Cool solution to clean up oil spill

[Nancy Waterman]

Simple, elegant and inexpensive:

http://www.wimp.com/solutionoil/

[gateley]

1. If it were my daddy's store, I'd be soliciting ALL ideas, like this one, to see if

they were viable instead of thinking we had all the answers (which they obviously don't).

[donco6]

19. It's definitely worth a try, IMO.

Yes, there are problems, but every proposal is going to have them. The material is cheap, lightweight, efficient and if nothing else, it can be burned. Yeah, yeah, burning is bad, but I can't think of any other alternatives. And ultimately, in the whole scheme of things, wasn't taht it's ultimate outcome anyway?

[mzteris]

2. wow. Sounds like something to pursue.

Cheap and simple. Seems to be "eco-friendly".

What would be the downsides?

Did they test it with "salt water"? I'm thinking "swimming pool full" type test is next.

[Samantha]

3. That is amazing

Is there enough of that hay to continually plug the gusher until the new well is finished? Is the volume of the leak and the depth at which it starts prohibitive?

I am sure someone at this site would know the answer.

Thanks for sharing.

Sam

[Cha]

4. What the Hay, Nancy!

I hope BP and anyone else who's trying to clean up this OIL knows about this by now. We saw it work with our own eyes.

[Peacetrain]

5. Sometimes the simplest thing is the best answer!!

[Tansy_Gold]

6. Points to ponder

1. In order to get these materials to the spill site, the hay or straw would have to be cut, baled, and transported, all of which cost money (and use oil).

2. Hay is generally used as fodder for livestock and there is a finite supply. It generally is not stockpiled for years on end, so if the inventory of hay is used to mop up the oil, what's going to be fed to the livestock instead?

3. Straw -- the leftover stalks and leaves of grain crop plants -- is not used as fodder and is a byproduct of grain harvesting. Often used for livestock bedding, landscaping mulch, etc., it might be more practical for oil clean-up, but it still requires baling and transport.

4. Hay and straw are available only in finite quantities, and once the existing inventory is gone, it's gone and can't be replenished until another growing season. The demonstration seemed to indicate an equal volume (not weight) of hay/straw to soak up the oil, but you're talking one fucking lot of vegetable material to be tossed into the Gulf. What's the calculation? Is there enough hay/straw on the planet?

5. Disposal -- I don't think that much crude-soaked stray/hay could be burned as-is to generate power. So what's the disposal plan?


I'm not trying to quash this idea, but it's really not as simple as it looks.


Tansy Gold

[lunatica]

9. Thanks for putting your thinking hat on!

I think we need to stop thinking of one solution for the problem. There are many that can be used at the same time. Hay would be just one part of the equation. Hair also soaks up oil a lot and is sitting in warehouses as we write this. And it's available all the time as it's renewable. There are a lot of materials that soak up oil. Like Costner's centrifugal machines that separate oil from water. If they work then many more can be built very quickly.

Cotton soaks up oil. Clothes, paper towels, any and all absorbing materials could probably be used.

[Tansy_Gold]

11. Some materials will soak up more water, and do it more rapidly,

than they will soak up thick, viscous crude oil.

If you haven't seen the 60 Minutes segment, do so. Toward the end, you'll see someone stick their hand into the fresh BP crude. It's not like a gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel or even motor oil, certainly not like the oil used in the demonstration in the OP. It's thick and sludgy and altogether hideous gunk. How well hay or straw or paper towels would soak up this stuff -- and remain on the surface to be easily picked up -- remains to be seen.

And again, disposal after the soak-up is a major concern. Remember the burning oil wells in Iraq? This stuff does not burn like scented lamp oil.

Let me reiterate -- I'm not trying to slam this idea. If it's a viable one beyond a cup of oil in a stainless steel mixing bowl with a handful of dry hay, then it should be explored. But I warn against thinking this can be solved by throwing all our old clothes into the Gulf of Mexico.



Tansy Gold

[mkultra]

12. im not seeing any of your points to be viable

considering the circumstances. The amount of excess hay generated every year is pretty high.

This being the beginning of summer, must of the hay we have now will have been surplus hay from last years harvest which will occur again at the end of summer. Hay could be imported if necessary.


Finally, Hay is the best solution yet in terms of environmental harm.


All of the points you make are true of ANY cleanup method but hay will be on hand and prevalent.

[suzie]

14. Great thinking!!! And you're right in line with the other so-called environmentalists

who dismissed this idea out of hand as TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE after the local government had agreed to try it. SO GREAT GOING!!!!!!

It's an idea that has been actually tried and worked before in the real world, where there were actual oil spills. But I'm proud to tell you that folks like you shot that idea right out of the air in favor of such proven strategies as letting the oil contaminate everything in its path and then trying to remove it from sand, marshes, etc.

But keep that negativity toward anything that might just work coming.

You can be so proud, because equally negative people with no experience in the world squashed that idea right in the bud. Because moving and replacing sand is just so much more feasible than worrying about what will happen to all that hay.

Figuring out how to clean oil out of marsh grasses has so much more potential than worrying about what would happen to that hay--or where it would come from.

So, from one who lives on the Gulf, where the local government thought this might be a good idea, where hay is readily available, but where the idea has been done in by folks like you who don't live on the Gulf, why

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for your close-minded hostility to an idea that might have worked.

Especially from someone who doesn't live on the Gulf of Mexico, doesn't deal with sand every day. Gosh, how can we thank you for your brilliance in explaining what you don't know much about.


BTW, the hay was already cut and baled and transporting it 50 miles didn't cost all that much in oil or money.

But, hey, how far was the computer you typed this on transported? How far did you drive to buy it?

And the food you'll eat today--all came from less than 50 miles away?

[CreekDog]

16. that poster didn't *squash* the idea...just asking aloud about the problems with it

and what's with the broadside against "so-called environmentalists".

now you are getting mad at environmentalists for not accepting any idea 100%?

[Tansy_Gold]

17. I wasn't being negative, but you obviously can't understand that

I was asking a few questions about the viability of a "solution" that was demonstrated on a scale and with materials completely unlike the reality that solution is supposed to deal with. I specifically said I was NOT quashing the idea. But you know so fucking much more than I do, so you go right ahead and jump in there. Because it doesn't matter where the "hay" comes from or even if there is enough "hay" to come from there or where it goes after it's done its job, because the only thing that matters is that it MIGHT BE a good idea and you're too scared even to question whether it will actually work. (I believe that's called "grasping at straws." How apt.)

Take your fear and your anger elsewhere, Suzie. Take it out on BP or even Barack Obama who has left this catastrophe in BP's competent hands. But don't take it out on those like me who are actually trying to HELP.


Tansy Gold, who deals with sand every fucking day because she lives in a fucking desert that is ecologically every fucking bit as fragile as the Gulf Coast and that has enough fucking sunshine to generate probably as much electricity as the oil now fouling your beaches.

[mzteris]

15. I think he was talking about your basic GRASS

not "feed hay", wasn't he?

[blue sky at night]

7. for the most part....

there is usually a natural solution to problems, it just takes a will to do that way! Hey Thanks for this, I will forward it on. Guess we will have a new "hobby" now for folks who want to help the southland...removing oil from the Gulf for the next 10 to 20 years.

[Diamonique]

8. That is amazing!

[Nancy Waterman]

10. The guy says there will be lots of hay in the next few months

in the South. One of them even suggested burning the oil-soaked hay as fuel, but I don't know how well that would work. Maybe it could be compressed into blocks for fuel of some kind. But it would seem easy enough to spread on the water and then collect.

[ProgressOnTheMove]

13. I wonder if there is some way of freezing hole up.

[mzteris]

18. kick

cause for so many people so concerned about this "problem" - seems all they want to do is bitch about who is doing or not doing what. :banghead:

:kick: