. . . and the oil just keeps flowing.
On April 20, 2010 a deep-water oil well blowout caused a catastrophic explosion on the Deepwater Horizon Offshore oil drilling platform. Located about 40 miles southeast of Louisiana, the explosion kill 11 workers and injured 17 others.
In September, 2009, the Horizon Offshore platform drilled the deepest oil well in history with a vertical depth of 35,050 feet. (5,000 feet to the bottom and then another 30,000 into the earth) Conversely, Mount Everest is 29,000 feet and passenger commercial jets fly between 32,000 to 40,000 feet in the sky.
While BP and NOAA have stated that about 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) were leaking per day, this video had enabled experts to estimate that the leak at over 1,000,000 gallons (23,810 barrels) are leaking per day.
Solutions
British Petroleum (BP) had tried a variety of solutions:
Top Kill - The most recent response was pumping heavy drilling mud into the oil spout 5,000 feet below the surface. As of May 29, BP admitted that Top Kill has failed.
I have been looking for a list of each of the solutions already tried. I remember that they tried burning the floating oil and use dispersants to break-up the oil. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find such a list. Do you know of one?
What do you think should be done about this problem? What will be the outcome of the disaster?
Photo: NASA
What should be done? I wish the parties involved and the mass media would refrain from pointing fingers and assigning blame and instead work together to find a solution. After the crisis is over there will be plenty of time to determine who and what was at fault.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't find an official list of methods for either plugging the oil leak or cleaning up the spill, but the wikipedia entry is fairly decent.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill#Efforts_to_stem_the_flow_of_oil
Personally, I don't think wikipedia is as bad of a source of information as some people make it out to be, as long as the corresponding footnotes are followed to ensure accuracy and fairness in the cited reports.