LSU gets millions in BP oil spill money to study how to make Gulf drilling safer
Louisiana researchers are getting the lion’s share of $10.8 million of BP oil settlement money to figure out ways to make offshore drilling safer and prevent disasters like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine announced the distribution of the $10.8 million in awards on Thursday, with LSU engineering professor Wesley Williams claiming the largest share.His $4.9 million project will study how to prevent oil rigs from accidentally tapping into underground pockets of natural gas. When the flammable gas gets into the pipes, it expands and can blow out the top, which may cause an explosion the very thing that happened in the Deepwater incident, Williams said.To protect the environment and.....