I figured out how to stop the leak...seriously!

Excellent idea!

But, I think they will solve it, via an idea I was going post:

Just lower tube over the hole -- doesn't even have to be very strong -- to separate the effluent oil from the surrounding water.

Build this pipe up so that it can spill into a vessel, and pump the stuff into a stream of barges. No real need to cap it, then.

Heh, might even lower the fukn price of effing oil.

The CEOs of BP should be executed, tho, along with all the CEOs on Wall Street. Publicallyl.

Doh!

Pretty much that's what they are doing--it's more commonly called a "relief well"...

"In 1970, Shell Oil Co.'s Cox 1, a 22,000-ft Smackover exploratory well, blew out near Piney Woods, Mississippi. Accurately drilling a relief well to that depth with existing techniques was doubtful. This challenge led to the first direct intersection of a blowout tubular using a detection method. Wireline instruments were developed to detect proximity of a tubular by measuring distance and direction from the relief well to the blowout casing. Ultimately, the well was intersected and killed at 10,500 ft, with communication gained by perforating from the relief well to the blowout. This success was the beginning of the modern relief well, establishing strategy and planning for future relief well projects and the basis for commercial casing detection instruments (outside the Soviet bloc)."

I like my mother's idea better... Lower a smaller tube into the larger tube... The smalerl tube has a high strenth "balloon" on it's end. When it's down into the pipe a few feet, inflate it so it protrudes out the end, expands and seals the larger tube. Then work on the otehr ideas that were thrown around.

...Or just build a HUGE FREAKIN' cement cap the size of the oil well platform in the shape of a mushroom head. Drop it over the whole mess, drill a small hole in the top of it and start filling it with water-curable cement under pressure.

A young genius has a suggestion similar to your mother's:

My mom's idea was shared with me and the PBS site with the video yesterday. My money's on the kid tealing her idea. :)

The Russians have used an atomic bomb to stop leaks:

I propose stuffing Jon Banquer in the oil hole. Do it when he's asleep, and when he wakes up, his deranged ego will swell his head up sufficiently to stop any goddamm leak.

But the toxicity will WELL surpass any simple oil contamination. Just think of the toxic spew that will cause.

But the toxicity will WELL surpass any simple oil contamination. Just think of the toxic spew that will cause. ======================================================

Nukuler toxicity, or Banquerler toxicity?

Well, not to be selfish, but UseNet will certainly be better off with Banquer stuffed in a hole at the bottom of an ocean. Altho, he might STILL find a way to make his presence felt..

BP is still lying to us --clearly, the cap is leaking vary badly at the seal even without having the vents closed off...

The recovery pipe is woefully undersized for the task--and apparently nobody in the chain of command there is smart enough to ADD A SERIES OF PUMPS to the vertical pipe string in order to DECREASE PRESSURE at the seal interface through an INCREASE OF VOLUMETRIC FLOW CAPACITY.

Get the bean counters completely out of the picture and where "decision by committee" is used then a minimum take anyone that wears a suit and tie to work off of the committee because from the looks of it the idiots currently calling the shots probably would end up drowning an entire city block if they ever so much as considered making an attempt at repairing a dripping kitchen faucet.