The Geek Church

Currently, the BP oil spill remains at large as a serious threat to the natural environment surrounding it in the Gulf Coast. Right now, more than one hundred and fifty gallons of oil is still flowing out of control. Although beaches are likely to be affected first, the wetlands of Louisiana are also in considerable danger. In comparison to sand, swamp areas and weeds would be greatly contaminated by the oil spill with little hope of ever being cleaned up. However, designers at a firm in Florida called Greenboat Scientific have devised a solution to oil pollution in swamps.

They’ve developed a watercraft called the Weedoo workboat. Initially, this vessel was created as a eco-friendly alternative to the gas-powered airboats commonly used in the South. The watercraft has been redesigned to carry several times its own weight in oil-soaked weeds, surface oil and other forms of swamp contaminants.

The Weedoo is made of ten foot lightweight fiberglass and foam and runs on a propulsion system powered by a rechargeable battery. Furthermore, this watercraft is operated with fingertip joystick controls, allowing it to maneuver through the shallow areas of the wetlands with great ease. The vessel actually works like a farm tractor. It has a quick-change system that’s able to connect to a variety of additional equipment as attachments, which include the extractor conveyor system, a forklift and a swing-arm cutter.

Greenboat is preparing to mass produce Weedoo waterboats by the hundreds and they expect to make one per day at this time. In addition to stopping oil pollution in the swamps, mass production of the watercraft would also provide employment for Florida residents afflicted by the oil spill. Thus, the creation of the Weedoo seems to be a big step in the right direction for solving the oil spill crisis.

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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.

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