The other important – and perhaps obvious – consideration to make here is that truck drivers cannot offload liquid from a silo holding tank during those times when the silo is being refilled by railroad cars due to the fact that the tanks are not pressurized at the time when they are being refilled.)
2) On the other hand, if the upward force of the suction pump is actually less than the outward force of escaping oil from the well head, then obviously the steel reservoir is going to fill beyond capacity. What happens in that case? Well, assuming that there is no floor (i.e., no bottom) on the dome, then the result is going to be that the oil will simply lift the dome off the ocean floor; and it doesn’t matter if that the dome is said to weigh an estimated 170 tons. The dome will be lifted off the ocean floor in this case and tossed around, possibly being flipped over on its side, but otherwise clearly illustrating that no means of an effective seal will be accomplished at the base edges of the dome, as it would be designed to rest on the ocean floor.
In theory, the only way this pumping scenario could work is if the pumping mechanism were calibrated to pump the oil out of the dome at precisely the same rate that oil is escaping from the well. My first assumption is that they (BP) would have no way of knowing how to adjust such a precise calibration, since first of all they are not even sure how much oil is escaping from the well at any given time. But even if they could accurately adjust the calibration in this way, the other thing they would have to be prepared for is that the pump could never stop pumping at any time or the same above-noted scenario would occur where the reservoir would fill beyond capacity and thus end up being lifted off the ocean floor.
As a final note here, if the former scenario ends up being the case where a level of suction disproportionately greater than the outward flow of oil were to occur, then it is more than a fair bet to assume the greater likelihood where the reservoir would end up becoming imploded, and regardless of the fact that it is constructed of 170 tons of steel and concrete.
My personal suggestion here is that the quickest way to potentially repair and/or plug the leaking oil well head would be to use underwater FANS designed to clear oil away to one side, which would provide visibility of the well head. With visibility, it may be possible to send manned submarines with robotic arms down to the area where a welding operation could be conducted to seal off the well.
