Mathematical Improbability

The oil spill is terrible.  There is no going around that.  Really there is nothing more to say on the subject.  Oh wait, yes there is.

What is worse than having an oil spill?  Having misinformation about the actual facts of the oil spill, coupled with idiots trying to correct it.

I'm not a mathematician.  I don't pretend to be a mathematician.  But if someone tells me that the well is leaking at 30%, and only 5000 gallons of oil is being spilled out, or that up to 100,000 gallons are being released everyday.  Then I get a figure that says up to 104,000 gallons were spilled per hour while the cap was off, because the underwater robot accidentally knocked it off.  I now have a mathematical improbability problem.

if 24x * 30%<100,000
and x=104,000
24(104,000) * 30%<100,000
2,496,000 * 30%<100,000
748,800 <100,000
does not compute.

748,800 is not less than or equal to 100,000 no matter how many times you try and manipulate the numbers.  The math doesn't work.

Assuming that anyone with an elementary understanding of algebra can figure out these equations, it doesn't add up.

Nothing in this crisis adds up to me.

The rumor was that the original leak was leaking at 30%, then after we capped the leak the output increased to 50%.  Again math overrules business bullshit logic.  The attempt to make it better made it worse.

Rather than trying to patch the leak, or create some semblance of containment around the leak, engineers decided to create a cap, which required the pipe to be cut open below the kink, which was slowing the leak, and then try and lower a cap on top of it.  A cap which if pushed by an underwater robot could topple off.

My grandfather was an engineer, and when the pipes in his house broke, rather than replacing them because that would take too much time, he would use electrical, masking or duct tape, whatever was handy and paper towels.  That's it.  Wrap around the pipe and the leak will stop.

I wonder if the amount of pollution could have been greatly decreased by sending a team of divers down with some heavy grade plastic sheeting, had them wrap the pipes and then duct tape the ends.  Jerry rigging a MacGyver like solution to tide the big boys over until something more permanent came along.  Rather than this expensive lengthy endeavor whose yield has not been all that productive.

Personally I think they need to get five Asians and a white guy to just sit down for an hour and figure out what the hell the problem is, what the possible solutions are and then formulate a plan that doesn't make bigger holes for oil to escape from.

Please feel free to contradict me, I'm searching for answers in a sea of misinformation.