Wild assed ideas re: stopping leak

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if BP asked me, i would try and get the hydrates to work in my favor by trying to initiate them within the BOP stack. Maybe try and introduce freshwater from a hotstab as low as possible on the stack.

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I was thinking the same thing. Seems so simple. Hell if you can freeze up the big cofferdam with seawater think what fresh water would do to the well. Instead of a junk shot just a fresh water shot. If it starts thawing just pump a little more water in.

Women need to show more cleavage,damnit! That would create earthquakes that might just seal this thing up..... Just as sound as any other idea, so far.

how about a heavy duty inflatable pipe plug? would conform to the ID of the misshapen pipe. they make these things capable of withstanding thousands of PSI, don't see why it wouldn't work.

Yeah blowing it up might open up more leaks and exacorbate the problem. Oil can leak through very small cracks.

Why can't they weld a flange on it, bolt an open valve to it and then close it off? Can they rig those ROVs for deep-sea welding? It would take some skill but what's another week.

Of course it might blow something up.

Fabricate a three section circular clamp that will fit around the 22" riser pipe. Having the clamp in sections will allow it to be placed around the riser behind the open end eliminating having to fight the high pressure flow coming out of the pipe. The clamp will use three hydryluic actuators powered from the ROVs to pull the clamp sections together tightly around the riser. Having three sections will allow the clamp to adapt to the shape of the deformed riser pipe . Once in place it will serve as an anchor point for pulling a tapered plug into the end of the riser pipe to cap off most of the flow. The plug would be fitted with 4- 6 guide cables, each long enough to allow positioning of the plug away from the high pressure flow during the setup phase. The guide cables would be attached to hydraluic powered winches that are anchored to the previously attach pipe clamp. The winches will slowly haul the plug into the end of the riser, cutting off most of the flow. The tapered plug could be fabricated from steel, and wrapped with some type of pliable material to effect the best possible seal.

Riser is not high pressure pipe ,so you can shut off the well flow there. That is why the BOP stacks on deepwater rigs are subsea. The riser is just used as a way to get the mud, etc back to surface.

Exactly

which is why they have been working so hard on the extraction methods

How about inserting a rubber fitting (the kind you insert into a drain pipe.) Then have a hose running to it and after the little hose is inserted into pipe. Turn on a flow of water thru a hose to the rubber nozzel. That makes in enlarge and becomes like a seal. Some on here know what im talking about. I cant think of what its called. You can get a small one for your pipes at home. U screw it on your hose and run it into your pipe and when you turn water on it enlarges into a ball.