Page 21 - Dinner Plate News Today

And hope for a good-news outcome on this. the drilling of the relief well represents the best hope of stopping the gulf oil leak. weve been telling you that for months. but its a process with a lot of technical difficulties. >> the whole idea of drilling down through a mile of owe slun water and then two miles of rock and sand and seabed, look as we dive down here and contemplate what were talking about. youre going through all of this, all in the hopes of getting something about the size of a...

79 days. theyve tried a giant containment box, top kill, top hat. theyve been planning all week to hook up a third tanker to siphon off more oil. but choppy seas is stopping that from happening as well. the only real hope of a long-term solution relies on drilling relief wells and killing it. as a neuro surgeon, its annoying when someone says it isnt brain surgery, but its close. tom foreman is here with the details. tom? >> thanks, sanjay. drilling down. look at this as we dive down here and co...

Killing it. as a neuro surgeon, its annoying when someone says it isnt brain surgery, but in this case, its close. tom foreman is here with the details. tom? >> thanks, sanjay. drilling down. look at this as we dive down here and contemplate what were talking about. youre going through all of this, all in the hopes of hitting something about the size of a dinner plate. thats how big the leaking pipe is all the way down where theyre trying to hit it. thats a massive technological challenge. so wh...

When you go into the store you dont knowed soy beans are genetically modified. now theres a movement afoot genetically altered salmon could get this on your dinner plate. >> aqua bounty, what they want to do is combine the sha nook salmon because it has some sort of, i dont know, important growth hormone with something called an ocean pout. thats like-- >> pouty lips. >> yeah, the ocean pout, a fish, and the chinook salmon and make a uber fish and grow to its size in 18 months as opposed to thre...

Closing in on the well pipe and the second is just shy of 10,000 feet. while the first well is ahead of schedule neither will be ready until august because the deeper they get the harder it is to drill. theyre aiming at a pipe the width of a dinner plate, miles below the surface. this is clearly no easy task. were learning more about the deaths of two oil recovery workers today. a 55-year-old charter boat captain who was working for bp on the cleanup died of a gunshot wound apparently self-infli...

Petroleum industry has been concentrated on drilling wells, not so concentrated on, you know, capturing, dealing with well has have blown out. but the thung that i think they can do well is drill wells. and hit small targets that are far away. so directional drilling and acoustic imaging, i think they can do this. they were initially planning to drill one well and then at the governments insistence, planned to drill two relief wells. so i think between those two that theyll hit the target. >> an...

Concentrated on drilling wells, and not so concentrated on the capturing, dealing with the wells blown out, but the thing they have that they can do well is drill wells, and hit small targets far away, so directional drilling and acoustic imagining, and i think that they can do this. they were initially planning to drill one well and at the governments insistence drill two relief wells and between the two, they will hit the target. >> and the target to be precise the size of a dinner plate, is t...

The president himself said it could be for the balance of his administration this gulf disaster could have an enormous effect just like the 9/11 incident had for the balance of the bush administration. well see how -- >> its going to be a defining moment for his presidency. >> oh, yeah. i totally agree. this is -- im really worried, jack, as you know and ive made no secret about that. as bad as it is now this thing could get a whole lot worse. >> oh, yeah. theyre drilling a second well they hope...

Cameras have not been allowed until now, a highly skilled screw gets a drill down and has 5,000 feet left to go. and their target? a hole smaller than a dinner plate. but its a point of pride to hit it on the first try. >> it weighs on my mind, and i know it weighs on a lot of peoples minds that this is something that we have to do right and we got to do it safe and we have to do it the first time. >> reporter: the work, long hours in the shearing heat, for the most part has been thankless. few ...

We are dealing with a situation where the spill is at such depth and pressure, trying to cap it is like trying to hit a dinner plate with a golfball from two miles away according to akaki, a physicist. that is the situation now. >> david: maybe the reason the president isnt doing these things is he wants to put it on b.p. and doesnt want his own hands dirty. >> he doesnt want to take the blame himself. there is so much finger-pointing going on. republicans want to blame the democrats and the dem...