Kevin Costner shows off his Oilspill Clean-up Machine. Read more about the invention. Some scientists say that, although it may help, this device is not the complete solution to the problem.
– via southernfriedscience
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Miss Cellania
I changed this to a better-quality video of the same report. I also added some links for further reading.
dragonmamma/naomi
I think it’s astounding in it’s simplicity. I can’t believe all the snippy, insulting comments I’ve read about it on various websites. He’s actually DOING something constructive, not just yapping.
ragazzambulante
ya know, i get really frustrated with these scientists who say that a solution is only a “drop in the bucket”. if it even has the slightest chance of working, try it out, because it’s better than twiddling your thumbs while the problem gets worse.
Fabio
I notice that all whom come to Mr. Costner’s defense are Women…
And a drop in the bucket is just that… We so far have disabled Mother Nature that the true ramifications cannot be comprehended and will take sometime to eh… Sink in.
A Nuke would of taken care of this a long time ago with less environmental collateral then what is present, without even thinking of what is to come!
… Here’s hoping that Mr. Costner saves the World, literally, as ragazzambulante implies by her comment.
Really!
Kalel
A nice help in many situations, I’m sure, but how long would it take it to process half the volume of the Gulf of Mexico?
pyrit
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Please support your local inventors today! Thank You!
Twist
Frankly, I think it’s terribly irresponsible to do nothing. So what if it won’t fix everything? At least it will help some.
Fabio, I wonder what relevance the fact the people defending Costner are women has anything to do with anything.
Lola
I think it’s great but until the leak is stopped it will be like using a kitchen sponge to soak up a flood.
MJ Druitt
He put 24 million of his own money into this, and it’s a viable idea. If it works, (and it looks to be the best thing going), I hope he makes a billion dollars of of it. He put his money where his mouth is, and you gotta respect that. He believes in what he’s doing. Good on ya Kevin.
robert
It is important for scientists to say that this is a drop in the bucket, because if they don’t then the public might get the false impression that this solves the problem. Insignificant solutions like this distract us from more significant solutions. I dispute the idea that even a little can help; It’s like the difference between two atomic bombs on the same city and one.
E-fizzle.
Credit for trying. Might be minimal, but then again, if there’s some accepted way to handle off shore oil decapitations, please let’s use that.
jill
As they said in Jaws…”We are going to need a bigger boat”…(IE: A bigger oil separating machine)
c0ldfish
THANK YOU ROCKY
THANK YOU
i was sure every comment on this would be water world related
how are you the first person??
Vonskippy
This isn’t a drop in the bucket – it’s not even a drop of sweat on the guy carrying the bucket.
200 gallons per minute = 12,000 gallons a hour
At that snails pace, an Olympic Sized Pool would take 2.25 DAYS (55 hours) of continuous operation to get 97% clean.
So how many pools worth of ocean water is on the coast?
And how do you keep the “cleaned” water from remixing with the dirty water?
If you’re going to expect actors to save the planet – best go with Bruce – at least he was willing to die trying.
Sir Vertual
will ‘GIANT’ Protein Skimming assist in removing the oil from the the water’s surface areas?…These would be relatively inexpensive and could run 24-7 removing huge amounts of contaminants…It seems (to me) that numerous (& titanic) Skimmer units placed close to the marsh areas could (at least) remove a great deal of all incoming matter…I equate it to the ‘nasty-foam’ you see on beaches everywhere, which was produced simply by the wave’s churning action of introducing air into the water’s surface area…Enormous amounts of water pumped-drained into huge columns and mixed with compressed air would eliminate huge amounts of contaminates before it reaches shorelines…(???)
Davideo
Think of it as a model. Using centrifugal force might be the answer. This prototype doesn’t have the power to do the whole job, but it might be a step in the right direction, and lead to a solution. A calamity on this scale will have no easy quick fixes. After all, BP just opened Pandora’s Box.
Sir Vertual
IT WORKS!…In my (lil’) experiment:
Because the oil is already lighter than the (salt)water and has ‘cohesive-properties’, it was ‘easily’ removed from my saltwater with the use of minimal ‘PROTEIN SKIMMING’…
(Approx. 55-gallons of water containing approx 1-quart of ‘dirty’ oil was completely removed -’STRIPPED’ from the (.022 S.G.)saltwater within (only) approx. 20 minutes at approx. 100-GPH(?), simply ‘gravity-fed’ (from the water’s surface) into a ‘home-made’ 24″X4″ PVC skimmer-column (using only a small-’cheapy’ aquarium airpump)…
Jaxx
Separating salt water from oil is not all that difficult. You might be surprised to know that most oil pumped from wells contains salt water that has to be separated, it’s one of the things done by the holding tanks, allowing it to naturally separate in the field before being picked up and trucked off to a refinery. Speeding up the process with a centrifugal pump is a nice touch and would definitely be effective. The flow rates are so massive though we need a fleet of tankers equipped with these to literally suck up every acre foot of ocean water affected, process it and eject the ‘cleaned’ water. The logistics are rather daunting. I do agree with another commenter, we should have dropped a mini nuke down the hole to seal it when it first happened. It’s not like the well couldn’t be re-drilled.
Hope
I wonder if the reaction to Costner’s efforts have anything to do with the fact that he’s a self-proclaimed conservative? He spends $24 million dollars out of his own pocket to help the environment but the credit he is due is conspicuously absent. One can’t help but wonder why.
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Rocky
