What if the deep water horizon had had steam powred generators?

This is a what if question. One of the things that happened on the deep water horizon was the natural gas belched up and got into the intake of the diesel generators.

What would have happened if the generator had been powered by steam?

What are the pros and cons of steam in an explosive environment?

Brent,

The gas blast would have found a nice raging fire in the steam generator. Much better than the cooler exhaust of the Diesel generators as an ignition source.
They must have taken off like a race car with a good snoot full of natural gas.
Where did you get the data that the generators helped ignite the gas? I would like to see a really good report about what went on with a timeline too.
Then what about welding torches and such? I would bet there were dozens of ignition sources just waiting for gas to appear.

Jim

Its obvious the prolonged fire exposure weakend the structure, hence the cause of the broken riser pipe. I have gleened from some of the reports that mechanical failure of the drill rig was the source of breach and hence fire supplied by natural gas. There were remarks the pressure in the riser pipe, was @3000psi, normal readings for a difficult well are @1500psi, a trouble free situation is outlined @ no more than 750psi natural gas pressure.

The remark by some of the deep water horizon people to haliburtion was"this well does not want to be tapped", there process failed...

Jeremy

Brent Laird Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This is a what if question. One of the things
> that happened on the deep water horizon was the
> natural gas belched up and got into the intake of
> the diesel generators.
>
> What would have happened if the generator had been
> powered by steam?

Answer: wouldn't have mattered.

The reason for this whole mess is, a defective blowout preventer was installed, and the failure multiplied into the resulting mess. The preventer had a known defect (bad primary sealing gasket) but the BP guy onboard overrode the safety issue and insisted it should be installed. Along with several other detours (including a disabled audio alarm for the high flammable gas alarm) this was an accident in progress from the beginning.

This kind of crap should result in huge losses for BP IMO and financial awards for the survivors' families. I'm not much for lawsuits but these guys should lose their @$$e$ over this. Also, government agencies involved were "in bed with" BP on this and I can only hope the voters respond when the time comes.

We can't afford to be complacent IMO about the largest ecological disaster in history; if we fail to respond we could set ourselves up for another one--possibly even worse.

Sorry about the tirade, somebody has to do it.

Bill

I have no data only the testimony of eye witnesses on c-span. The first indication was the lights went brighter. Then the PC monitors and other stuff started blowing. No one knows the spark source. It could have even been the fishing vessel near by. Which does tell me in this case the gas came up and flowed everywhere in large concentrations. I am just assuming the generator had a role.

There is also the point that the boat was sunk by the fire fighters adding so much water. Fire fighting 1010 don't sink the ship.


No one knows for sure who did what until they get the blowout preventer up and look at it. It is most likely bp cutting corners are the rig level.