Reply #50: coast guard: "This is the first time this has ever been done"

[DCBob]

'It's a dome that would be placed over the leak and instead of the oil leaking into the water column it would leak into this dome structure,' coast guard spokesman Prentice Danner told AFP at the time.'The dome would capture or gather the oil and allow it to be pumped out of that dome structure.'

If robotic submarines fail to restart the giant blowout preventer valve on the sea floor, the dome is seen as the best short-term solution. Drilling relief wells to divert the flow of oil would take months. 'If you could picture a half dome on top of the leak and the oil collects inside of this dome and is pumped out from there, that is the idea behind it,' said Danner. He compared it to welded steel containment structures called cofferdams used in oil rig construction, but stressed this would be an original design. 'This is the first time this has ever been done. This idea didn't exist until now. It has never been fabricated before.'

more: http://bigpondnews.com/articles/Technology/2010/05/03/BP_contains_oil_spill_with_giant_dome_457665.html

Perhaps they have done something similar on a much smaller scale but this is cleary breaking new ground and new technology and it does not sound too assuring.