Costner machine clogs during test; scientist says it won't help

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20100608/FEATURES12/100609420?Title=Costner-machine-clogs-during-test-scientist-says-it-won-t-help

Published: Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 6:45 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 6:45 a.m.

HOUMA — Kevin Costner's vaunted oil-spill-cleanup machine clogged when it was tried in a Louisiana marsh, but BP is tweaking it for another try, CBS news reports.

Following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, the actor-director helped fund a group of scientists developing a device to aid in oil cleanups. The Ocean Therapy machine uses centrifugal force to separate clumps of oil from water. BP has approved a test of 26 of the devices in the Gulf.

At least one scientist, however, says the machine won't help.

Michio Kaku, physics professor at City University of New York and host of “Sci-Fi Science” on the Science Channel, said the physics of the Ocean Therapy machines would separate the water from the oil, but at the rate of 200 gallons a minute, it's too little, too late.

“The oil slick is as big as the state of Connecticut,” Kaku is quoted as saying last week. “You need hundreds, hundreds of these ships with these machines to begin to pump the water and separate it. We have to get real, and that is the slick is gargantuan in size, and 26 or so machines just don't cut it.”

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. guess he'll have to return to acting for this paycheck

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. At least he tried to help.

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. That he did. So is James Cameron, producer of Avatar

[wroberts189]

20. It's not over till it is over..there are other spills being seen, you are talking mass extinction.

on edit...

They may still be called in...once this gets a lot worse.

[whopis01]

31. Sounds so much better than "Jame Cameron, director of Piranha Part Two: The Spawning" n/t

[wroberts189]

19. +1

[texastoast]

2. It's not made for a marsh

Put it in the open water, you idiots.

And tweak it--you are going to get not just yer light sweet crude.

Fuck, don't make me come down there.

[Barack_America]

3. I disagree with the notion there has to be any one fix.

I say if something works, use it. And that goes for EVERYTHING that works.

[IDemo]

10. There's a lot of that mindset going around

For instance - "Which energy source will we rely on to transition away from oil?", when a mix of many different sources and a healthy dose of conservation and change in lifestyles is rarely one of the answers discussed.

[msanthrope]

15. Stop talking sense....really. There's gonna be one magic band-aid for

everything!!!

[BanTheGOP]

5. We need a MORATORIUM on ALL oil-related industrial products

Virtually EVERY company associated with the oil industry can be tied to Halliburton, and Dick Cheney. Just audit the sub-contractors. Costner can be tied to the Louisiana republican cabal, which is tied to Cheney and Halliburton.

I personally am going to boycott all Costner's work until he divests himself of the company and ensures that no profit has been generated.

[Hawkeye-X]

6. Please provide proof of the said relationship of Costner and LA Rethug Cabal.

Please. Pretty please.

[BanTheGOP]

24. No link necessary

Costner=Oil profits
Oil Profits=Republican Party goal
Republican Party controls Louisiana politics

ergo, connection made. No need for links.

In addition, the administration ensured that Costner couldn't deploy his toy oil swab thingees until a proper investigation was made on the devastating environmental impact made by the devices passed muster. They never gave permission. So the inference of my statement is proven.

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. Yeah, he spent all of those tens of millions because his motive is oil company profit

no motivation for starting the company because of Valdez.

Well played. I am sure some will follow you off the cliff.

[gateley]

8. I'm hoping there is oversight seeing how BP is doing the tweaking. Hopefully

Costner is watching with an eagle eye, too.

Kaku is probably correct.

The oil industry or the EPA should have been investigating potential cleanup machines, like Costner's, since Ixtoc. Out of sight, I guess. :shrug:

Please, let this be a wake up call!

[Ruby the Liberal]

9. Did they try on the slick or the plumes?

This wasn't designed for marshes, I don't believe.

[nenagh]

12. Wonder if the dispersant acting like detergent ..

and suspending oil droplets into the water, reduces the efficiency of Kevin Costner's centrifuge machines...

They probably tested the machines using straight oil and water...

[GreenPartyVoter]

22. Good point

[Poiuyt]

23. I wouldn't think so

A centrifuge should be able to separate the two, much like blood being separated. I would guess it's just the huge volume.

[Catherina]

13. I could have told you that. That thing is tiny but

That's no reason not to deploy thousands of them along the marshes.

[texastoast]

33. Almost a quarter million gallons a day is not that tiny

It has no place in a marsh--too much biological stuff to get in the way of the centrifuge concept and clogging up the filters. Hay is much better in a marshy environment.

[jp11]

14. It won't clean it all but it is better than nothing and BP is paying for them so

put some kind of filter/strainer on it so it doesn't suck up whatever clogged it.

[hyphenate]

16. Kaku

is a media whore. I've seen him so many times on just any science show or documentary that I begin to wonder in which field he specializes. When I see him being interviewed, I feel like there is less credibility to that show.

Instead of being so negative about Costner's machines, why not come up with a solution of your own? At least he had SOMETHING to work with, and even more than that, there were quite a number of them available. Costner LEARNED from prior mistakes in the world, not like these assholes who own or are CEOs of oil companies.

Awhile back, I wrote that we increase the wealth of Saudis and almost all the countries where the 9/11 terrorists came from, because we can't get rid of our dependence on oil. If we don't find a way to move on, we're going to be having a ghost town on all the highways of our countries, as the final fumes from gas come from now silenced machines, and we are left in the wake of a world filled with smoke, smog and rich arab overseers.

So if Kaku wants to criticize Costner's offering, let him come up with something else.

[girl gone mad]

28. Yes!

I would have unrecced this if I'd seen that the "scientists" they quoted was Kaku.

eta: He's a physicist and he made a name for himself popularizing the notion that string theory was the ultimate unification theory. If anyone with any sense ever thought that then, they certainly don't think it now.

[William Z. Foster]

17. "BP has approved"

So BP is in fact calling the shots. Still.

[wroberts189]

18. "it's too little, too late."? Start building them and improve them.

What happens next time a rig goes?

[Poll_Blind]

26. +1

PB

[lonestarnot]

21. Too little to late my ass, make more faster, anything that helps is better than what I keep seeing

blowing out of the sea bed. Evil gushing fucking killer. Don't forget improvement on the device. Now where are all the skimmers?

[Poll_Blind]

25. Totally. n/t

PB

[Poll_Blind]

27. Simply put: Fuck that noise. 200 gallons a minute * 26 is still better than fucking nothing, y'all!

Jesus, who is the Kaku jackass? Does he have some better idea. I mean, if we have a goddamned machine which can clean 200 gallons a minute, this Michio Kaku needs to shut his fucking mouth about how Costner's machine "don't cut it" unless he's got a machine that can clean 300 gallons per minute.

Sheesh. I thought this kind of fatalist bitching was relegated to the internets.

Pony up, bitch. You're a physics professor. Show us some of your superior magiks!

PB

[Incitatus]

29. Exactly , cancel those bullshit dividend payments and build a few thousand of these machines. nt

[SidDithers]

30. Wow, who could have seen that coming?...nt

Sid

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

32. No one could have foreseen that this was a PR stunt.

[charlie]

34. Kinda late

Waterworld was 15 years ago.