May 16th
The Science of Oil
Even though the oil industry is incredibly competitive and lucrative, it’s amazing that the combined knowledge of all parties responsible for the oil spill in Louisiana has amounted to a big metal cap to try to plug the leak.
After the initial failed attempt, which yielded the spontaneous creation of methane ice around the pipeline, it was obvious the entire rescue effort was being spearheaded by business executives and not scientists.
Now, the president, ostensibly sick of the bickering and band-aid approaches, has assembled a team of actual scientists to go Cold War-style on this oil spill.
As part of these efforts, I hope the team manages to develop a failsafe way to prevent spills like this from happening in the future. Our dependence on oil won’t be changing anytime soon, so any solution that makes drilling cleaner and safer is great.
