Clarification re Riser Insertion Tube Option

In a recent Houston Chronicle article by Monica Hatcher about BP's latest method for stopping the leak from the Deepwater Horizon riser, it is claimed that BP has unveiled a new option for stopping the leak, the so-called “riser insertion tube option”. It is also stated that BP has a team of hundreds of experts advising it locally. Finally, the assertion is made that this “new” option is “fresh off the drawing board”. For the record, I advanced a similar option to Unified Command ( which includes BP ) and NOAA as early as April 29, and to the BP Crisis Centre May 1. My idea was to “attach a 5000 foot hose” to the leaky risers, and siphon the oil up to waiting vessels on the surface, but for all intents and purposes the two proposals are the same.

Thus, the question arises as to why it would take BP the better part of two weeks to implement such a seemingly simple suggestion. BP appears to have gone to great lengths to explore and test complicated, expensive and time-consuming options, ignoring the principle of Occam's Razor, which basically states that when there are several possible solutions to a problem, the best among them is likely to be the one that is the simplest.

Also, how can it be stated that the riser insertion tube is fresh off the drawing board, when they’ve had two weeks to examine the idea and fine tune it. I mean, does it really take two weeks to design this system? Somehow I doubt it. And lastly, the original idea for this technique did not come from inside BP’s Houston brain trust but from outside- from yours truly.