May 7, 2010 | Louis

To stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP intends to lower a house-sized funnel over the leaks, using remote-controlled subs, and pump the oil into a tanker.

If this makes it sound easy, then think again. Simon Boxall from the National Oceanography Centre says that extracting oil from almost a mile down is totally untried, and the leak ‘is as easy to get to as if it were on the Moon’.