Of Ice and Oil containment Domes

Giant Container to Collect Leaking Oil

To read full New York Times article click "Giant" above

 begin quote:

Despite the hopes placed on the big box, questions remain: Can it withstand the conditions nearly a mile beneath the sea? Will ice plug up the pipe? Will bad weather interrupt the work? Will the combination of gas, oil and water mix uneasily — or explosively — on the ship above? Add global scrutiny to the mix, and you have some anxious engineers.
“I’m worried,” said David Clarkson, BP’s vice president for project execution, “about every part.”
BP engineers in Houston have sketched out models to account for what they expect to happen in this novel approach, along with several contingency plans. To combat the ice, which is likely to form as gas bubbles out of the oil, engineers will inject warm water along the pipe, and methanol into the oil.
But as so many other response efforts so far have shown, engineering problems that can be solved on the ground can prove perilously stubborn 5,000 feet underwater.end quote

Even though they aren't working in the arctic, Antarctic or winter time I guess ice at 5000 feet might be a problem as well as potential explosions from the interactions of gases, oil and water on the ship above.

I believe it was Mr. Clarkson who said that the maximum sustained accidental release of oil would be according to engineers and geologists 60,000 barrels of oil per day if all attempts to stop or cap the oil fail. This would be equal to 3,000,000 gallons a day released which would be like an oil volcano going off in the Gulf of Mexico. If this happened(and we all hope it won't) the gulf would quickly become a lot different than it is now as well as the whole eastern coast of the U.S.