The Atlantic Wire – “Static kill,” BP’s new mud-funneling plan for stopping its Gulf oil gusher, appears to be working. The company is hopeful that this might be
all it takes to seal off the leak for good. Yet the question on
the lips of everyone from the smallest blogger to Energy
Secretary Steven Chu isn’t so much technical as literary. It can be summed up simply: “Static kill”? Really?BP has already gone through an
impressive cycle of odd, dramatic, murderous names for its operations. “Static
kill” appears to have been the last straw. Perhaps as a sign of relief that the oil spill may be finished, hilarity is bursting
through even the pages of The Washington Post.’You Want to Make Sure It’s Really Dead Dead Dead,’ Energy Secretary Chu tells the Post’s Joel Achenbach.
“‘Don’t want anything to rise out of the grave.’” Before getting to the
serious part of the piece, Achenbach himself notes that “whether [the
operation] will kill, slightly impede, or merely pester BP’s Macondo
well remained unknown late Tuesday.” Here’s the situation:Ideally,
the heavy mud will cause the pressure in the well to drop to zero–but
that alone won’t mean the well is dead, according to federal
scientists. The well could be playing dead. For example, when the mud
will travels into the hot environment of the rock formation 2 1/2 miles
below the seafloor, the heat could cause the mud to change form and
allow the Macondo reservoir to “push back,” as Chu put it.

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