The world's scientific community has so far not come up with a minimal-risk solution to plug the giant underwater gusher spreading oil across the northern Gulf of Mexico and threatening to poison, in the worst-case scenario, all the oceans across the world. The spill is getting progressively more serious by the day and alarmed oil-drilling experts fear that doomsday could be only days away if any one of the rudimentary efforts to plug or contain the leak backfires and causes a sea floor collapse. The challenge of plugging the leak is beyond all the technological knowhow and experience mankind has today. What we have is a hole in the ocean floor 5,000 feet (1,524 meters) underwater and about 160 km offshore, which has been spewing unchecked as much as 60,000 barrels a day since April 20. (BP executives reportedly gave US lawmakers this revised higher figure last week, much higher that their initial estimate of 5,000 b/d.) BP was attempting to access deep oil “right on the edge of what human technology can do,” when the catastrophe occurred. They went down about 5,000 feet (1,524m) deep, drilled another 30,000 feet (9,144m) into the crust of the earth, and hit an oil-gas pocket of such high pressure that it burst all the safety valves right up to the surface, causing the three-to-four-acre-large drilling rig to explode and sink. Eleven crew members on the rig were killed in the blowout. The rig, Deepwater Horizon, was leased by BP from Transocean. Halliburton was doing the deepwater work. Experts fear that we're facing possibly the greatest disaster mankind will ever see. Stopping the spill will take a spectacular feat of engineering, especially since it entails going down 5,000 feet underwater where the very high pressure environment “in the blackness of inner space” is not familiar territory for technological feats. The deposit is said to be either the largest or the second largest oil deposit ever found, capable of producing 500,000 b/d for 10 or 15 years. It is massive, covering an offshore area of something like 25,000 square miles (64,750 sq.km). One blogger said Natural Gas and Oil is already tapping into the deposit from as far inland as Central Alabama and way over into Florida and even over to Louisiana as almost as far as Texas. The deposit's natural gas component is reportedly estimated at 10,000 times its oil content. Its central pressure is said to be 165,000-170,000 PSI. In short, it's a huge bomb in the nucleus of the earth. That's why BP can't blow up the leak-site with torpedoes or nuclear weapons as some people have suggested in the hope of sealing up the hole. Last weekend, efforts to place the huge containment device over the rupture and funnel leaking oil to a waiting drillship failed because of formation of gas hydrates – a slushy blend of frozen gas and water – that clogged the opening at the top of the chamber. Now BP is looking into using a smaller containment chamber, nicknamed a “top hat”, that would cut down on the amount of water mixing with the gas coming out of the pipe. Methanol would then be injected into the flow to further inhibit the formation of hydrates. Another option is to try a “junk shot” to plug up the leaking well from above by injecting shredded-up tires, golf balls and other material into the blowout preventer. But this could create a pressure buildup at the wellhead, leading to an another undersea explosion that might, like the nuclear-bomb option, also destabilize the cap rock that is holding the deposit together. For now, it's only the pipe that's leaking; an open well would mean a far bigger catastrophe. The only real fix so far is approximately three months away when BP is expected to complete drilling a relief well to intersect with the leaking well 13,000 feet (3,962m) beneath the seafloor. The plan is to then push thick mud and concrete down the relief well so as to plug up the underwater leak for good. On the surface, coastal US communities will have to deal with the spill for months or years. The entire fishing industry in the US may be devastated by the oil pollution. President Obama has already called off his ambitious offshore drilling plans to wean the US away from dependence on Middle East oil. BP will have to shell billions of dollars to clean up the mess. The US government will lose billions more and its recession-hit economy may never recover now, causing another global crisis. Of all the hare-raising ideas being bandied about to help contain the crisis, here's one reported by the BBC earlier this week. It involves each and every one of you who has a thick mop of hair on your head. Hair, as you know, collects oil, which is why we have to regularly head-wash. This property of hair (and fur such as sheep wool) was found useful in helping mop up previous oil spills – the Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco Bay in 2007, in the Philippines in 2006 and in the first Iraq war in 1991, when retreating Iraqi soldiers released million tons of oil into the Arabian Gulf. The idea is to stuff hair and fur into nylon tights to make sausage-shaped booms to string out along beaches along the US coast and mop up the oil slick. Personally, I love this idea because I'm balding. Given the potential size of the BP oil spill – and if they don't blow up the world with their frightening attempts to fix the undersea leak – we could well have a bald, bald world for a long time to come, which means I'll have a better chance of getting by with my shiny pate. – SG Feedback: [email protected] __
