Bp Oil Spill Causes

An oil spill is a release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, it is a form of pollution that tends to be caused by human mistakes or carelessness. When oil is being transported across the ocean though pipelines or by ships there is a lot of room for accidents to happen. Accidents involving tanks, pipelines, drilling rigs and storage facilities are very common, but the attention tends to revolve around the bigger, catastrophic spills rather than the little ones that happen frequently (Kaushik, 2016). There are on average 70 spills happening every day, mostly insignificant, but still worth preventing. (Biello, 2013)

One of the largest oil spills in history was the Gulf War Oil Spill, occurring in 1991. This oil spill was

Still to this day, the Gulf War oil spill remains the worst disaster of its kind. This spill resulted in the death of over 10 thousand sea birds and threatened sea turtles and marine mammals in the surrounding areas (Baumann, 2001). The second largest oil spill was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the Gulf of Mexico, or BP Oil Spill that occurred more recently in 2010. This oil spill was caused by a surge of natural gases resulting in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig. The explosion occurred while workers were at the rig attempting to activate the blow-out preventer, this BOP malfunctioned and the rig exploded killing 11 workers and injuring 17. Not only did this oil spill kill and injure people, but it also traumatically effected the marine life. Thousands of birds, sea turtles and marine mammals were covered in oil and the number of stranding 's and deaths of whales, dolphins, and porpoises spiked significantly. Later studies showed that half of the living dolphins in the area, that had been exposed to the oil were suffering from long

There are many factors that determine how long it takes to clean up an oil spill. How much oil is spilt and whether it is heavy or light oil are the biggest factors. Light oil is much easier to clean up than heavy oil and a lot of it will evaporate leaving less to clean up all together. The location of the spill matters as well, it is much easier and quicker to clean up a spill in the middle of the ocean than small lakes and wetlands (Altendorf). The BP Oil Spill for example, ended its clean up 3 years after it occurred. Along with removing the oil from the water, groups of experts and volunteers work to clean up animals the best they can as well, which is also a very lengthy process. Among the many approaches that are used today, there are many new technologies being worked on to eliminate oil. One example is the smart filter. This uses gravity instead of chemicals that are harmful to wildlife, to separate oil in the water. Robots are also becoming a concept to help clean up oil spills. The ones being worked on now are very similar to Roomba vacuums, they would be dropped out of helicopter into the water and would be able to separate the oil and use bacteria to degrade it (Davies,