[QUOTE=Infomania;60485]
[snip]
I’m noting however, that this report does not seem to understand the function if an “acoustic switch” or I don’t understand it.
From the article:
“Among the regulations that were revoked was the requirement for offshore rigs to maintain an acoustic switch – a device that would explode and seal off an oil well permanently in the event of a blowout. There was no acoustic switch installed on the Deepwater Horizon rig. Triggering the switch makes the well no longer usable.”
Sounds like a bit of hallucination in my opinion.[/QUOTE]
That was a reporter’s hallucination. The term “acoustic switch” does not appear in the prepublication version of the NAE report.
These are the things that drive you nuts when you’re on a committee. You spend hours carefully crafting the wording and then some idiot journalist who hasn’t read the report garbles a remark made at the press conference and splatters it all over the Internet. My guess is that there was a discussion of the acoustic trigger for a BOP which got scrambled in the journo’s brain with some video game 
Here’s a more sensible story on the issues involved:
Cheers,
Earl