Robots battling the unkillable werewolf well: mad science in the Gulf

The Gulf oil spill crisis looks a lot like a mad science tale, from one perspective.  Imagine a cross between Victor Frankenstein, shop class, and multinational companies, and you get images like this:  

It is the well that will not die.

(That's the Washington Post, not noted for its Gothic styling)

Or:

With robotic submarines, the company will sever the leaking, kinked riser pipe that emerges from the top of the blowout preventer, the five-story-tall contraption on top of the wellhead. 

Note that the cut will be made by a diamond-coated saw.

The measure of the disaster can be seen in maps the government released that show the vast amoeboid-shaped slick that has gradually glommed onto coastal Louisiana as if trying to swallow the Mississippi River delta whole.

Earlier, we saw more galumphing big science:

The cap is fitted with a grommet designed to keep out seawater and prevent the formation of slushy methane hydrates that bedeviled an earlier containment dome effort. 

Robot subs! giant mechanisms! evil undersea hydrates!  We could imagine this as lost Soviet science fiction, circa 1950.  Or a Doc Savage tale, perhaps.

Want more clearly horror-themed language?  The Post is happy to report.

"There's no silver bullet to stop this leak," Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said.

and

It was like hitting a Bozo punching dummy -- it goes down, then springs back up. Though some might prefer the analogy of the slasher-movie villain who always comes back for the sequel.

"This well is evil," moaned energy analyst Byron King.

(AP photo)

Comments

[Ed Webb]

All we need is a great long pipe from the well to the bottomless sinkhole in Guatemala.