Update on Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill – 26 June
Release Date: 26 June 2010
BP today provided an update on developments in the response to the MC252 oil well incident in the Gulf of Mexico
Subsea Source Control and Containment
A new method for controlling the oil spill has been passed over to the engineers at BP. The project has been titled “The Giant’s Stopper.” The primary objective is to build an enormous rubber cork that will be used to block the spill like the wine in a wine bottle.
The project was developed by a California grape farmer named François Piere who moved to California from France with aspirations of opening his own vineyard. Monsieur Piere currently owns three factories that produce and distribute corks. His biggest seller is the rubber stopper.
Monsieur Piere developed The Giant’s Stopper plans when he was attempting to develop a new kind of bottle. He hypothesized that with a big enough cork, the oil spill could be contained by simply plugging the hole as if it were a bottle of wine.
BP is still slightly resistant to the plan. Discussions are underway weighing the cost-benefit analysis for producing such a giant rubber cork. A decision should be reached by the end of the month.
If the project does go underway, Monsieur Piere has offered for his company to manufacture the cork for BP. His terms were that we be allowed to place his company logo on the cork that would stop what he called “the biggest bottle ever.”
It appears that BP’s major concern with The Giant’s Stopper plan is the development of a big enough cork screw to remove the cork when a more permanent method of containment arises. Though the cork may work well for now, eventually all corks need to be removed, and when that time comes, who will be the one manufacturing and then utilizing The Giant’s Corkscrew.
The estimated length of the needed corkscrew is 47 stories high. As a matter of perspective, that’s about equivalent to a building that has 50 stories, except the corkscrew will be three stories smaller.
