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

  1. floating
  2. chemistry
  3. messy
  4. chewing
  5. frothy
  6. floats
  7. triples
  8. water
  9. clean
  10. emulsion
  11. 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

  1. amount
  2. asphaltenes
  3. big
  4. bit
  5. chemistry
  6. chewing
  7. clean
  8. coast
  9. column
  10. consistency
  11. corralling
  12. crucial
  13. cushions
  14. disastrous
  15. eggs
  16. emulsified
  17. emulsion
  18. ends
  19. evaporate
  20. fish
  21. float
  22. floating
  23. floats
  24. frothy
  25. goo
  26. gum
  27. handle
  28. hard
  29. hits
  30. incredibly
  31. kill
  32. light
  33. mayonnaise
  34. messy
  35. moment
  36. oil
  37. oily
  38. prestige
  39. sank
  40. shrimp
  41. single
  42. sink
  43. size
  44. smaller
  45. sofa
  46. spain
  47. spill
  48. spreads
  49. story
  50. thin
  51. time
  52. toxic
  53. triples
  54. viscosity
  55. viscous
  56. water
  57. waves
  58. whipped