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Oil Spills
Questions related to the causes and effects of an oil spill, and ways of cleaning them up should be asked here.
1,162 Questions
The BP oil spill can refer to either the
BP oil spill of March 2, 2006 in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.
BP oil spill of April 20, 2010 in the Macondo Prospect oil field in the Gulf of Mexico, on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
What affects do oil spills have?
As the oil continues to spill from the well, the impact to the environment will continue to be assessed. There are a number of government agencies, NOAA, EPA and US Coast Guard, all participating in this effort. This is an ongoing event and my information is only current to May 18. Water samples are being taken and analyzed. The most recent data (about a week old) is posted on the EPA website (see related links).
The EPA reports the impact as of May 9 is low. This is subject to revision as more water samples are taken and analyzed.
Much of the gulf is closed to shrimping because of concerns of health risk due to the contaminated water. The immediate effect of this oil spill is on sea birds. Oil gets into their wings and they can not fly. Oil spills have many potential impacts on the coast marine life, as discussed in the links provided.
There is concern that some of the spilled oil may be entering into the loop current, which is a fast moving current, capable of moving the oil far beyond the current area.
Oil pollution has an effect not only on humans but also on animals. Animals can die from ingestion of oil from cleansing their feathers; in a bird's case, or their fur; in a sea otter or seal's case. But their are other things that some people don't even notice are being harmed by oil spills, and that is micro organisms or zooplankton. They are microscopic, ocean dwellers that are being hurt by large oil spills.
Please examine the links. You can find more information on the effects of oil spills on the environment in general, with these links and others on the internet. Please note each spill is uniquely different and will have different impacts on the environment.
The effects of crude oil on the environment can be simulated if everything around you, including you is layered with crude oil, including your eyes, your food, your drinking water and yourself. There's also a layer of crude oil blocking out the sun, killing all plants and crops. (simulating oil on top of seawater)
How do you calculate an oil spill on land?
Density = mass ÷ volume, which can also be written as Density = Mass ÷ (length x width x height).
Height is your thickness, so isolating the variable gets you
Height = Mass ÷ Length ÷ Width ÷ Density.
Why are we doing offshore drilling?
Oil companies always need to explore for new sources of petroleum. Otherwise, they would run out of oil to sell. The most accessible oil fields in the US were drilled and produced many years ago, in particular Pennsylvania and Texas.
Now, to satisfy the demand for oil, the industry is exploring in much less accessible areas, such as deepwater areas of the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, Angola, and China. Also, the artic area of Alaska is considered to have considerable hydrocarbon resources.
You can find many references on the internet by searching under peak oil, offshore drilling, and semi-submersibles rigs.
What is the best way the stop the broken BP oil well from spilling more oil?
2010, May 4: BP announces beginning of work to start drilling relief wells.
May 5: BP plugs one of the 3 oil rigs. This does not significantly reduce the flow of the oil, but reduces the complexity of the problem.
May 8: BP attempts to place a containment dome over the oil spill but fails.
May 16: Work begins on 2nd relief well.
May 17: Riser insertion tube tool (RITT) is put into place. This collects about 2000 barrels of oil a day, a fraction of the oil being spilled.
As of May 29th, BP announced that 3 consecutive attempts at a 'top kill' had failed. The 'top kill' process involves pumping heavy fluids into the blowout preventer to restrict oil flow, and then permanently sealing it with cement.
June 3: Deployment of the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) Cap containment system. This plan involves cutting a part off the blow out preventer to leave a cleanly cut pipe which can then be capped. This effort is expected to take 4 days. They proceded with this method on June 3rd, and so far it is helping. However a jagged edge on the pipe might make the cap fall off. BP's next plan is to pump warm water down from the surface of the water, to prevent the cap from forming ice crystals like one of their previous operations. They will also plan to siphon the oil from pipes from the surface of the water.
June 5: LMRP is functional. About 10,000 barrels of oil are collected, though much continues to spill.
About 15,000 barrels of oil are collect per day. Approximately 30 million cubic feet of natural gas is being burned or 'flared' per day.
Other long term efforts include drilling side 'relief wells' into the original borehole. Once the relief wells are in place, they will pump drilling mud into the hole to try and stop the flow. Also, they might replace the blowout preventer with a new one. However, this will take upwards of three months.
Please see links.
As of June 8, BP is:
1) Drilling two relief wells, which each take 3 months to drill. Approximately 90 million dollars will be sent to this effort.
2) A drillship is over the well, collecting more oil each day through a lower marine riser and cap. Rates of over 10,000 barrels per day have been reported. Drillships cost more than 15 million dollars per month, so the cost here will exceed 50 million easily.
3) Setting containment booms to slow the progress of spill. Protective barriers (berms) are being constructed and deployed.
4) Setting controlled burns of the oil where there is sufficient oil to burn (more proximal to the spill).
5) Using dispersants subsea and spraying over spill, to the extent allowed by EPA.
6) Paying contractors to pick up oil patties that are washing up on beaches and netting them where possible in marches.
7) Over 400 boats are now skimming the oil spill.
Cost to BP right now on cleanup is close or over one billion dollars.
See related links.
As of 2010 July 15, BP had replaced the LMRP cap with a 150,000 pound (68000 kg), 5.8 m cap which had completely contained the flow of oil from the main leak. It's stability is currently being tested, but it is hoped that this cap will be able to help siphon 80,000 barrels of oil per day to ships above.
Unfortunately, oil began seeping from the ocean floor elsewhere, leading to the conclusion that the main oil pipe has been damaged.
It was announced on 2010 August 4 that something called "Static Kill" is working and they are almost done with the problem.
Why did the bp oil rig explode?
There were several explosions and the rig collapsed and sank. It is located at the bottom of the ocean. It sank to one side, and it is located over 1,000 ft from the wellhead, blow out preventers and marine riser. The marine riser disconnected from the rig and dropped to the sea floor. The oil initially was leaking from three locations: (1) A tear in he marine riser as it came out of the blow out preventer (2) the marine riser lying on the sea floor and (3) the drill pipe lying on the sea floor. Using the ROV's, a shut off valve was placed over the third leak.
How many oil spills happen each year?
Per year the volume is very low. Some years we have none at all. They also tend to be cleaned up quickly.
We have a world that rarely, if ever, has any spills! We would like a world with no spills, but we also would like to be alive in this world. Without fuel, we die.
Nature also spills oil. The tar pits are an example of natural seepage.
How long will it take to clean up an oil spill?
For the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, they hope that with relief well drilling, they will kill the well within 3 months. It will be very hard to determine how long remedial actions will go on for at this point. As of today, May 2, 2010, they are taking actions of how to lessen the impact, ( dispersants, controlled burning, skimmer, floating booms) but the effectiveness remains to be evaluated.
How much oil is in the leaking BP well?
Sometimes simple questions do not have simple answers. It is sufficient to say that the estimates have a large range, and are subject to change. My comments are valid for June 11, 2010 only.
Right now, BP is capturing oil coming out of the well using the LMRP. They indicated that it is capturing about 15,000 thousand barrels of oil per day (15 MB/D).
The US Geological Survey (Marcia McNutt, task force leader) was initially assigned responsibility to identify rates. The rate question is now being addressed by three teams- See related link.
The Plume Modeling Group estimates as of June 10, 2010, the oil coming out of the riser prior to the use of the insertion tube is 25 to 30 MB/D, but then give an outside range of 20 to 40 MB/D. This is not the current rate, but what might have been flowing nearly a month ago.
Unfortunately, this isn't the rate coming out now, because they cut the marine riser in preparation for the LMRP. Everyone agrees that this should increase the rate, the the experts have given an opinion on how much this should increase the estimates.
Some of the oil coming to the surface is also being loss by evaporation, skimming and controlled burns. The experts have not yet given an opinion on how much this should decrease the estimates.
However, if we ignore the increase and all the decreases except for BP's estimate of what is captured by the LMRP, an estimate of the current spill rate using the outer range numbers is 5 to 25 MB/D. This can be converted to millions of gallons by multiplying the numbers by 0.042, yielding 0.21 to 1.05 million gpd.
Remember this does not include (1) increase due to cutting of riser and (2) evaporation, burning and skimming decreases. Using the lower range of estimates, the claim that this is the largest accidental oil spill in the US is correct, and has far surpassed the volumes spilled by the Exxon-Valdez. Also, I note that in many of the largest spills, recovered oil was nominal, so just the total spilled (from the well or tanker) was reported. In this case, the reductions as mentioned above are significant.
See link.
How many were killed during the most recent oil rig explosion?
the oilf rig explosion killed 11 people and injured 17. The explosions oil flowed for over 3 months while people were desperately trying to get it clean the explosion was in the gulf of Mexico :) hope this helps :)
What has been done to clean the oil spill up?
No, they can't fix the oil spills because oil can't dissolve in the water for example sugar can but oil can't.
I wish that answered your question. <- This is actually not a helpful answer as the question never asked if oil could dissolve in water or not. The question was if "they" could fix the oil spill.
The answer is yes and no. They are currently trying to redirect the pipes containing the oil by sawing through it and putting a plug that leads to another reservoir. The no part is that it is impossible to undo the damages done by the oil spill as it has already drastically affected the ecosystems around the Gulf.
Who should you call first if you have and oil spill or fuel spill?
At home (on land) call your local Fire Department. They will send a fire crew and a Hazmat truck.
If at sea, notify the US Coast Guard as soon as possible.
What materials clean oil spills?
You can use a lot of things to clean up oil spills but the best thing to clean up an oil spill is to use a sponge.
How much oil leaked when Montara oil spill happened?
The latest official EPA number is 4.9 million barrels or 206 million gallons. Of which, BP has stated they were able to capture 800,000 barrels using the top hat or lower marine riser, so the oil leaked into the gulf would be 4.1 million barrels (172 million gallons).
How does oil spill in endanger wildlife?
if the animals get any of the oil on their bodies that comes from another place they tend to lick it off and they seem to die
Where do most oil spills in the oceans come from?
Ships using ocean water to wash their fuel tank-----------aplus c=3
Which animals are affected by the BP oil spill?
It kills the sea birds. If the oil gets into the feathers, it damages their waterproofing, meaning the bird gets waterlogged, very cold and ulimately dies. In addition, large amounts of oil can simply clog up their ability to fly. finally, seabirds depend on fish and aquatic animals for food, so if the oil kills their food source, they starve.
How do you clean oil spills in the ocean?
One method is being used with success where there are enough people and material to sop up the oil in special mats and booms made of natural fibers, like hair.
You can help with this type of clean up, too. See the link in the related links section below for information about donations of natural fibers and hair to use in clean up. The web address will take you to the volunteer organization that is coordinating the donations of hair, wool, feathers, and nylons (hosiery), etc. to be used to help make barrier booms and to use in the clean up of beaches, birds, and animals that get oil soaked. The non-profit group will take money for buying the special netting they use in the construction of the booms, or your donations of that netting, too. You can have a "Boom B Q". A boom making party with a Bar B Q.
The site explains and shows how the fiber mats and booms work. It includes a link to a YouTube video on how to make the booms, too.
Are oil spills considered pollution?
Well technically, yes. Oil spills would be released out of boats and would kill or sicken all plants, mammals, and fish. Killing them would make it one way of being pollution. Another way of making oil spills pollution is that it would greatly harm the oceans and lakes. We couldn't swim! So there you have it, yes.
How can we get rid of the oil spill?
The oil spill will continue to increase in size if the well continues to flow oil. BP took very prompt action almost immediately after the accident in deciding to drill two relief wells. They must be drilled to the same depth as the blown out well. The problem is drilling two wells takes time. It is estimated that the blown out well will not be plugged until early August.
All other measures are good (the temporary cap, containment booms, dispersants, skimming operations, turtle and dolphin rescue, beach and marsh clean ups) and help reduce the impact.
How do you contain oil spills?
you can prevent oil spills by also preventing pollution. also before you start fueling, defueling, internal transfer etc.. make sure you check to make sure it is tight and there are no leaking glands. also you can use less electricity. so by turning off the lights in your house when your not in that room or something they are using less oil to make that electricity!!!!
What can you do to stop oil spills?
There are 3 core ways of stopping oil spills:
- Reduce the danger of current oil drilling/transportation.
- Reduce the amount of current oil drilling/transportation.
- Change the type of oil drilling/transportation to less risky methods.
All of the following answers fall under one or several of these categories:
Make an example of companies/countriesShow outrage at companies who do dangerous things to save money so that when accidents happen, they will be forced to reassess their policies for financial and business reasons. Such ways of showing outrage could include:- Publicly protesting.
- Boycotting companies and encouraging others to boycott the offending companies
- Spreading knowledge of disasters caused.
- Specifically, speaking to your government representatives.
Use of 'smart pig' technologies to determine if there are leaks in oil pipelines.
Improve existing safety standards in oil companies.
Encourage safety over profit from the top-down in the company.
National Answer:Encourage drilling by nations which have good safety records and many safety standards. The safety standards in many developing or third-world countries are often trumped by the desire for quick profits. If a nation has an oil accident, try to make an example of that country by punishing them economically, eg. don't buy goods from them until they clean up their safety standards. This will encourage these nations to force safety standards upon the corporations willing to drill. Legislative Answer:Push for elimination of oil drilling in deep water.Some suggest that allowing shallow-water drilling is the answer.
Reduction of Oil Demand:If oil demand is reduced, prices for oil will go down. This makes it less profitable for new oil wells to be drilled, so there will be less drilling, less spilling. There are many ways to reduce oil demand; see related questions for more answers.