Oil Spill Response Lab – Booms, Skimmers, Dispersants and Sorbents

What it shows

Spilled oil drifts with the current and about 3% of the wind while it spreads, evaporates, mixes into the water and takes up water to form viscous mousse. This lab follows a slick for 48 hours on a 20 km by 12 km map. Booms hold oil only if the flow across them stays below about 0.7 knots, skimmers recover oil best where it is thick and the sea is calm, dispersants only move oil into the water while it is still fluid, and sorbents suit small amounts. The rates and costs are estimates for comparing methods.

How to use

Choose the oil, spill size, wind and current. Pick a tool, then tap the sea on the map to place a Boom, Skimmer or Sorbent, or to fly a Dispersant load; tap a placed item to remove it. Press Start spill and watch the slick and the percentages. Each finished run adds a row to the table and a bar to the graph. Change one thing at a time and compare recovery, oil on the shore and cost.

Parameters you can change

• Oil Light crude, Diesel, Heavy fuel oil
• Spill size 10–5000 t
• Wind speed 0–20 m/s
• Wind blows towards 0–355 °
• Current speed 0–1 m/s
• Current flows towards 0–355 °
• Boom angle to the drift 20–90 °

Questions to explore

1. Why does a boom that holds oil at 90° in a slow current fail when the current is faster, and what does a smaller angle change?
2. For light crude, how does the oil recovered by the same skimmers change with and without booms, and why?
3. When does a dispersant flight stop working, and is the oil it treats really gone?
4. Compare the cost of no response with your best plan: which plan keeps the most oil off the shore per unit of cost?