Oil Spills 1. a. What are some chemical methods that are used to clean up an oil spill? There are many different chemical methods used to clean up oil spills. Dispersants are used to break down the oil and speed up its natural decomposition. There are three different types of dispersants. The first type is a hydrocarbon based solvent. These dispersants are sprayed onto the affected area to dilute the oil contamination. The second type of dispersants are made of alcohol or glycol solvent. These dispersants are also used to dilute the amount of oil in the sea water. Type one and type two have to be thoroughly mixed with the oil after it has been applied to ensure best outcome. The last type of dispersants are similar to the first two except these dispersants do not have to be agitated but rather the motion of the sea is enough. Solidifiers are also used to chemically remove oil. Solidifiers change the oil from a liquid to a solid. Solidifiers are sprayed onto the affected area and over time the viscosity of the oil increases. Eventually, the oil becomes semi-solid and makes removal fairly easy. b. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this method? There are many advantages and disadvantages of chemically removing oil through dispersants. Dispersants help diminish the risk of oil interfering with marine animals. They also prevent oil from going onto shore and into sensitive environments. Although dispersants have many advantages there are also many disadvantages. Dispersants are toxic to some marine mammals. Dispersants must be mixed with water to be effective. The dispersants are also less likely to work if the oil is thick and heavy. Solidifiers have many advantages when used to clean up oil. Solidified oil can be ... ... middle of paper ... ... is very good for the environment because this means that there will not be as much waste ending up in the landfills. 6. Take a stand. If you had to choose one method, which method would you use? Why? If I had to choose one of these methods, I would choose the chemical method. More specifically, I would choose solidifiers. Solidifiers change oil from a liquid to a solid. This allows the oil to be more easily removed. Solidifiers are very cost effective, safe and are non toxic. Marine animals are not affected by the solidifiers. There is also not a lot of labour expenses as personals are only needed for putting it on and taking it out. I also like solidifiers because they can be reused and recycled. Some solidifiers can be taken out of the affected area and are able to be used as oil again. If I had to choose one technique, I would choose solidifiers.
The Ocean Ranger The Ocean Ranger was an offshore exploration oil drilling platform that sank in Canadian waters 315 kilometres southeast from St. John's Newfoundland, on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland on February 15, 1982, with 84 crewmembers onboard. The Ocean Ranger was the largest semi-submersible, offshore exploration, oil drilling platform of the day. Built in 1976 by Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, it operated off the coasts of Alaska, New Jersey, Ireland, and in November 1980 moved to the Grand Banks. Since it was so big, it was considered to have the ability to drill in areas too dangerous for other rigs.
Barlaz says, “Recycling still causes some emissions” (62). However recycling starts at home with the consumer. When people go out to buy groceries, clothes, food or any other things they should think about the purchases before they buy them. Consumers buy groceries but they chose to use plastic or paper bags. Instead of using those they could use reusable cloth bags. Some people would rather use the plastic or paper bags. If they do then they should recycle those bags instead of just throwing them away in the garbage and hoping they get in the recycling area. Recycling cans and glass jars saves energy needed to make new ones. People can save energy by recycling other things like paper and plastic. Humes says, “Recycling aluminum cans saves ninety-six percent of the energy needed to produce aluminum from bauxite ore” (260). Also, “recycling the glass jars and bottles saves twenty-one percent of the energy needed to make new glass” (260). So if everyone could start recycling their cans, glass, paper and plastic that would save us a lot of energy that would need to be used to make new ones. If we can start recycling at home that will make things much easier on the waste management plants and our world. If people don’t want to recycle at their homes and separate everything they can just put all their trash in the can and it will eventually be separated and recycled. As people become more educated about
Coast Guard responded to the oil spill. The Coast Guard initiated the cleaning of Prince William Sound, by shutting down the flow if inbound and outbound ships at the port. Alyeska assumed the initial responsibility of cleaning the oil spill. Alyeska had the responsibility to clean up an oil spill if one happened in the port of Prince William Sounds. The clean-up of the oil was terrible, and some of the techniques for cleaning the oil actually did more damage than good. The methods of cleaning up the oil was to burn it, mechanical clean up, chemical dispersants, and hot water pressure on the rocks. Later we found out that the hot water treatment on the rock actually didn’t help at all, and that it destroyed the microorganisms and
On April 20, 2010, the Macondo wellhead BP pipe leaked crude oil and gas on the ocean floor into the Gulf of Mexico 42 miles off the Louisiana coast (Gulf Oil Spill). This oil spill is known as the largest spill in U.S. history. The pipe was located 5,000 feet underwater where there are temperatures just above freezing and extremely high pressures (Gulf Oil Spill). Oil spewed from this pipe non-stop for 87 days (Gulf Oil Spill). About twenty percent of it ended up on the ocean floor or on the surface (Gulf Oil Spill). Since it’s hydrophobic, the oil on the surface spreads out and forms slicks. These slicks greatly affect ecosystems and animals. The oil that didn’t end up on the floor or surface hovered in the middle of the ocean, forming layers of oil (Gulf Oil Spill). All 200 million gallons of crude oil mixed throughout the ocean and affected coastal and deep-sea sediments (Gulf Oil Spill). Although the pipe was capped on July 15, 2010 (Gulf Oil Spill), much of the oil still remains on the Gulf floor today.
There are many causes to petroleum in b the oceanic environment. Oil naturally seeps into the ocean but the natural concentrations have been greatly exceeded. Shipping oil from one place to another contributes the most to oil in the ocean. The crude oil from transportation b is discarded into the ocean while cleaning bilges, which are the lowest compartment in ships, and transferring oil from tank to tank at sea. “Disasters like shipwrecks, oil tanker accidents, and offshore oil rigs fires continue to this problem, as does the disposal of urban garbage into oceans, dumping of waste oil by passing ships, commercial coastal and off-shore entertainment, and deep-sea industrial and nuclear waste dumps”(“Marine Water Quality”). Another large polluter is the oil industry. Tanker ports and refineries are located by the coast for shipping purposes. The coastal areas receive considerable damage from the spills. “Large numbers of seabirds are killed annually, their oil-matted plumage making flight impossible and exposing them to hypothermia. Oil-soaked fur of marine mammals loses its water repellency, also leading to death by hypothermia. Ingestion of oil by fishes, birds, and mammals may also result in death”(“Marine Pollution”). Another source of petroleum pollution is from the city streets. Oil runoff from urban streets and sewers enter waterways and the ocean. Oil has a very long term ecological impact on the ocean and the marine ecosystems. “The presence of oil in marine waters severely degrades water quality by clogging an animal’s feeding - structure, killing larvae, and blocking available sunlight for photosynthesis”(“Marine Water Quality”). Petroleum pollution has been a large problem for a very long period of time. “As early as 197p, oceanographic ecologists noted that they could rarely pull a net through the surface of the ocean without collecting some form of tar or
Swift, W.H, . C.J. Touhill, W.L. Templeton, and D.P. Roseman. 1969. Oil spillage prevention, control, and restoration—state of the art and research needs. Washington, D.C.: The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.
... Overall I expect that in ten years time we will almost no longer see oil covered birds and beaches and we will be able to resume the way life was before the oil rig exploded. The oil spill that took place in spring 2010 was a tragedy, but we can’t dwell on the past. As a nation, we have the responsibility of moving on and finding a solution to the problem. Even though at this point in time the government is not allowing the people to participate in the clean up of the oil, we can still contribute via small actions such as volunteering to clean up oiled wildlife or clean up your local beach and hopefully in time they will allow us to provide larger contributions.
Do you hate seeing litter on the streets, or seeing and smelling heaps of garbage sitting, and rotting away? Humans recycling more will help to reduce this. We throw many things that can be recycled. Recycling glass, plastics, paper, and metals will reduce solid waste dumped into the ecosystem daily. “96 percent of U.S. plastic, and 50 percent of its paper, goes into landfills. Mexico, not exactly a bastion of environmental awareness, recycles more glass than the U.S.” (Alice Horrigan 1). That’s 96 percent of the millions of tons of plastic, which will outlive most of us in a landfill that we could recycle and keep it out of our landfill. Paper is made from trees, if we recycle it, we can decrease our rate of ugly deforestation and the destruction of animal habitats. When paper gets to the landfill, it is guaranteed to get wet. The wetness and decomposition of paper atracts mold spores, which produce an odor and are potentially bad for your health. Also k...
The waste incineration benefits us because as we burn the waste it creates energy to heat our homes and generate electricity.
Not only benefiting us, our involvement in making compost benefits the environment also. As if we already don’t have enough garbage filling our landfills, we certainly don’t need our yard waste to waste any more space when we can so easily handle it ourselves. Compost helps reduce the volume it could contribute to landfills. Why put it into the earth that way, when we can enrich it by turning our yard waste into a natural fertilizer? It also helps prevents us from purchasing pesticides and chemical fertilizers that could further damage the environment and the animals around us.
Transportation is another benefit of oil. Of course we all know that we use oil to run our vehicles, but that is not the only benefit. Oil is also used in combustion engines.
Most importantly, it saves lives. We should all learn the importance of recycling. For example, some sea lions won?t get stuck in plastics if we recycle. We would also breathe better air. We can recycle and aluminum can and put it back on the shelf for something useful. If we just leave it in the landfill, it?ll decompose and it?ll be of no use. It?ll also reduce pollution or else it?ll make a new one.
Oil Spills disturb the environment and produce a threat to the animals living in that area. Both ships and refineries release oil into the rivers and oceans which leads to the damage and death of plants and animals (Leggett 25). Exxon Valdez, a famous tanker that split in Alaska, spilled eleven million gallons of crude oil into the oceans, damaging everything around it (Earle 145). A Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and released sixty thousand barrels of oil each day (Hollar 20). World War II ships exploded bombs and released diesel fuel which turned beaches black for months. Moreover, oil engulfs plants and blocks the sunlight from nourishing them. It also smothers animals, suffocating them with a painful death (Leggett 24). Sea otters and seabirds are two of the main animals affected by oil spills (Earle 146). Animals such as deer, bears, and bald eagles died a much slower death because they eat the animals from beaches that were covered in oil (Leggett 39). If humans do not clean up the spilled oil right away, it mixes with the water and becomes much harder to eliminate from the sea (39). Furthermore, oil spills
The United States produces “about 8.25 billion tons of solid wastes each year” (Russell 1). People do not realize the impact they have on our planet and environment. When people throw anything in the trashcan, they are contributing to the destruction of our planet. The number landfills in the United States are decreasing, but the amount and volume of waste being thrown into the new landfills is increasing (Russell 4). Because of this escalating amount of garbage, Methane which contributes to global warming is an outcome of these landfills (Russell 7). As a result, our planet is suffering because of this epidemic. The garbage being put in the landfills could be recycled, but not enough businesses, ...
The oil refinery converts crude oil into valuable products and supplies. These products are made and sent to many countries abroad, in which are transported on land or along rivers and canals. Crude oil is then arranged and categorized into segments by fractional distillation. Raw crude oil, or unprocessed crude oil, is not normally beneficial in most industrial applications. Low sulfur crude oil has been valuable as a burner fuel to construct steam for the force of seagoing vessels. The lighter elements have the ability to construct explosive and dangerous vapors in the gas tanks. There are extremely hazardous, and are often used in war ships. The remaining hydrocarbon molecules are filtered from crude oil and used towards lubricants, feedstock, plastics, and fuels.