Alternative Technology Response Form

BP very much appreciates your consideration and help in providing suggestions to contain the source of flow and/or clean up the spill. To date, we have received a great number of submissions with each submission receiving individual consideration and priority based on merit and need.

Many submissions with similar content have been received multiple times. Such repetition will not affect judgments made by the expert reviewers, and can only serve to slow down the overall evaluation and notification process as well as defer attention from other potentially important ideas.

Please carefully read the following prior to making any submission.


Already Considered:

The following suggestion types have been received multiple times and have already been considered or are planned for field testing and deployment:

Actions designed to completely shut down flow from the well
Manipulations of the Blowout Preventer, to make it functional (already attempted)
Containment of the spill at the source (subsea) and collection on a vessel (ongoing already)
Drilling relief wells to intersect well casing and kill the offending well (ongoing)
Any sort of work involving the Well Riser (which is no longer connected)
Pumping into the well to “kill” the flow (already attempted)
Setting a new Blowout Preventer on top of the existing one (previously considered)
Subsea dispersant injection (ongoing)
Hydrate remediation (ongoing)
Open water skimming (ongoing)
Dispersant application by plane or ship (ongoing)
In-situ burning (ongoing)
Placing booms to corral oil on the water surface (ongoing)

Not Possible / Not Feasible:

The following suggestion types have been studied and determined to be Not Feasible or Not Possible:

Freezing the Blowout Preventer or wellhead
Insertion of balloons, bladders, stents or plugs into the riser
Use of explosives, including nuclear
Dumping of boulders, concrete, sand or debris to bury the wellhead
Large subsea collection canopies made of fabric, plastic or other material
Use of lightweight materials subsea
Containers to collect oil which are shuttled back and forth to the surface
Use of peat moss based products for adsorption/skimming
Use of straw, hay, woodchips or hair to absorb oil
Use of bioaugmentation agents not listed on the EPA approved product schedule

In submitting your suggestion, it is important to be specific. The evaluation process relies on your providing sufficient information regarding methods, materials, equipment and expertise. Of particular interest at this time are ideas relating to cleaning up the spill and affected shoreline areas.