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How to defend against future oil spills

Nature volume 466, pages 182–183 (2010)Cite this article

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Researchers and regulators need to keep up with the changing risks, and share information, says Arne Jernelöv, as tanker spills decline and pipeline leaks and blowouts become more of a concern.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill has received unprecedented media attention as an ecological disaster — but worse might lie ahead. The potential for future spills is huge, particularly as nations with strong ties between their government and oil industry expand drilling activities into deeper and more difficult wells. Technologies for mitigating spills are not improving fast enough, and lessons are not being learned — information from the last major blowout in the Mexican Gulf doesn't seem to have been at the fingertips of responding bodies this time around.

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  1. Arne Jernelöv is at the Institute for Futures Studies, Box 591, SE-101 31 Stockholm, Sweden. arne.jernelov@chello.at,

    Arne Jernelöv

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  1. Arne Jernelöv
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Jernelöv, A. How to defend against future oil spills. Nature 466, 182–183 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/466182a

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