TNR: Don't Make Steven Chu Angry

[nsd]

You wouldn't like him when he's angry:


Obama has also called in some of the many scientists on the federal payroll, led by Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Chu at one point pushed the unusual idea of using gamma rays to peer into the blowout preventer to determine if its valves were closed, a technique he experimented with in graduate school while studying radioactive decay.

The suggestion at first elicited snickering and "Incredible Hulk" jokes. Then they tried it, and it worked. "They weren't hot on his ideas," a senior White House official said of BP's initial reaction to Chu's suggestions. "Now they are."


I've seen a lot of movies where a brilliant scientist proposes a cutting edge idea, is mocked, and then it turns out his idea was right. It never ends well for the people who snickered and laughed.


http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/75352/dont-make-steven-chu-angry

[ej510]

1. It sounds like he should be running the show.

[obxhead]

2. Another great example why BP's assets need to be seized and

used by an independent organization to stop this spill.

[Bitwit1234]

3. Some teenage student came up with and idea BP might try

She figured out that they can take a smaller pipe with pneumatic tires surrounding it that can be inflated to seal the larger pipe. Then they can draw oil out of the smaller pipe. I didn't know exactly how she had figured out how to do it, but I think I got the explanation correct. They asked her who gave her this idea and she surprised them by saying she thought of it. So there are some intelligent people out there and if the ideas are feasible then should be tried.

[Schema Thing]

4. That's nicely clever thinking for a teenage student

but certainly not conceptually anything the people working the problem haven't thought of and moved on from precisely because it is not "feasible".

[zipplewrath]

5. There are several of these schemes

All of them haven't been tried for roughly the same reason. No one is all that sure that if you plugged up the BOP above the surface, that it wouldn't fail and the joint that is just below it. There is somethiing wrong with the overall installation and they know it and no one is talking much about it. There is even some concern that the pipe IN THE GROUND is unstable and if overloaded, could rupture beneath the ocean floor. The larger plan is to be able to get the relief wells working so that the flow can be "diverted" through them and then they can pump a sealer (concrete most likely) down the original tube to seal/stabilize it.

The pressures we are talking about here are VERY high. They don't even really know how high. But they are multiple ten's of thousands of pounds per square inch. The water pressure in your house, at night when no on in town is using much water, is about 65 psi. We are talking about potentially 1000 times that much pressure, maybe 500 at best. And your house is probably plumbed with something between 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch diameter pipe. These are on the order of 15-18 inches IIRC. Force goes up with the SQUARE of the radius.

[tridim]

6. Inflatable baffles, as seen on This Old House

They used them to seal A/C vents to rooms that are already cooled sufficiently.

Not saying that's where she got the idea, but that's where I saw it.

[dccrossman]

12. Pressure regulation becomes the problem

As I understand it, the problem with this sort of solution, is that if you close off the pipe without a sufficient opening to allow the oil to flow out, then you potentially cause a split further down the pipe, which would release the pressure and create a new problem.

That said, however, the solution is very creative thinking. And creative ideas lead to more ideas.

[Phx_Dem]

7. Tweety is still snickering about Chu's Nobel Prize, "as if that's going to help!"

Tweety probably thinks truckers, steelworkers or fisherman you know, "regular" people, would be better equipped to deal with an oil spill 5,000 feet below the ocean's surface.

He actually revels in his dimness.

[geek tragedy]

9. Don't forget his 'frogmen.' nt

[AtomicKitten]

10. Tweety keeps saying that about Chu like it's a bad thing.

When Rachel first came board at MSNBC, Tweety made a point of repeatedly calling her "doctor" with a smirk. I get the idea he feels threatened by the highly educated.

"He actually revels in his dimness." ---> :dunce: yep!

[Cha]

11. That's too bad that he hasn't

got yet that there's more things out there than he could imagine.

[vaberella]

8. Every time i hear mention of gamma rays and this spill,

I think the Incredible Hulk will come around to plug the hole, probably with some help from Aquaman.