Emergency crews are trying everything they can think of to stop a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which started when the BP Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 people and launching what may become the worst man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history. So far, nothing has worked.
The crews tried sending remote-controlled submersible robots to cap the well. No luck. They tried surrounding the oil spill with a containment boom, but rough weather in the gulf tore the boom apart or pushed it out of position and allowed most of the oil to escape.
Now, emergency workers are pinning their hopes on a hastily constructed containment dome--an inverted metal box that weighs 98,000 pounds and stands four stories tall--which they plan to lower over the oil well nearly a mile below the surface of the water.
If all goes well, the dome will cover the well and contain most of the oil (about 85 percent, according to current estimates). From there, the oil will be pumped through a pipe to a drill ship, the Discoverer Enterprise (with a five-million gallon capacity), which will be waiting on the surface. The oil can then be off-loaded to a standby vessel for processing or taken to a refinery for special treatment.
It may take a week or more to get everything in place, but even then no one is certain the plan will work. Oil companies have used containment domes before, but never in such deep water. Cold temperatures at those depths will likely cause ice to form in the pipe as gas escapes the oil during pumping, and fumes on and around the ship could become explosive.
Late Tuesday, engineers did manage to stop one of the three leaks from the damaged well, which reduced the number of leaks from three to two but failed to lessen the volume of oil pumping out of the well and into the surrounding waters. The crews also succeeded in conducting a couple of controlled burns in two areas where the oil was most heavily concentrated--something they had been unable to accomplish earlier due to adverse weather conditions--but the amount of oil spilling from the damaged well continues to overwhelm most repair and cleanup efforts.
BP has repeatedly made vague promises about paying for the cleanup and honoring any "legitimate claims," and the White House has been talking tough about holding BP's feet to the fire while simultaneously marshaling all available government resources to do whatever is necessary to stop the leak and repair the damage, but right now it's all public relations and politics. The oil continues to leak at an alarming rate, the economic and environmental damage gets worse every day, and there is still a very good chance that the oil spill could remain unchecked for months.
Photo by Getty Images
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Think how many millions maybe billions of dollars are being wasted because of the oil spill just think what we could have used all of that money for solar & Wind power development which would have saved us millions Maybe billions or more in the long run.