Deepwater Horizon Failure:

Taking place on April 20, 2010, the Deepwater horizon failure also known as the Macando Well Disaster killed 11 people and leaked millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Stemming from a surge of gas that exploded through a concrete core on the rig of the drilling machine, the rig ultimately sank and allowed the oil to flow into the ocean once the oil had reached the top. This drastic failure was heard around the world due to its failure in taking advantage of the necessary precautions that were put in place to avoid a situation as such. There were also many attempts to put a hault to the spread of oil but it wasn't until September of that year when it was finally capped. The disaster essentially displayed reason behind the need for improvement in safety policies and operations in the fossil fuel industry. In my opnion, this disasters should help many people realize that alternative forms of energy should be taken into consideration along with finding an easyier way to extract oil without causing damage to the enviorment. The impact of this event caused governement officials to become more skeptical about ocean drilling and what the safest route to tak would be. Along with understanding the safety of the workers on the rig, we must also understand the effects towards the evniroment and wildlife of the surrounding area. Through ingestion, inhilation, absorbtion and any other kind of physical contact, creatures like fish and other intervertebrates were in danger. This can also harm other species that feed on these creatures and so on. After a significan amount of investigation on the problem, this failure made it more clear that more regulations need to be obtained over the oil companies nowadays to prevent this occurance. BP was, unfortunately, not doing everything they could have to stop the situation and they will be held liable. This caused many states to stop their plans in offshore drilling to avoid repeating the event. While the enviorment and people suffered from this catastrophe, the economy suffered as well when it came down to the cleanup process. This lead to an decrease in tourism and fishing which were two huge assests to increasing the economy and the market. In addtion, many engineers lost their jobs because of the huge decrease in drilling that took place. With these millions of dollars lost, we must re-evaluate our steps in finding the best source of energy to supply our planet with. These oil drilling compnaies require a lot of money which may never come back. We must always consider the cost and risks of energy sources and finding these energy sources. Not only did BP suffer great loss, but many of the workers, stocks, personnel along with there reputation suffered as well. Ultimately, these types of events should remind us that we must stay ontop of all major productions while also looking for improvement at all times. 

Cold Fusion:

Recently, scientists of conducted a new way of generating a new source of energy that could power the world with clean efficient fusion. Also known as "Cold fusion", these scientists use Energy Catalyzers to produce energy similar to nuclear reactors but without any radioactivity or hazardous waste. The power of this new source has been concluded to release 5.6 times more energy than the electrical energy output. In a similar method of nuclear reactions that take place in stars, cold fusion is a nuclear fusion occuring at temperatures for below what we normally need. Furthermore, Fusion is when the nuclei of two atoms are slammed together and if done under the correct circumstances, can be made to be cold. The main problem with nuclear fussion is that scientists have to bring the nuclei of the atoms involved in the process very close to each other which can only be done under exteme circumstances. Nuclear fusion reactors such as JET or ITER are able to do that with an extremelty powerful electric current and a magnetic forcefield but they consum more power to begin the fusion than the power they actually release. Personally, the risks i see that are associated with this technology is the fact of putting workers into these extreme temperatures to generate the fusion. As stated earlier, the only way cold fusion can exist is if it is generate in a very high or low temperature. Ultimately, putting workers in these temperatures are putting them in harms way. Also, we must consider the fact that fusion can be highly explosive and damage material easily. Since these structures would be extremely expensive to begin with, a lot of money would go to waste if anything were to happen to them. I believe that to lessen the risk seen in this technology, engineers would have to run many tests and take into consideration all the outcomes that could be generated from fusion. It is important to understand the precautions of a given test and to learn from it. Essentially, i believe the risk is not too great in my opinion because if it works, it could change the way we use our energy forever in a more safe and reliable way. Ultimately, the use of cold fusion is for the greater of good and coould replace a lot of the more dangerous and risky technologies that currently function today.

Reflection:

I found this assignment to be very interesting. I feel as though that i learned alot about the power of man made structures and how dangerous they could be if they are not used properly. Its important to understand the duties of an engineer and that they must take all precautions seriously in order to avoid events like the deepwater horrizon failure. Ultimately, while we are always looking to do things for the greater of mankind, we must always never overlook all types of situtations that may occur.