Tea baggers whose lily white faces flare deep red when discussing government regulations should put down their Hitler signs, unstrap their firearms in the garage, and tune into C-Span. What they will witness is a real time picture of how the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) got so thick.
The House of Representatives has been calling witnesses from the firms involved with the Deepwater Horizon accident to give testimony before congress. What is presently occuring is the fact finding phase of what will no doubt turn into a series of bills and enforcement actions. Representatives are interested in whether or not regulations were ignored and what kinds of gaps there may be in the regs.
The BP-Transocean oil spill just off the mouth of the Mississippi River has fouled public fisheries and threatened to leave a splash of hydrocarbon “heavies” on vast stretches of beach and estuaries along the Gulf coast. The economic harm to the public and the material insult to the environment is still evolving.
In all likelihood, statutes relating to oil production at sea will be modified as a result of this incident. Good men perished horribly in the fire and sinking of a drilling vessel which was registered in the Marshall Islands and operated by an “American” company based in Switzerland. Changes in safety requirements, if not implemented by the industry, will certainly be mandated by federal law.
This is how most government regulation seems to accumulate. It is by stimulus and response. A bad event happens or somebody games the system for their own gain and people are harmed. Elected representatives respond by writing statutes that cover the circumstance and anticipate related problems. Eventually, the new regs will be published in the Federal Review and some agency will be required to promulgate the changes.
Federal law accumulates like rime ice on the leading edge of an airplane wing in a storm. Eventually the accumulation becomes so onerous that the airplane can no longer fly. It’s like death by a thousand cuts. Unfortunately, the constitution does not mandate a sunset feature or the periodic review and streamlining of regulations.
I suppose it is more titillating for teabaggers to imagine a cabal of preening liberals sipping Pinot Grigio and pulling the strings of their liberal agenda. You know, manditory spanish language and gay studies in the elementary schools. But for now, everyone is working on this oil problem.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
Arizona decided to enforce Federal border regulations. Enforcing the law must be legislated into illegality, or everybody will do it.
Why is the oil thingie still gushing? Crimp the riser shut. Vetco HMF Class H 21-inch riser pipe has .812″ walls.
1) Thick horseshoe of medium velocity explosive. Surface mining gel explosives may have a problem with their glass microballoon sensitizer collapsing under ambient pressure.
2) Inner lining of high density pusher (e.g., lead, lead-tungsten powder composite; molybdenum, tantalum, etc.) about the hollow center, then a low density collapsible gap spacer to center the inserted riser. A benthic syntactic foam spacer reduces handling difficulties of the heavy charge.
3) Slide the horseshoe snug around the riser via the spacer.
4) Detonate at the outside curved end. It must be spaced well away from the exploding arms.
5) The riser crimps shut when the planes of implosion tamper symmetrically arrive on both sides, having accelerated across the gap. Timing is adjusted by converging or diverging the arms, making up the difference with spacer. Think of it as a linear self-forging munition.
Explosive without implosion tamper will have momentum transfer problems given interface density impedance mismatches plus intervening water. A blown foam spacer will collapse under ambient pressure. A donut may have problems of closing a clamshell around the riser, symmetric detonation, and where intervening mass goes as the implosion tamper ring constricts.
Don’t let NASA in on it.
Too bad there isn’t some kind of stinger that can be jammed into the well pipe, a la Boots & Coots. http://www.boots-coots.com/engineer/WorldOil_01_2004.pdf
Excellent article gaussling, and thanks for the later reference to the boots/coots doc.
Uncle Al, you cant stop the flow that fast, the resulting hammer would blow right through. But maybe the the riser could be crimped using hydraulics, in a machine looking something like a log splitter, or like a clothespin. Squeeze the riser shut over a short period of time, avoiding hammer, but quick enough that the blowthrough doesnt have time to eat the pipe away.