is significant to battling something of this magnitude. the imagery can be crucial when determining when and where to deploy boats and people. throughout much of the flight, there was an undeniable sense of futility. one of the vessels out there trying to clean the oil off the surface. infrared, oil hotter than water is represented by all the white. here is the white boat right here, the dark pathway here, that is sea water cleaned of oil. as you can see, the further back you go from the skimming boat, the oil now bleeding in the path. oil all over the place here. for two straight months now, the oil from b.p. deepwater horizon disaster spewed to the gulf. flotilla of ships sits above the well. large discovery enterprise siphoning oil on board and turning off the methane gas coming off the flight. this is the evergreen burner, torching collecting crude on scene. overall for this crew, the
for starters you produce a lot of carbon dioxide. if you are into the whole global warming debate. crude oil crude mixture if you don t control all of the stuff that goes into the burner you get unintended by products come out. some that comes out is sulfur dioxide which is acid rain. relative to the big picture this isn t a whole lot of sulfur dioxide coming out. the number one drawback with this burner is simply volume. this thing can burn off 15,000 barrels per day. you are leaking 60, shep. shepard: mike tobin live tonight in chicago. warning of a new danger in the gulf region, a scientist from texas a&m reports huge qualities of methane gas coming out of the well. the has 8 times the amount of methane and typical oil deposits. the concern is that all that methane could suffocate sea life and create dead zones in the water where nothing can live. a bp spokesman says workers are
the evergreen burner is used to burn off the gushing crude. such a small fraction, it feels weird talking about it. mike tobin is on it. it s like the fuel injector in a car, designed to burn things efficiently. it shoots out the crude into a mist and hits it with super heated air. that s how you get the plume of flame you ve seen. if it works, the mixture is right. itit burns efficiently and the products are carbon dioxide and water. real drawbacks. there are, you re producing carbon dioxide. when you re talking about crude oil, it s like a smoothie of stuff that rotted a zillion years ago. you can t control the products coming in or out. you produce sulfur dioxide.
remove at his estimate 99% of the oil from the water. bp executives tell us they hope the devices can eventually handle almost 130,000 barrels a day. that s about twice the estimated amount gushing from the well right now. bp is also capturing and burning off some of that crude but environmentalists say that s just transferring the pollution from the water to the air. mike tobin with us tonight. how does this burner work, mike? well, this burner is called an evergreen burner. it works a lot like the fuel inject tore of a car. the crude oil is forced through novels that turn into novels turned into a fine mist. it creates big plume of flame that you see now in so much of the video. when it s burning efficiently. when all the mixture is right, 99% of what you proves by burning this crude oil is just carbon dioxide and water, shep. shepard: environmentalists say there is a downside to getting rid of the oil this way. certainly not perfect.
that miss with super-heated air. that creates the big flame plume you see. what the mixture is right, when it is done right it burns efficiently and the primary products come off this thing are carbon dioxide and water in the form of steam. shannon: mike, we ve already heard some complaints. is there a downside to this technology? reporter: there are a lot of down sides. the primary, first one that you re producing a lot of carbon monoxide. i don t want to get into whole global warming argument but carbon dioxide is villain in global warming. crude oil is rotten, prehistoric gunk. you will never end up with a perfect mix of crude oil. you therefore produce unintended products like sulfur dioxide which gives us acid rain. if you look at big picture, you re producing relatively small amounts of sulfur dioxide with this thing. the big draw back seems to be volume. this evergreen burner has the capacity to burn about