Using a "top kill" to plug the Macondo well of BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill

Much could go wrong. The pressure of the injected mud could damage the blowout preventer and exacerbate the leaks. The mud will go wherever it can, and not necessarily where the engineers would prefer.

"There's a hole, but it's kind of like pushing toothpaste through an obstacle course," said Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University.

"I feel for the guys who are doing it, the people whose hands are actually on the throttles there," said energy analyst Byron King. "It's like doing brain surgery using robots under a mile of water with equipment that's got 30,000 horsepower of energy inside of it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052701957_2.html