A Giant, Underwater Dome Could Fix The Gulf Oil Spill
Great disasters in nature are an unfortunate part of life on Earth and various relief efforts are made by governments, organizations and individuals to help those in need. Of course, New Orleans is still feeling long-term effects since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Furthermore, there are also the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile earlier this year and relief efforts are currently in progress to help survivors of these tragic events. Now, engineers from BP are proposing a possible solution to stop the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Their idea is to construct an enormous, underwater dome that would be placed over the spill to stop the further spread of oil and provide an opportunity for the spilled oil to be sucked up later. According to the Wall Street Journal, BP hopes to have this dome built and put in place within two weeks. However, a similar attempt to stop an oil spill with an underwater dome was made in 1979 after the great spill at the Ixtoc well off the coast of Mexico. Unfortunately, this effort ended in failure because the dome couldn’t withstand the damage inflicted by rough seas and the project was inevitably discontinued.
Nonetheless, smaller oil spills have been handled through the use of an underwater dome, though the builders of those domes weren’t facing a underwater depth of five thousand feet like the BP engineers are confronted with now. Sadly, time may be running out in this situation. Even if these engineers succeed in executing their plan, it might not be in time to stop the spread of oil to the coast, which is predicted to occur in a matter of days. So, actually stopping this oil spill entirely would be nothing short of a miracle. Personally, I hope the BP engineers or someone else can find a way.
Tags: BP, Giant underwater dome, Gulf of Mexico, oil spill
