Scientists Discuss BP Spill

Two members of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, which was commissioned by President Obama, discussed their findings before a packed crowd in Science Center D yesterday.

Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Cherry A. Murray, who was on the commission, began the program with a brief overview of the human and economic loss from last April’s spill, as well as the confusion that followed.

“The response plans of the entire industry were laughable,” Murray said. “Basically what it was is that they hired the same contractor to write the response plan and no one really looked at  it and they kind of went on the shelf.”

Murray said that BP’s unsatisfactory plan led to confusion over who was in charge of managing the many tasks associated with the cleanup.

Several times during the evening, Murray contrasted the oil drilling industry with the nuclear industry, at one point mentioning that unlike the nuclear industry, the oil industry does not have an independent overseeing safety agency to establish common safety regulations.

Richard A. Sears, a visiting scientist at MIT, was another member of the commission and spoke at yesterday’s event.

Both guest speakers voiced their opinions on the factors that led up to the oil spill and the failures that occurred once the cleanup began.

While Dean Murray’s thoughts on the spill often centered on managerial problems, Sears focused on the technical aspects of the spill.

According to Sears, BP used “hyper-linear thinking” to make unsound assumptions and then base further decisions on those assumptions.

Sears also said that BP did not have adequate sensory equipment to detect the problems that would later result in the spill.

“The blowout preventer is an integral piece of drilling equipment,” Sears said.

“It is there as the last line of defense.”

Blowout preventers are valves that monitor oil and gas wells.

“There’s no sensors within that blowout preventer to warn anyone on the rig floor that there is oil and gas coming in,” he said.

The evening’s program came roughly one month after the release of the final report from the commission, which Obama established in May last year.

The discussion was sponsored by the Future of Energy series and was free to the public.