BP Oil Spill Recovery, and Atomic Power

I can't help but think, as I watch the ongoing recovery efforts by BP down in the Gulf of Mexico, about the recovery efforts at the SL-1 plant in the early 60's. In both cases, the actual technology to combat the situation had to largely be invented right there on site. Prior preparation in both cases had, or now has, proven totally inadequate once the real thing hits and minds from literally everywhere converge now as then to solve all of the problems encountered essentially simultaneously.

One must think that this event in the Gulf is the oil industry's SL-1 accident equivalent. We must certainly hope that the oil industry doesn't go on to have a TMI and/or Chernobyl parallel as well. One wonders how it could.. and thinking further about the environmental impact, this event could well be the oil industry's Chernobyl sized maximum source term event as an opener.

See my earlier post for a link to the BP undersea ROV live video feed.