The Lousiana oil rig failure...

[Seth8530]

Originally Posted by Stealth Hunter

Hey, if you say so friend.





Messing with atomic physics like this is dangerous. There's no need to increase the number of reactors from what we already have. Move to sustainable energy, maintain the current number of nuclear reactors, invest in nuclear fusion energy-generating methods.



That's obvious. People have been saying this for decades now. The problem is that it's not that simple. Again, nuclear physics is a very dangerous and complicated field- not even touching upon research that has to be done into the elements to be used for fuel, the particle studies, etc.



There were actually quite a few cancer deaths later on, not considering the environmental effects of 13 million curies of radioactive gases being leaked into the atmosphere and radioisotopes.



Actually Chernobyl's reactor melted down because the operators failed to carry through with an inexcusable number of rules and regulations in place to prevent exactly this kind of disaster from occurring and because the ECCS was shut off (the coolant system reactors use)- which led to an increase in steam formation and therefore temperature, slowing down the effectiveness of the control rods. With that said, exactly such a disaster is a possibility, of a higher quantity with the more reactors you construct, not only with human error being a possibility but also mechanical failure in the reactor itself. Chernobyl alone caused over 4,000 deaths in a remote area of Russia; imagine how many would have died if it had been in an urban area- nevermind Russia but what it would be like in the United States. And the environmental effects are still being felt today.

http://environmentalchemistry.com/yo...hernobyl2.html

Dude, that is straight up green propaganda. Do you even know what kind of explosion took place at chernobyl?? Promise you it wasnt nuclear.
Second, the reactor at chernobyl... do you have any idea what kind of containment vessel it was sitting in? Think about a giant thick metal cooking vessel. sitting inside of what was practically a warehouse.



[IMG]file:///C:/Users/seth/Downloads/02-1-156x.jpg[/IMG]

This image here is what we use today. i highly doubt any gas or steam explosion is going to rip through all of this.
Third, a nuclear explosion inside of a nuclear reactor is IMPOSSIBLE. The physics are N O T there. In the unfortunate worst case scenario event, the reactor goes out of control. The control rods dont come down... The hot rock gets hotter, Nuetrons are flying around out of control, and guess what... the rock melts. it turns into a pile of slag sitting at the bottom of the containment vessel. Not very useful is it? That is THE END of the story, no radiation leakage.

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Yes the smoking had nothing to do with his lung cancer

He also had stomach cancer, which he died of.

But I don't claim to know the 100% truth, I merely bring tidbits of information into the public sphere.

Meanwhile, in Louisiana...

"Ixtoc 1: 476,000 tonnes Bay of Campeche, Gulf of Mexico"

Edit. Crew describes explosion.

[CaptainHaplo]

The reality is that current designs of nuclear reactors are both much safer and can be much less wasteful than those of earlier generations.

Want a safe reactor - look at the Pebble Bed designs.... Damn thing could fail and wouldnt go critical for 3 days - more than enough time for problems to be noted so that a shutdown can occur and problems fixed.

[Catfish]

Hello,
Caution - highly polemic -
OT - regarding reactors:

No constructive ideas can stop the core when it's really melting.
"The explosion in Chernobyl "was not a nuclear one" "- this is such a dumb sentence that you really have to slowly digest it

Certainly not, the nuclear material in a reactor is not of the stuff to cause an explosive reaction, it just is enough to start a chain reaction - which can be controlled as long as the cooling system and rod management works.

As soon as the technical devices like cooling system or rod control fail (usually first the cooling konks out, leading to melting of the steel holding the rods, with catastrophic consequence) the core cannot be controlled anymore, and no constructive solution will prevent this. (The construction of "early" reactors that are still running after 30 + years is b.t.w. not of the "secure" concrete type mentioned above (few have it at all), but have unsafe steel housings).
No one is able to stop a chain reaction when the rod control has gone bonkers - and b.t.w. it is still taking place and developing heat, inside the sarcophague they buried the Chernobyl wreck in, and probably will for some 10.000 years to come, if slowly getting lower in temperature, and speed of reaction.

The problem is that the Ch. reactor exploded due to overheated water when the core was melting, taking the outer housing with it, and then blowing some 50 kilograms of plutonium into the atmosphere. You know the stuff that kills a man with only a microgram, not necessarily because of radiation but because of being toxic. During the cold war it was said that a teaspoon full of pulverized plutonium being dropped from a plane above England, would be able to kill all inhabitants of Great Britain just by toxic contamination.

The only thing that prevented those 50 kilograms from spreading and develop into a worldwide disaster, was that plutonium is relatively heavy, and was soon going down around Chernobyl, and being washed out of the atmosphere rather quickly. Still the windward area from Chernobyl will be a no-go area for some 10.000 years to come, if you do not want to get cancer, or being just poisoned by eating anything like mushrooms, nuts, vegetables or animals of the area.
The US and Soiet nuclear atmospheric tests dispersed more radiocative material in the atmosphere, than Chernobyl did - which is b.t.w. the reason why highly sensitive measuring devices cannot be constructed without problem anymore, due to the (if only lightly) contaminated atmosphere. They are now searching for ship wrecks that contain steel of the time before 1945, to collect fresh material.

And you cannot recycle any steel ever used around a reactor, let alone the reactor material itself. Any metallic material being exposed to radiation, will become radioactive itself after a short time. Yes, also the gatling gun of the A-10 Warthog.
Russia sinks its naval reactors near the coast of Novaja Semlja, in just cutting the hull and let the reactor section sink. Logically, afterwards they leased the area to Norway, for its fishery industry
The US dispose of their military reactors in the Bering strait, according to Bellona net. Problem solved.

The problem with nuclear reactors is that you cannot really dispose the waste or even the power plant material itself, other than shooting it into the sun.
The US found a "solution" in packing some "depleted" lol core material into the bullets of the A-10 Warthog gun, and "disposed" of the material in former Yugoslavia, and Iraq, where it again will contaminate the ground for years to come.
Anyone remember the city of "Windscale", which was renamed into "Sellafield", after its reputation was so bad due to all thiose radioactive leaks and contaminated seashore ? The new name Sellafield has already the same reputation (british nuclear "recycling" plant site for radioactive waste).


Back on topic, it seems the caps work, i just wonder how they fix them to the ocean floor over the spilling wells, to withstand the borehole pressure. As soon as it is cemented or whatever, they can certainly lower the hole pressure by "pumping the hole dead", and at first they will not even need pumps for production .. good to hear anyway that it works.

Greetings,
Catfish

[CaptainHaplo]

Catfish,

First of all - thank you for explaining some of the intricacies of this field to us laymen. Now - from what I have read, they are saying that this is leaning toward the rig hitting a methane pocket and this is what caused the explosion. Can you elaborate on how that would work, since what I read indicated that at that depth methane would actually be in a crystalline structure?

Also, it appears that there were numerous "fail-safes" that subsequently failed - including something called a "deadman". I assume this is like a deadman's brake on a train, just different in what it does?

Any info you care to share would be great - while this is a disaster without question, it is increasing my knowledge of the subject, and I always enjoy that.

[Seth8530]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Hello,
Caution - highly polemic -
OT - regarding reactors:

No constructive ideas can stop the core when it's really melting.
"The explosion in Chernobyl "was not a nuclear one" "- this is such a dumb sentence that you really have to slowly digest it

Certainly not, the nuclear material in a reactor is not of the stuff to cause an explosive reaction, it just is enough to start a chain reaction - which can be controlled as long as the cooling system and rod management works.

As soon as the technical devices like cooling system or rod control fail (usually first the cooling konks out, leading to melting of the steel holding the rods, with catastrophic consequence) the core cannot be controlled anymore, and no constructive solution will prevent this. (The construction of "early" reactors that are still running after 30 + years is b.t.w. not of the "secure" concrete type mentioned above (few have it at all), but have unsafe steel housings).
No one is able to stop a chain reaction when the rod control has gone bonkers - and b.t.w. it is still taking place and developing heat, inside the sarcophague they buried the Chernobyl wreck in, and probably will for some 10.000 years to come, if slowly getting lower in temperature, and speed of reaction.

The problem is that the Ch. reactor exploded due to overheated water when the core was melting, taking the outer housing with it, and then blowing some 50 kilograms of plutonium into the atmosphere. You know the stuff that kills a man with only a microgram, not necessarily because of radiation but because of being toxic. During the cold war it was said that a teaspoon full of pulverized plutonium being dropped from a plane above England, would be able to kill all inhabitants of Great Britain just by toxic contamination.

The only thing that prevented those 50 kilograms from spreading and develop into a worldwide disaster, was that plutonium is relatively heavy, and was soon going down around Chernobyl, and being washed out of the atmosphere rather quickly. Still the windward area from Chernobyl will be a no-go area for some 10.000 years to come, if you do not want to get cancer, or being just poisoned by eating anything like mushrooms, nuts, vegetables or animals of the area.
The US and Soiet nuclear atmospheric tests dispersed more radiocative material in the atmosphere, than Chernobyl did - which is b.t.w. the reason why highly sensitive measuring devices cannot be constructed without problem anymore, due to the (if only lightly) contaminated atmosphere. They are now searching for ship wrecks that contain steel of the time before 1945, to collect fresh material.

And you cannot recycle any steel ever used around a reactor, let alone the reactor material itself. Any metallic material being exposed to radiation, will become radioactive itself after a short time. Yes, also the gatling gun of the A-10 Warthog.
Russia sinks its naval reactors near the coast of Novaja Semlja, in just cutting the hull and let the reactor section sink. Logically, afterwards they leased the area to Norway, for its fishery industry
The US dispose of their military reactors in the Bering strait, according to Bellona net. Problem solved.

The problem with nuclear reactors is that you cannot really dispose the waste or even the power plant material itself, other than shooting it into the sun.
The US found a "solution" in packing some "depleted" lol core material into the bullets of the A-10 Warthog gun, and "disposed" of the material in former Yugoslavia, and Iraq, where it again will contaminate the ground for years to come.
Anyone remember the city of "Windscale", which was renamed into "Sellafield", after its reputation was so bad due to all thiose radioactive leaks and contaminated seashore ? The new name Sellafield has already the same reputation (british nuclear "recycling" plant site for radioactive waste).


Back on topic, it seems the caps work, i just wonder how they fix them to the ocean floor over the spilling wells, to withstand the borehole pressure. As soon as it is cemented or whatever, they can certainly lower the hole pressure by "pumping the hole dead", and at first they will not even need pumps for production .. good to hear anyway that it works.

Greetings,
Catfish

And just what is it that you think will happen once a chain reaction goes out of control in a powerplant. Also most people consider it trolling to attack peoples grammar.

[Catfish]

Hello,
" .. Also most people consider it trolling to attack peoples grammar. .."

Sorry i did not want to attack the grammar, but the meaning of the sentence that the explosion was not caused by nuclear energy - because after all it was the ooc nuclear core that caused the cooling water to overheat, and expand so rapidly that you could call it an explosion - if more a kind of sudden deflagration, taking the outer reactor housing with it in its cause.

I know the russian reactor was another type than it is used in western states, using foremost another housing technology - however the basics are the same, and apart from they seemingly tested the reactor and shut off all security devices for whatever reason until the core went wild, the reactor as such was not much bader or less secure than the ones used in Germany - in fact testing the concrete structures of the 20+ year old reactor housings here revealed they would not withstand any water deflagration, ot even much snaller explosions of any kind.

What is nowhere mentioned is that radiation alters the material itself, so apart from all metal parts becoming radioactive, also certain natural rock like granite and evaporites like salt, but also concrete with its iron or steel armoring will deteriorate and become brittle, if slowly - let alone steel tubes, plastic gaskets and sealings - it's like what high frequency UV rays do to plastics, but in a much higher dose and energy, and you cannot do much maintenance near the inner core, even when the core has been shut down with the run-in rods mostly blocking the reaction.
After the reactor is run once, its inner structure is contaminated with no chance to ever "recycle" or use the material again, apart from dumping it in "deserted" areas.


Cpt. Haplo,
" ... from what I have read, they are saying that this is leaning toward the rig hitting a methane pocket and this is what caused the explosion. ..."

oops, this was just a guess from me - so it is being discussed they really may have hit a pocket ?

" ... Can you elaborate on how that would work, since what I read indicated that at that depth methane would actually be in a crystalline structure? ..."

Unfortunately not, this has not happened before in such a scenario, as far as i know. Those sudden "kicks" when biting through HP areas are dangerous but also well-known, and i am sure they saw it coming. Maybe the specific weight of the "mud" (drilling fluid) was not enough, and when they realized gases were coming up the safety systems seem to have failed - which i must say is a bit unlikely. Maybe they hesitated a bit too long to close the valves, to spare BP a million-dollar re-entry ? -> pure speculation !

At the pressure given and the temperature down there, it is also unlikely that a methane pocket would cause such an eruption - after all there is a miles-long ballasted water column standing in the borehole. But you never know .. if the chrystalline methane reservoir develops into a gaseous aggregate state, this may develop into a self-amplifying effect, since the pressure is released more and more, with the spill.
(When in an onshore drilling in the 1930ies in Germany a gas reservoir was hit, there was no real Blow-out preventer, and the whole 3-km-long tubing was being pressed out of the hole, and ignited (heat through friction) the gas and certainly all of the rig's fuel. The self-amplifying spill killed the crew on duty, and caused a guessed 12 cubic kilometers of rock to be spilled in the atmosphere, the eruption of burning ghas ligthing the whole area for days and leaving a 300-meter crater and a melted rig, lying around in re-chrystallized metal drops.)


I do not know enough about which exact technology the "Deepwater horizon" used (and we will probably not be told), but the rig was from 2000, and thus quite a modern one. Remember it already used automatic GPS positioning without anchors, so the saftey systems will have been up to date as well.
Usually the well can be controlled by the Blow-out preventer, and there are several dead-man switches - but technical failures happen - and there are certainly also manual overrides against erroneus shut-downs.

If the methane went up the hole as bubbles in the drilling fluid, or taking the mud with it in a bad "kick", there are usually enough warnings to react to the situation. But methane is highly explosive, and when things happen fast ..
The thing is even when the automatic shuts did not work, they could have shut it manually (read: remote-controlled) from the rig, but it was either too late or the whole system did not work.

The drill string itself is usually controlled by pulsers which send compression waves through the drilling fluid, and "tell" the drilling head what to do.
The energy for the electronics comes mostly from a downhole dynamo driven by the circling mud, not from above. What this energy does, to actuate a deviation in the drilling direction by expanding one of the ribs, stop the downhole motor via release valves, or actuate hydraulics or measurement systems, is being "told" by the telemetry sent from above, via pulser through the mud. After a certain order has been sent down and received, the downhole eprom works on automatically, until the last order is cancelled, changed, or a certain situation develops, which is programmed as "dangerous", and then automatically acts according to the program.
However, if there are gas bubbles coming up, this kind of telemetry often fails, since only sheer water without bubbles is able to transport "clean" waves, both directions.

The Blowout preventer itself is only partially controlled by mud conditions, however certain temperatures and upwelling gases usually cause it to react automatically.

Again, this is pure speculation - i do not know whether they used a downhole motor, normal rotary drilling or whatever. The presence of three well entries however points in a directional drilling situation, which is nowadays usually done with steerable downhole motors. You only need one rig for several boreholes, and there can be as much, as that the arrangement of the subfloor holes look like a christmas tree.
You are then able to produce oil from several storeys, and several reservoirs, through one well entry point drilled by one rig, which again decreases the enormous drilling costs.

Greetings,
CF

[CaptainHaplo]

Catfish - actually the term that I read was "methane bubble" - but then mentioned that the methane at that depth would be crystaline - so my own inference was a "pocket" of cryaline methane. Here is the link:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/07...co-work-ahead/

Reading this article it seems there are alot of safety checks that had to have failed for this to happen. Fox is now reporting that ice crystals formed in the box they were going to use and has forced them to remove it and reconsider the problem.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/08...nside-oil-box/

At ~5000 feet, I wouldn't think the water would freeze - but then again I don't know alot about the physics involved there.

[Bubblehead Nuke]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Hello,
Caution - highly polemic -
OT - regarding reactors:
No one is able to stop a chain reaction when the rod control has gone bonkers - and b.t.w. it is still taking place and developing heat, inside the sarcophague they buried the Chernobyl wreck in, and probably will for some 10.000 years to come, if slowly getting lower in temperature, and speed of reaction.

Sure there are. You can poison the core by the introduction of chemicals..

You can drive the reactor subcritical by heating it up. You use Alpha-T to your advantage. Heck, you can DRAIN the plant and shut the reaction down. This would work in a PWR/BWR reactor, granted decay heat would then make other problems for you.

Depending on the nature of the causality and the backup systems, there are multiple ways to shut it down.

BTW: the nuclear reaction at Chernobyl is DEAD. Without water to moderate the reaction, the nuclear chain essentially stopped. Granted, the BWR have a very positive alpha-T (sorry techies, there is no characters for the symbol used) and the steam void coefficient plays hell with your reactivity coefficients, but with NO water you have no reaction. What you have is a hell of a lot of decay heat and no way to remove it.

One other thing to remember is this. The core requires a VERY specific configuration to reach and substain a chain reaction. If you melt, explode, deform, or otherwise CHANGE this configuration the reaction pretty much STOPS. We are talking MILLIMETER tolerances. Yes, you may have some limited local zone chain reaction, but those will damp out quickly due to neutron depletion and transuranic production.

The problem is that the Ch. reactor exploded due to overheated water when the core was melting, taking the outer housing with it, and then blowing some 50 kilograms of plutonium into the atmosphere.

Actually, it was a hydrogen explosion. The hydrogen was created by the disassociation of water due to the extreme heat generated by the power transient and the low coolant flow condition. The low flow condition created a power spike that caused pressure in the core to increase rapidly. The resulting hydraulic effect flexed the closure head and depressurized the core. The remaining water in the core then flashed to steam in the sudden depressurization and the resulting void co-efficient created a MASSIVE up power transient and subsequent increase in core temp. The self ignition temp of the fixed graphic control rods was reached and they flashed setting off the hydrogen that was in the core. The resulting explosion then removed the closure head from the top of the reactor physically pulling the remaining control rods from the core. At that point the nuclear chain reaction was stopped by the physical disruption the core geometry. You still have the transuranic burnoff and decay heat that has to be dealt with. You also have the physical FIRE and the result smoke and ash that will create 'fallout' downwind.

It was not the plutonium that was the issue, it was the BILLIONS of curies that created the problems.. Plutonium was a VERY small byproduct. There are more long live transuranics that I would be worried about.

The US dispose of their military reactors in the Bering strait, according to Bellona net. Problem solved.

ALL USN reactors from the ship recycling program are stored aboveground at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State.

Bellona.net is full of it. No us naval reactor has EVER been dumped at sea. The USS Thesher and the USS Scorpion are the ONLY US naval reactors sitting in the ocean. They did not exactly have a choice. They are monitored for escaping material all the time.

Wanna sightsee??

http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/...iew/?service=0

It is a decent sat shot.

[Seth8530]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead Nuke

Sure there are. You can poison the core by the introduction of chemicals..

You can drive the reactor subcritical by heating it up. You use Alpha-T to your advantage. Heck, you can DRAIN the plant and shut the reaction down. This would work in a PWR/BWR reactor, granted decay heat would then make other problems for you.

Depending on the nature of the causality and the backup systems, there are multiple ways to shut it down.

BTW: the nuclear reaction at Chernobyl is DEAD. Without water to moderate the reaction, the nuclear chain essentially stopped. Granted, the BWR have a very positive alpha-T (sorry techies, there is no characters for the symbol used) and the steam void coefficient plays hell with your reactivity coefficients, but with NO water you have no reaction. What you have is a hell of a lot of decay heat and no way to remove it.

One other thing to remember is this. The core requires a VERY specific configuration to reach and substain a chain reaction. If you melt, explode, deform, or otherwise CHANGE this configuration the reaction pretty much STOPS. We are talking MILLIMETER tolerances. Yes, you may have some limited local zone chain reaction, but those will damp out quickly due to neutron depletion and transuranic production.



Actually, it was a hydrogen explosion. The hydrogen was created by the disassociation of water due to the extreme heat generated by the power transient and the low coolant flow condition. The low flow condition created a power spike that caused pressure in the core to increase rapidly. The resulting hydraulic effect flexed the closure head and depressurized the core. The remaining water in the core then flashed to steam in the sudden depressurization and the resulting void co-efficient created a MASSIVE up power transient and subsequent increase in core temp. The self ignition temp of the fixed graphic control rods was reached and they flashed setting off the hydrogen that was in the core. The resulting explosion then removed the closure head from the top of the reactor physically pulling the remaining control rods from the core. At that point the nuclear chain reaction was stopped by the physical disruption the core geometry. You still have the transuranic burnoff and decay heat that has to be dealt with. You also have the physical FIRE and the result smoke and ash that will create 'fallout' downwind.

It was not the plutonium that was the issue, it was the BILLIONS of curies that created the problems.. Plutonium was a VERY small byproduct. There are more long live transuranics that I would be worried about.



ALL USN reactors from the ship recycling program are stored aboveground at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State.

Bellona.net is full of it. No us naval reactor has EVER been dumped at sea. The USS Thesher and the USS Scorpion are the ONLY US naval reactors sitting in the ocean. They did not exactly have a choice. They are monitored for escaping material all the time.

Wanna sightsee??

http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/...iew/?service=0

It is a decent sat shot.

Thank you for the insight. Just curious where did you learn this stuff and what career are you involved in?

-- Catfish---

Thank you for your insight on the oilrigs, i believe that you are mistaken about the reactors but i will listen to what you have to say about drilling. one theory on what caused all the failsafes to misbehave involves some of the crystalline methane melting and turning into a gas. Assume you have 2 liters of Methane gas at 1000 feet down. every 33 ft is one atmosphere, therefore there is a 333 atmosphere difference. according to the gas laws p1 x v1 = p2 x v2...... so we have 333 atmosphere x 2 liters= 1 atmosphere x v2..

666 liters= 1 atmosphere x v2

666/1 atmoshere=v2
666L = the amount 2 liters of methane coming up from a bottom depth of 1000 ft would turn into by the time it reached the oil rig. The theory is that as the methane expanded in the oil line it ruined the failsafes and other such equipment in the line. You would prob have a better idea what to do with these numbers than i would tho.

[Bubblehead Nuke]

Originally Posted by Seth8530

Thank you for the insight. Just curious where did you learn this stuff and what career are you involved in?

I was a nuclear trained machinist mate in the United States Navy. Back then it was the equivalent of 3 years of engineering crammed into 6 months of school with 6 months of on-hands training.

I went through the nuke pipeline back when they educated you instead of training you. I guess I am a relic of the Rickover era. We were taught the HOW & WHY it works. Unfortunately, they do not train people like they used to train us.

What do I do now? I fix cars. I am, admittedly, overtrained for the job but I enjoy my job.

[Seth8530]

Thats really fascinating. Im going to college next year for nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee. Ive always had an interest in being part of our countries nuclear future.

Mishap with the containment dome.

[Catfish]

Hello,

thanks Bubblehead - you know a lot more than me i'm sure about reactors and such - but then i wrote it was highly polemic
I do not really know where i read the Bering strait reactor thing, one of the sources is Bellona net, but they have an agenda, as the pro nuclear industry has, so both not really neutral or independent. I have also read about it in several newspapers ( i remember the Time magazine, and the german "Spiegel"), must have been around 2000 - so this is indeed wrong ?
Anyway the Soviet method of disposing some of its reactors in the Kara sea, is not a myth.

I think Rickover is, despite of all that might be said against him, the one who is responsible for the highest grade of standards regarding reactor management, failsafe security and no nuclear accidents happening in the US Navy of the time.

It is said that the Scorpion was not in a good shape when it made its last voyage, although i find this rather unlikely for a nuclear submarine of the time. Anyway its sinking was obviously not related to any reactor problem.

@Steamwake:
it was not only John Wayne who died of cancer, but a lot of others of the film team, after filming in this former test area and being exposed to the radiation. Remember the US military "tested" its own people while exposing them to nuclear surface tests.


Seth,
thanks for being patient with me, regarding reactors
you wrote

" ... one theory on what caused all the failsafes to misbehave involves some of the crystalline methane melting and turning into a gas. ..."

Yes, i already thought about such an occurrence, but i wondered what made the chrstylline structure "melt" -

There are only two possibilites imho, temperature and/or pressure. Usually a gas or oil reservoir is under pressure, so if you are lucky enough to hit a either resource, you are prepared. One thing is keeping the drilling fluid "heavy"/ballasted, the other is to temporarily shut the mud valves until you have ballasted and adapted the mud to the borehole pressure.

If you hit a reservoir vertically from above, there is an oil-gas cap above the oil, which is under pressure. You try to go through this cap without releasing pressure from the reservoir and enter the oil horizin below, since the cap pressure will help you to produce oil without pumping, until the pressure is so low that you will have to install a pump for further production.

sorry, have to leave, be back later
CF

[Bubblehead Nuke]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Hello,

I think Rickover is, despite of all that might be said against him, the one who is responsible for the highest grade of standards regarding reactor management, failsafe security and no nuclear accidents happening in the US Navy of the time.

Rickover made a difference because he set out to. I can guarantee you that ONE person in a industry or field can make a difference. Had someone like him been in charge of this drilling fiasco, we would not have this problem. Profits should ALWAYS take a second seat to safety. Maybe we can get someone with his uncompromising standards in place that will prevent this from happening again.

It is said that the Scorpion was not in a good shape when it made its last voyage, although i find this rather unlikely for a nuclear submarine of the time. Anyway its sinking was obviously not related to any reactor problem.

The FRONT of the boat may have been substandard, but I can guarantee you that the AFT end of the boat was fine. We nukes are OBSESSED with things running correctly. If something had been amiss, they would have flat said NO to a reactor startup. Back then all it took was a call to Rickover's office saying that the reactor was unsafe and he would have pulled the CO off that boat.