All That Oil: Two Hundred Olympic Swimming Pools
If you want to do something with all the oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico so far this year, you could consider storing it in several regulation Olympic swimming pools—two hundred, to be precise, but let’s start with just one.
Obviously, you’ll need an empty regulation Olympic swimming pool. Such a pool will be fifty meters long, twenty-five meters wide, and two meters deep (your head should come up just below the top of the pool.), As a reference, your pool holds roughly 660,430 gallons of water (or oil). So, how to fill it? You could use a garden hose, but it’ll take you a while; at ten gallons per minute, it would be almost 46 days before you finished. Fortunately, you are not filling it with water, but with an undersea gusher of oil flowing at around 60,000 barrels per day. Still, if I do my math correctly, I hope you have about six hours and twenty minutes handy. Point your undersea gusher directly at the empty pool, lock the door, and go grab a coffee. Take a long nap, watch five episodes of The Wire, and make your way back to the Olympic swimming center.
At this point, your pool should be about full (be sure to have another regulation Olympic swimming pool handy so you don’t get any on the ground!) In a few minutes, when your pool is topped off with thick crude oil, you will have accomplished your first goal. So, you know, move on. Do that again. And again. And again. And again, and again, and again.
And again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.
That should be two hundred regulation Olympic swimming pools full of crude oil. At this rate, I hope you have some more set aside. Come back next week for more ideas on what to do with all that oil!
