Response the Second: Doming (yes, ok, I really love that word)

This article focuses on a technological aspect of the oil spill: a set of technology that could be used to help clean up or stop the spill. The traditional methods we hear about are mostly using booms (no, not as in cannon, this actually refers to long barriers used to contain spills), dispersing the oil with chemicals, or burning (yeah, sounds like a great idea. See this problem we have? Let’s set it on fire!) Right now, they are mostly using booms to try and contain the spill as they set down a plan of action. One of these plans involves a method called the dome technique.

The dome technique, or doming, involves placing a very large steel box (125 tons, four stories tall) over the very large well gushing oil, trapping the oil in the box and consistently funneling the oil through a pipeline to a vessel on the surface. Doming hasn’t been used on such a big spill before, but they want to give it a try. The problem is, the dome is already risky, and in order for it to be effective they would actually need multiple domes. And of course, this is only a temporary solution.

You can tell by the frantic nature of the solution that this spill is a pretty big deal. In fact, this spill seems to be redefining the game in what can be done about spills. The varied approaches to dealing with the spill gives an insight into something – we really don’t know much about this spill. How it happened (the exact mechanical malfunction) is not understood, the estimate of how much oil will spill has changed and nearly doubled after the first few days. This spill is obviously a catastrophe (any map of how wide it has spread can show that, especially taking into account how deep it may go) but it seems the regulators may not know enough to pick how to properly contain it yet.

Besides being from a well-renowned and respected news source, this report comes without a hint of bias and with many direct quotes from important people involved, so to me its credibility feels sound. It isn’t making ganders that are improbable or trying to play anything up, just focusing on the task at hand – detailing one of the many options being considered to deal with this crisis.