BP Oil Spill: Dome Down, Two to Go

CNN has a good description of why the dome failed to cap BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill: methane hydrates. So what’s next?

Next up: a “top hat” temporary containment solution, followed by a “junk shot” – filling the hole full of debris and then sealing it off with concrete. Eh?And if that doesn’t work, they’ve already started on the last-ditch effort: drill a new well. Sounds like a typical oil company solution: when all else fails, drill. Or, per Rachel Maddow: “Drill, baby, whatever.”According to BP, we’re now at least two weeks from containment. In the meantime, oil keeps spewing. PBS NewsHour has provided this (rather depressing) widget tracking how much oil has spilled. Slide it from best-case to worst-case scenarios and watch it spew. It’s all ugly.And what nobody’s saying: what if nothing works? How much oil is down there, and how long will it last?