according to mother jones today, there are only about 33,000 miles of pipeline and 50,000 wells in the gulf. see all those dark blue dots. those are all the platforms and rigs in the gulf. did we also mention it s hurricane season? yeah, no rush. joining us is bob kavnar, founder and editor of the daily hurricane. thank you for joining us. happy to be with you, rachel. usually you see something or you don t. is there an oil spill associated with this rig or is there not? what s been reported to me, rachel, is that the wells did automatically shut in when the fire occurred or the leak that they had on the platform occurred. i think the wells themselves shut in pretty quickly. but often what you get here is you ll get some residual oil on the platform. sometimes when they flood the platform with fire water the way they did today, you ll wash that
did we also mention it s hurricane season? yeah, no rush. joining us is bob kavnar, founder and editor of the daily hurricane. thank you for joining us. happy to be with you, rachel. usually you see something or you don t. is there an oil spill associated with this rig or is there not? what s been reported to me, rachel, is that the wells did automatically shut in when the fire occurred or the leak that they had on the platform occurred. i think the wells themselves shut in pretty quickly. but often what you get here is you ll get some residual oil on the platform. sometimes when they flood the platform with fire water the way they did today, you ll wash that into the water. that s probably what they saw. what s the biggest risk at
down to reverse the flow of the oil. the admiral repeating again today that to be safe the gusher will have to be plugged from two directions. think of the relief well as bottom kill. bp still refusing to say what they will be doing with the relief wells. kent wells saying, we need to take each step at a time. clearly we need to pump cement. if we do it from the top we might alter what we do with the well. the ultimate objective is getting this well permanently sealed. admiral allen responding, the well will not be killed until we do the bottom kill and do whatever needs to be done. i am the national incident commander and i issue the orders. wait, there s more. oil industry expert bob kavnar warning us engineers might reget cementing the well from above too soon. with today s procedure, he said
researchers say exercise impacts brain plasticity, which is linked to problems with cognition. any time now, we could learn from that new cap on the bp oil well is going to work and success could come in one of two ways. the cap could completely cover the well, allowing bp to suck up all of the oil into containment ships on the surface. that would also for the first time give us a more accurate assessment of the true rate the oil is flowing out. determining the amount of oil is important because a big chunk of the fines bp faces are determined by the amount of oil spilled into the water. that s where we get into option two, which may be in bp s best interests, using the cap to stop the oil altogether. here s what former oil executive bob kavnar told keith olbermann on countdown. because if they do succeed in getting this shut in, they ll never open it again before they get it killed from the bottom with the relief well, but i have to tell you, i m real concerned
with the caveat we can t identify him. all the actions and tidbits of information lead to one conclusion. the well pipes are broken and leaking. the more they try tro restrict the gushing out it will transfer to the leaks below like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. when you open it up, it doesn t leak so bad. you close the nozzle it and it leaks real bad. same dynamics. what eventually will happen is the blowout preventer will tip over if they do not run supports to it. it s a race now, a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, and leaking and failing system gives up its last gasp in a horrific crescendo. the beachfront at pensacola beach covered in oil. cleanup workers struggling as the oil kept coming all day. let s bring in oil and gas industry expert bob kavnar who recently accompanied kerry