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As I write this, BP has successfully severed the main riser pipe with its "Guillotine" cutters and is lowering the "Top Hat" in an attempt to siphon up most of the oil that is now gushing out in a mind-boggling black and brown cloud. Of course, I fervently hope that this maneuver will succeed, but I'm also afraid that it if does, BP will win a battle and the world will lose the war to protect the environment against future repetitions of the Spillgate fiasco.What the world really needs right now is a ban on ALL deep-sea oil drilling. This is much more important than punishing BP or even than cleaning up the catastrophic environmental damage that SpillGate is already beginning to cause. And it looks to me like a "victory" for BP at this point may make it more difficult to get such legislation passed through the US Congress.
One good starting point for defusing any claims that BP might make that "We can handle this" is to point out that even if the system now being installed succeeds in recovering a lot of the oil now being spilled, it will be extremely fragile. Every time a hurricane or major tropical storm transits through the Gulf of Mexico, the tankers and other ships tending the system will have to leave the area, which could easily result in the whole "Top Hat" assembly breaking loose from the riser and having to be replaced.
I hate to say this, but the world might actually be better off if the "Top Hat" maneuver fails...
