Sunday, June 20, 2010

How Long Will It Take To Clean Up the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico? - An Engineering Calculation

Click on each page to view the calculations.  Here is the summary, or conclusion that can be inferred from the calculations:
If the oil reservoir contains 2 billion gallons and the well leaks at a rate of 1 million gallons/day, it will take 2000 days (5.47 years) to empty the reservoir. If the rate of shoreline fouling is 100 cubic inches of tar and oil per square yard of beach per every 10 days, then it will take 26,260 days to clean the Gulf (71.9 years) if the only method of tar and oil removal is to clean the beach.  Read the details below:

No comments: