This story begins in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when several scientists, well ahead of their time, reported results from lab experiments showing that light rapidly transforms oil compounds into other chemical compounds. Oil spill scientists don’t get many “clinical trial” opportunities to test procedures to clean up spills. That’s why we have clinical trials to test the efficacy and safety of drugs on people. Promising drugs or methods that work on mice in the lab don’t always translate into cures for humans. The scientists examined Deepwater Horizon much the way medical scientists study the progress of a disease in search of a cure. “The answer really boils down to not having an opportunity to study oil oxidation in the field.” “People want to know: ‘How did all the guidance documents get it wrong?’ ” Ward said. In addition, new tools and protocols may be in order to clean up previously neglected oil compounds that have been oxidized by sunlight. The new findings mean that sunny or cloudy days make a difference on the effectiveness of chemical dispersants used to break up oil into tiny droplets and reduce the amount of oil that reaches sensitive coastlines with valuable fisheries and tourist industries. “In all these documents, sunlight is assumed to play a negligible role in the fate of oil spilled into marine environments. “Whether the documents were written by government agencies, the oil industry, or the National Academy of Sciences, they all pretty much say the same thing: Oil floating on the sea surface is going to spread fast, some will evaporate, and the rest will be eaten by microbes,” he said. When oil spills occur, responders follow guidance documents to select which tools to use under which conditions, Ward said. Those chemical changes may substantially change how people should approach cleanups.
Light energy rapidly oxidizes oil floating atop the ocean-dramatically altering the chemistry of oil compounds. In this case, twenty researchers in his lab and collaborators from more than a dozen other institutions followed a trail of clues like detectives to solve a mystery.Įight years later, following that trail, Reddy and his WHOI colleague Collin Ward believe they have found a key piece of compelling evidence that has been overlooked in the past: Sunlight plays a critical role in oil spills. “Sometimes we look at an oil spill like a crime scene,” said WHOI marine chemist Chris Reddy.
Some scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) took advantage of the spill as a grand experiment-one that could never be done intentionally or simulated in a lab-to try to figure out better ways to combat oil spills in the future. This unprecedented oil spill provided a unique opportunity to learn what really happens to oil in the real world-to see what happens to oil when all the forces of nature act on it and when people intervene to clean it up. But many scientists found silver linings-a way to extract some good from a bad situation. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was unquestionably a tragic disaster.
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