Oil spill clean up

Question:

Is there a way to recover spilled oil from the ocean and use it as fuel for a boat?

Hypothesis:

Oil spills are a major threat to our environment. My goal is to show a possible way to make a ship that uses the oil that has been spilled and is bad for the environment to fuel that ship.

Procedure:

1. I will be determining if a life sized ship would work as a oil fueled ship

2. I will show that by using different methods, I can see if my idea could possibly happen

3. Show how I will use existing technology for dealing with oil spills

4. Show examples of technology I want to use

5. List the advantages of my system, and show how the entire process of receiving the oil then using it as fuel for a ship will work

6. Find out how much oil is recovered from the ocean and how much is left.

Abstract:

Over the years, ways to clean up oil spills have improved. Yet still over 10%-15% of 720 million gallons (average annually) of oil from spills are left in the ocean. People think that the current way oil is picked up is good enough. I, personally do not. I think that the oil that is not collected and is left in the water will pollute and eventually destroy our oceans. I wanted to find out if there was a way to use technology to design a boat that could pick up the oil, use that oil as fuel, and clean up most of the oil left from the spill while using it to power the cleanup ship itself. If I could make this boat, the boat would make the oil recovery process more efficient.

I started my project by finding out how oil is collected now. I discovered there is a ship that the US Coast Guard uses called the “Skimmer” which picks up the oil off the surface. The recovered oil is sent to a refinery where it is converted to be used again. Once I confirmed that oil could be recovered and used again, I wanted to find out if there was a better way to use the oil (besides collecting it and sending it to be refined). I looked for a method to use the oil for fuel directly. I found out that there is a train engine that can run on recycled oil and it is called a 52 Kriegslok. I thought that maybe an engine like the Kriegslok could be changed for use as an engine for a ship. After more research, I found that there are already large ships that have engines that run on steam produced by burning oil.

Since the process to recover the oil from the ocean surface can take a very long time, they are using a lot of energy in the course of operating the recovery ships that could come from the spill itself. It seems like it would be much more efficient if the time and energy spent collecting, storing, and transporting the oil to a refinery could instead be used to power the recovery itself. At first, I wasn’t sure if the oil required to fuel a recovery ship would be so much that it was worth trying to change the way those ships are currently fueled. I found out that recovery ships stay at sea for long periods of time and that their fuel requirements are huge. I knew then that my project would work. I just needed a way to combine the skimming of boats today with this new engine. I found out how much money it costs to power current ships involved in skimming and determined how much money could be saved by a ship that is powered by the spill itself and can stay on site for as long as needed.

In conclusion, we know we are not doing a good enough job recovering oil from spills. OiI is not only lost in the spills, more resources are spent in the recovery process. I think it is possible to make a boat that can pick up oil, use it as fuel and be more efficient, stay on the job longer, and reduce the amount of oil that finds it way to the ocean floor.