(It did the trick, revealing that the preventer's pipe-shearing rams had not fully slammed shut, allowing oil to continue spewing.) When BP engineers presented plans for containment caps or other operations, Chu and his team of independent hydrologists and geophysicists would question assumptions in a bid to force BP to consider the full range of possibilities, rather than simply hoping for the best. When BP scientists couldn't figure out how the blowout preventer failed, Chu suggested gamma-ray imaging, which could visually pierce the giant piece of equipment at the bottom of the sea. The scientist-versus-scientist clashes are just some of the new details about science's role in stopping the spill that have emerged in the year since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and set off what would become the worst oil spill in U.S. But, perhaps unknown to BP at the time, the oil was gushing at more than 50,000 barrels per day-meaning it had plenty of pressure to blow top-kill mud back out of the hole. (One barrel of petroleum holds about 160 liters.) In fact, such top kills had worked to control other wells in the past, albeit not those some 1,500 meters beneath the ocean surface. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimated, roughly 5,000 barrels per day. That might have been true had the oil been flowing at the rate BP and the U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu remained unconvinced of BP's technical case, whereas geologist by training Tony Hayward, CEO of the British oil major, felt it had as much as a 70 percent chance of success, according to the President's National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling report released in January. Earlier, locked in the 10-meter-square "intervention room" on the third floor, scientist fought scientist in the battle over whether to proceed with an established way to plug the leak, the so-called "top kill" operation. The room-called the HIVE, for Highly Immersive Visualization Environment-was hardly the only place at BP buzzing with activity. Screen after screen in a special room at BP's headquarters in Houston showed the oil gushing undiminished, silently witnessed underwater by remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).
Forty-eight hours into an attempt to muscle a gusher of oil back into the deep-sea well from which it spewed, the flow of petroleum and gas refused to slow.
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