Oil May Be Leaking at Rate of 25,000 Barrels a Day in Gulf

I'm honestly not sure whether she's just talking about cleanup or about further drilling.

It's our "gas taxes" which are lower.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill

What I find interesting about this is this bit:

Despite the extensive cleanup attempts, a study conducted by NOAA determined that as of early 2007 more than 26 thousand U.S. gallons (22,000 imp gal; 98,000 L) of oil remain in the sandy soil of the contaminated shoreline, declining at a rate of less than 4% per year.

That it's even measurable as percentage per year seems like it's getting better, by both human and natural means, at a rate faster than if left to its own devices (with my lay understanding, we'd be talking geologic or evolutionary timescales here, right?). Huge messes take a lot of effort and time to clean up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowout_preventer

Wikipedia says there are 2 types. Could be there is some sediment somewhere causing a mechanical failure? Or maybe some hydraulic fluids need to be heated up?

If it is going to take months to fix it using methods that have never been tried at those depths, it seems that spending some time trying to make that device work would be a good investment.

Also, can we get a temporary stackoverflow ( no pun intended ) for engineers working to solve this problem?

It's pretty rare that an outsider with knowledge gleaned from the (very much dumbed down) media will come up with a solution in a case like this.

The problem with being an outsider is that if you think of a 5000 feet long pipe as a simple straw that you're going to cut off somewhere and attach something new to while it is merrily arcing it's way around the ocean based on the exit force of the oil escaping from it that simply grasping it might require the development of a bunch of new tech and attaching a new chunk of pipe to it (assuming no significant leaks below the point where you've picked it up) is probably not that simple either at the depth we're talking about.

It could be quite a while before they manage to do that, so I'm guessing their first priority is to get the outflow under control, everything else is of much lower priority.

Deep sea stuff is very difficult, and a mile of standing water is a heck of a challenge.

Kudos for creative thinking though :)