how will the Oli spill be cleared up in mexico?

Question: how will the Oli spill be cleared up in mexico?

Asked by benjames123 to Alastair, Emma, Hywel, Keith, Vicki on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: General.
- Alastair Sloan answered on 17 Jun 2010:
  
  Great question Ben
  
  There are several ways the BP could clear up the oil spill, but they can’t do that until they stop the leak from the pipeline.
  
  One method is to use booms (long thin floating rods) to gather it all together and then skim the oil off the surface of the sea. Oil actually floats on the surface and will form a film a few centimeters thick. That may work if the oil slick is not too large.
  
  Another method is to use chemicals called dispersants to break down the oil. Oil will naturally biodegrade and dispersants speed up this process. But, they need to be used quickly once a spill occurs and in the Gulf of Mexico this may not work
  
  you can also use bacteria and other microorganisms to break down the oil, which is another natural biodegrading process.
  
  Finally, you could burn the off the surface oil, but this I think is the least favourable both environmentally and practically.
  
  The difficulty is that oil slicks can be different and no one method is perfect
- Vicki Stevenson answered on 17 Jun 2010:
  
  Hi Ben
  That’s a very good question!
  I’m not sure exactly what they’re doing in Mexico, but I can tell you what’s been done in similar situations.
  Oil tends to float on top of water, so booms can be floated on the water to try and contain oil, then absorbent materials can be used to soak it up. Sometimes the oil is set on fire, this produces toxic smoke so can be dangerous near the coast.
  If the oil is on the surface long enough the action of the waves and the weather can break the oil down – eventually it can evaporate if it’s left long enough. Dispersants can be added to help break this up.
- Keith Brain answered on 17 Jun 2010:
  
  Hopefully the leak will be fixed by plugging it (somehow or another). Regarding clearing up the mess – any oil that reaches the shore will be scooped up and carried away – very labor intensive. Some of the oil out of sea is controlled by enormous floating booms – oil trapped in this way can be chemically treated to break the oil up faster. Oil that escapes into the wider ocean will eventually disperse (break up and spread out so that its concentration is very low) and be broken down by micro-organisms in the sea; this is something that will probably take weeks, but doesn’t actually need us to do anything. The main problem is oil arriving on the coast before it breaks up.

Question: how will the Oli spill be cleared up in mexico?

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