Oil pollution Flashcards
Causes of oil pollution
-ships bumping into oil
-oil spills-pipelines, barges, storage facilities, shipping tanks
-damage to pipelines
-discharge of oil from washing out of shipping containers
-balance water ships take, when water pumped out oil can also be pumped out
-build up of pressure own trial spilling (if not got correct info of volume of water)
-natural production of non petroleum hydrocarbons by marine plankton
Effects of oil pollution
-in sea, polluted water kills aquatic organisms
-damage to coral, blocks out light to can not photosynthesise killing aquatic organisms
-less dissolved O2 on sea
-production of sea food polluted
Prevention measures
-Improved tanker operations:
•strict with shipping roots, keeping them away from land
•designated shipping routes so in deep enough water
•improved navigation systems, use of GPs avoiding collisions
•ships allow us AIS (automatic identification system) tracks position of ship to avoid collisions
•keeping oil tanks and water balance tanks separate to avoid mix up
-safe disposals of oil tanks
Improves tanker design
-most new ships made with double null (second layer)
-so if outer layer broke second layer there for safety
-twin engines, twin etc
so if something fails the ship doesn’t sink or drift to land and spill oil
-having oil water tanks separate, not using them interchangeably
clean up of oil spills
natural
natural remediation- bioremediation-bacteria naturally breaks down oil
-not fast but thorough and can be enhanced
clean up of oil spill techniques
-containment booms: barrier below surface has a skirt and collects oil
-polymerising agents: attract soil, adsorb oil, oil particles clumps together and becomes a solid so easily adsorbed
-skimmers: skims top layer of oil of ocean
-bioremediation: bacteria that naturally breaks down oil
-absorbents: wood staw products, absorb oil and leave water
-dispersants: washing up liquid, break up oil, doesn’t make it disappear but reduces effects
