Large oil spills, like the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989, get a lot of attention, as they should. Besides these large spills, though, much more oil enters the oceans from small leaks that are only a problem locally. In this concept, well take a look at a large recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. New drilling techniques have allowed oil companies to drill in deeper waters than ever before. This allows us to access oil deposits that were never before accessible, but only with great technological difficulty. The risks from deepwater drilling and the consequences when something goes wrong are greater than those associated with shallower wells. Working on oil platforms is dangerous. Workers are exposed to harsh ocean conditions and gas explosions. The danger was never more obvious than on April 20, 2010, when 11 workers were killed and 17 injured in an explosion on a deepwater oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico (Figure 1.1). The drilling rig, operated by BP, was 77 km (48 miles) offshore and the depth to the well was more than 5,000 feet. The U.S. Coast Guard tries to put out the fire and search for missing workers after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Eleven workers were killed. Two days after the explosion, the drill rig sank. The 5,000-foot pipe that connected the wellhead to the drilling platform bent. Oil was free to gush into the Gulf of Mexico from nearly a mile deep (Figure 1.2). Initial efforts to cap or contain the spill at or near its source all failed to stop the vast oil spill. It was not until July 15, nearly three months after the accident, that the well was successfully capped. Estimating the flow of oil into the Gulf from the well was extremely difficult because the leak was so far below the surface. The U.S. government estimates that about 4.9 million barrels entered the Gulf at a rate of 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. The largest previous oil spill in the United States was of 300,000 barrels by the Exxon Valdez in 1989 in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Once the oil is in the water, there are three types of methods for dealing with it: 1. Removal: Oil is corralled and then burned; natural gas is flared off (Figure 1.3). Machines that can separate oil from the water are placed aboard ships stationed in the area. These ships cleaned tens of thousands of barrels of contaminated seawater each day. 2. Containment: Floating containment booms are placed on the surface offshore of the most sensitive coastal areas in an attempt to attempt to trap the oil. But the seas must be calm for the booms to be effective, and so were not very useful in the Gulf (Figure 1.4). Sand berms have been constructed off of the Louisiana coast to keep the oil from reaching shore. (a) On May 17, 2010, oil had been leaking into the Gulf for nearly one month. On that date government estimates put the maximum total oil leak at 1,600,000 barrels, according to the New York Times. (b) The BP oil spill on June 19, 2010. The government estimates for total oil leaked by this date was 3,200,000 barrels. 3. Dispersal: Oil disperses naturally over time because it mixes with the water. However, such large amounts of oil will take decades to disperse. To speed the process up, BP has sprayed unprecedented amounts of chemical dispersants on the spill. That action did not receive support from the scientific community since no one knows the risks to people and the environment from such a large amount of these harmful chemicals. Some workers may have become ill from exposure to the chemicals. BP drilled two relief wells into the original well. When the relief wells entered the original borehole, specialized liquids were pumped into the original well to stop the flow. Operation of the relief wells began in August 2010. The original well was declared effectively dead on September 19, 2010. The economic and environmental impact of this spill will be felt for many years. Many people rely on the Gulf for their livelihoods or for recreation. Commercial fishing, tourism, and oil-
Output: the deepwater horizon spill __________ barrels of oil a day entered the gulf.