To Clean Up Giant Oil Spill, Louisiana Turns to Robots
Posted by Kelly_Bourdet on Tuesday, Apr 27, 2010
Pat Robertson once attributed New Orleans’ string of bad luck, including Hurricane Katrina, to the number of abortions performed in the US. While I’m pretty positive that this isn’t true and that Robertson is a crazy person, it does seem like New Orleans can’t catch a break.
Late last week an explosion on a Gulf Coast oil rig off of Louisiana caused the death of 11 crew members. The BP-leased rig then caught fire and sunk. Since Saturday, the oil well associated with this rig has been leaking crude oil into the gulf coast at a rate of 42,000 gallons per day and has created an oil slick measuring 48 miles by 39 miles at its widest points. It’s about to become an all-out environmental catastrophe.
Robots to the rescue! BP has been using 4 remotely controlled robots, working 50,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, to attempt to activate the 450-ton blow out preventer on the well; a preventer valve is designed to shut off an oil well in the event of an emergency such as this one. BP officials admit that this unprecedented use of their submarine robots is unlikely to succeed.
In the event that the robots are unsuccessful, relief wells will have to be dug in order to stop the flow of crude oil into the environment. The drilling of these wells could take up to two or three months, during which time the leaking oil would have a devastating impact on the delicate ecology of the Louisiana coastline. The fate of this area’s marine wildlife rests in the robotic hands of these four machines. If humans have failed Louisiana, perhaps it’s time to put our faith in robots
via Guardian
PHOTO: US Coast GuardFiled under:
