The BP Oil Spill

According to National Wildlife Federation, eight thousand birds, sea turtles and marine mammals found dead or injured within 6 months of the BP oil spill. 4.4 million barrels of oil were leaked into the water with the well being sealed on 15 July 2010, roughly 84 days after the incident took place. Billions of dollars have been spent on either cleaning up the oil spill or in forms of fines to different stakeholders. According to White House energy adviser Carl Brown, this was probably one of the worst environmental disasters the country had ever faced. USA Today has reported that Texas approximately has to deal with 675 spills a year and even if some of them are just a few hundred gallons of oil, it still adds up to a massive amount of oil being wasted and the other harms that are associated with it. Herring population collapsed after the 1989 Exxon disaster and 25 years later, it still hasn't recovered. Some of the current technologies used to clean oil spills have detergents that linger around in the water or even spread, adding to the harm already inflicted by the oil spill. While they help save the ocean from immediate threats, they certainly have long-term effects that cannot be neglected. The current technologies have not advanced a lot since the Exxon disaster and there is need for a technology that doesn't only clean up faster but also recovers most of the leaked oil.

According to Peter Griffiths, a surfactant chemistry researcher from Cardiff University, surfactants are one of the most versatile molecules known to humans. A team of scientists at the University of Bristol has been successful in creating a soap that can be controlled by magnets. According to Professor John Eastoe, the leader of the team that discover...

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...ntly. Most importantly though, it would help the sea birds that get drenched in oil during a spill would benefit most. Usually, the current surfactants take away the essential oils from a bird while taking the oil they are supposed to take with them. According to Professor Eastoe, these liquids aren’t ready to come out in the commercial industry as of this moment. This invention is only a step to future developments of similar products that can be used in household industries and industrial cleaning products.

Therefore, even though it is very early for us to comment whether the surfactant would be successful at commercial scale or not, even though it has its disadvantages but its benefits outweigh them easily and the future seems bright. There’s an anonymous saying, and it goes like “We Do Not Inherit the Earth from Our Ancestors; We Borrow It from Our Children”.