Oil-Spotting Blimp Arrives In the Gulf

GAMP writes "A Navy blimp to assist oil skimming operations will be arriving to the Gulf Coast Wednesday evening, according to the Unified Command Joint Information Center. 'The airship will operate relatively close to shore, primarily supporting skimmers to maximize their effectiveness,' said US Coast Guard Capt. Kevin Sareault."

Comments

Re:Remediation Theatre

[nido]

As someone stated the other day in my thread, most of the cleanup efforts are little more than a Public Relations campaign. Skimming has, so far, collected a astonishingly small amount of oil.

Gulf recovery effort falls short of BP's promises: Skimming operations have removed average of less than 900 barrels daily

... In a March report that was not questioned by federal officials, BP said it had the capacity to skim and remove 491,721 barrels of oil each day in the event of a major spill.

As of Monday, with about 2 million barrels released into the gulf, the skimming operations that were touted as key to preventing environmental disaster have averaged less than 900 barrels a day.

Skimming has captured only 67,143 barrels, and BP has relied on burning to remove 238,095 barrels. Most of the oil recovered -- about 632,410 barrels -- was captured directly at the site of the leaking well.

This is obviously due to the huge disparity between the size of a fishing boat and the vastness of the Gulf of Mexico.

I'm going to pimp my proposal again: Send the Enterprise, use the nuclear reactors to power air compressors that will pump air (oxygen) into the oil plumes in the depths of the ocean. The oxygen feeds the bacteria that eat crude oil.

The Enterprise would be stationed in the vicinity of the Macondo Prospect site (where the Deepwater Horizon went down). Bubble fences would circle the wellhead at, say, 1 mile and 2 miles, or would be concentrated in whichever direction the oily currents tend to flow.

And I was just thinking today: coastal communities could experiment with running bubble fences some distance from their beaches. These compressors could be powered by the grid. Booms seem to be a big joke - look what happened when that little storm blew threw.

All the cleanup efforts are experimental, so the President ought to order at least one aircraft carrier to the Gulf. If it helps, send the rest of the nuclear navy. :)