• Is the Worst Already True, the BP Well Now Unstoppable? | Mother Jones

  Frightening post that quotes extensively from a forum where oil engineers and geologists post their analyses of the Gulf oil disaster. One forumer, dougr, posts an especially grim picture. Excerpt:
  QUOTE
  I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don’t, they are inviting disaster that much sooner.

  Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? …it won’t be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov’t must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.

  All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit…after that, it goes into the realm of “the worst things you can think of” The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out…as I said…all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn’

  tags: oilspill, disaster, mother_jones, the_oildrum

• The Abandoned Palace On Beekman Street « Scouting NY

  A real “wow!” post by Scouting New York on getting a tour of Manhattan’s 5 Beekman Street, boarded up for decades. Click through for stunning photos.
  Update: the article is not available at this time” very disappointing… Scouting NY wrote: “At the request of building representatives, the pictures of 5 Beekman Street have been removed from Scouting NY.”
  QUOTE
  In 1940, the atrium was boarded up due to firecode violations. Completely hidden, later tenants would never know of its existence, seeing only a walled corridor (though according to a recent NY Times article, a secret door offered those who stumbled upon it an amazing discovery).
  UNQUOTE

  tags: 5_beekman_street, manhattan, nyc, architecture, heritage, restoration, adaptive_reuse

• A Common Boston – Events – Dwell

  Interview with Justin Crane, co-founder/ co-chair of New England’s biggest design festival / urban architecture mash-up:

  QUOTE
  How did Common Boston emerge?

  It originated humbly about five years ago, with a bunch of recent architecture grads just sitting around in a cafe. We were thinking about Boston…about how it has the highest percentage of architects of any city, and a general public that’s very active in their community — yet the two don’t always see eye-to-eye. Boston is in many ways a birthplace of community activism, and we wanted to get the neighborhoods excited about such a big part of the city — architecture.
  UNQUOTE

  tags: justin_crane, architecture, boston, design, urbanism, common_boston

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted: 06|20|10 at 2:30 am. Filed under: links.

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