There’s a new whirlwind solution to oil disasters. Massive spills like the Exxon Valdez in 1989 and Deepwater Horizon in 2010 are difficult to clean up and can cause catastrophic ecological damage – and there are thousands of incidents like them each year. The options for dealing with the crude oil are either to burn it and produce high levels of smoke and pollution in the process, or leave it to destroy habitats and kill wildlife. Now, scientists may have found a way to burn the oil without releasing excessive emissions: by creating raging fire tornadoes.
Fire tornadoes, or fire whirls, offer the “potential for cleaner, more efficient burns with reduced emissions in environmental applications like oil spill remediation”, said a study published in the journal Fuel. These flames spread upwards rather than outwards, acting like a “natural turbocharger, sucking in oxygen and creating a flame that burns hotter, faster and far more efficiently than fire pools”, said a release about the study. A blazing tornado can also produce 40% less soot and consume up to 95% of the fuel.
Scientists tested this method in a controlled experiment during which they “built 316-foot walls and a rough triangle, and generated a controlled fire whirl that reached 17 feet high,” said news website Vice. The tornado burned through the oil 40% faster than the on-site method and was able to “destroy the particles that form thick smoke plumes”, reducing the amount of emissions, said the release.
This research could also be applied to other uses, like “helping engineers design high-efficiency combustion systems” or to “better predict and control wildfire behaviour on land”, according to science website Earth.com. “By understanding the physical laws that govern fire whirls, we can harness their power beyond oil spill remediation,” said Elaine Oran, a professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M who led the study. | 
