full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Lisa Margonelli: The political chemistry of oil
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Let me tell you a little bit about the chemistry of oil in water. It is this cehrsmity that makes oil so disastrous. Oil doesn't sink, it flaots. If it sank, it would be a whole different story as far as an oil spill. And the other thing it does is it spreads out the moment it hits the wtear. It spreads out to be really thin, so you have a hard time corralling it. The next thing that happens is the light ends evaporate, and some of the toxic things float into the water column and kill fish eggs and slmaler fish and things like that, and shrimp. And then the asphaltenes — and this is the crucial thing — the asphaltenes get whipped by the waves into a fohtry emsulion, something like mayonnaise. It tlpeirs the amount of oily, mssey goo that you have in the water, and it makes it very hard to handle. It also makes it very viscous. When the Prestige sank off the coast of Spain, there were big, fnlatoig cushions the size of sofa cushions of emulsified oil, with the consistency, or the viscosity, of ciehnwg gum. It's incredibly hard to calen up. And every single oil is different when it hits water.
Open Cloze
Let me tell you a little bit about the chemistry of oil in water. It is this _________ that makes oil so disastrous. Oil doesn't sink, it ______. If it sank, it would be a whole different story as far as an oil spill. And the other thing it does is it spreads out the moment it hits the _____. It spreads out to be really thin, so you have a hard time corralling it. The next thing that happens is the light ends evaporate, and some of the toxic things float into the water column and kill fish eggs and _______ fish and things like that, and shrimp. And then the asphaltenes — and this is the crucial thing — the asphaltenes get whipped by the waves into a ______ ________, something like mayonnaise. It _______ the amount of oily, _____ goo that you have in the water, and it makes it very hard to handle. It also makes it very viscous. When the Prestige sank off the coast of Spain, there were big, ________ cushions the size of sofa cushions of emulsified oil, with the consistency, or the viscosity, of _______ gum. It's incredibly hard to _____ up. And every single oil is different when it hits water.
Solution
- floating
- chemistry
- messy
- chewing
- frothy
- floats
- triples
- water
- clean
- emulsion
- smaller
Original Text
Let me tell you a little bit about the chemistry of oil in water. It is this chemistry that makes oil so disastrous. Oil doesn't sink, it floats. If it sank, it would be a whole different story as far as an oil spill. And the other thing it does is it spreads out the moment it hits the water. It spreads out to be really thin, so you have a hard time corralling it. The next thing that happens is the light ends evaporate, and some of the toxic things float into the water column and kill fish eggs and smaller fish and things like that, and shrimp. And then the asphaltenes — and this is the crucial thing — the asphaltenes get whipped by the waves into a frothy emulsion, something like mayonnaise. It triples the amount of oily, messy goo that you have in the water, and it makes it very hard to handle. It also makes it very viscous. When the Prestige sank off the coast of Spain, there were big, floating cushions the size of sofa cushions of emulsified oil, with the consistency, or the viscosity, of chewing gum. It's incredibly hard to clean up. And every single oil is different when it hits water.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
oil spills |
8 |
supply chain |
3 |
cognitive dissonance |
3 |
health care |
3 |
minerals management |
2 |
oil spill |
2 |
oil prices |
2 |
oil industry |
2 |
santa barbara |
2 |
barbara spill |
2 |
persian gulf |
2 |
ngrams of length 3
collocation |
frequency |
santa barbara spill |
2 |
Important Words
- amount
- asphaltenes
- big
- bit
- chemistry
- chewing
- clean
- coast
- column
- consistency
- corralling
- crucial
- cushions
- disastrous
- eggs
- emulsified
- emulsion
- ends
- evaporate
- fish
- float
- floating
- floats
- frothy
- goo
- gum
- handle
- hard
- hits
- incredibly
- kill
- light
- mayonnaise
- messy
- moment
- oil
- oily
- prestige
- sank
- shrimp
- single
- sink
- size
- smaller
- sofa
- spain
- spill
- spreads
- story
- thin
- time
- toxic
- triples
- viscosity
- viscous
- water
- waves
- whipped