Silent Spring

How do you contain a Deep Sea oil Spill?

As we have witnessed over the last few weeks, there is not easy way to contain a deep sea spill.

Fortunately, it’s not the worst oil spill ever (that honour goes to the oil spill in Iraq during the first Gulf War where more than 520 million gallons of oil was deliberately released into the desert).

So far, the authorities have used a number of different ways to control the spread of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill but none so far have been successful in containing the spread of the oil.

Rough water has prevented the burning of oil from properly working. The agitated seas have worked against this method by mixing the oil with water, making it harder to burn. Why this method was initially favoured was because that it gets rid of the more volatile components of the oil, leaving only the more solid tar which is easier to scoop up in nets.

However if the tar is not properly collected, it could cause even more damage to the environment by leaving a very persistent residue that is extremely resistant to breakdown.

Another way that was used to contain the oil spill is to use booms to corral the oil. Already more than 30,000 metres of boom has been used with more than 87,000 available. But again the weather has prevented this technique from been used effectively.

The solution that most specialists believed would may work in containing the spill is the use of a 100-tonne concrete-and-steel giant funnel which would be secured over the source of the spill. Unfortunately, this technique hasn’t been used below a few hundred metres; the Deepwater well is more than 1,500 metres down. It has just recently been proved ineffective in stoping the flow of the oil and so another method is needed to stop the spill from been the worst of its kind.

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Silent Spring