At 8:20 p.m. on the day of the explosion the pressure data suggest there was a constant flow of sea water being pumped into the drill pipe that was displacing the heavier mud system which was the primary pressure control for the well.

WSJ: The Oil Disaster Is About Human, Not System, Failure

Criticism of the disaster has sprung in part from decisions made over the design of the BP well, which used a single pipe, known as a "long string", that ran from the sea floor to the bottom of the well.

BBC: Oil spill: BP 'did not sacrifice safety to save money'

The Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering project, or SPICE, is a British academic consortium that seeks to mimic the actions of volcanoes like Pinatubo by pumping particles of sulfur dioxide, or similar reflective chemicals, into the stratosphere through a twelve-mile-long pipe held aloft by a balloon at one end and tethered, at the other, to a boat anchored at sea.

NEWYORKER: The Climate Fixers