So, BP is gonna use Kevin Costner's oil spill clean up machine....

[TheDebbieDee]

as one of several ways to clean up the Gulf mess.

I hope the machine works well in the clean up efforts. But I wonder, what it Kevin Costner was Joe Smith? Would Joe Smith have been able to get anyone's attention to tell them about his oil spill clean up machine?

[Oregone]

1. Ask the invisible hand

[gmoney]

2. If it works, probably so...

Except BP would probably buy out Joe Smith and maybe make the technology available, or maybe put it in the warehouse with the lost ark and the cars that run on water...

[wtmusic]

3. And why would a company with the resources of BP not have already

considered such a device? :shrug:

[cheapdate]

4. Costner's machine cleans 6 million gallons per day.

I don't know the size of the oil spill, but if the slick is 100 miles x 400 miles, the volume of contaminated water down to a depth of 1 foot is around 8.3 trillion gallons. One of Costner's machines working around the clock would require 3,809 years to clean that volume of contaminated water. I heard that BP plans to buy 32 of the machines, which would clean my hypothetical 400 mile slick in only 119 years. The open ocean is a big place. I don't see how Costner's centrifuges can make a difference given the enormous scale of the contamination.

[ladjf]

6. The buy about 1,000 of the machines and finish the job in a year.

[Poboy]

5. NEWS

Update: Costner's machines working "fantastic"
Posted: Tuesday, 22 June 2010 2:43AM


Jay Vise Reporting

Actor Kevin Costner fought tooth and nail to get his centrifuge devices deployed in the Gulf to battle the ever-growing oil slick.
Now that some of the machines are in place, just how are they working?

"They're doing fantastic," said John Houghtaling, Costner's chief partner in the project. "The three that we have in the deep water are now processing 600,000 gallons per day...and those are just with three machines."

Houghtaling said that two other machines have been deployed in shallower waters.
According to Houghtaling, crews are working at a fever-pace to get the remaining 27 machines ordered by BP into action in the Gulf of Mexico.

Listen to WWL's Jay Vise's interview with Houghtaling:
(at link)

Houghtailing is the CEO of the company Ocean Therapies and describes the machine as a giant "Shop Vac."
When placed on a barge the centrifuge device can reportedly suck up and separate oil from water at a rate of 200 gallons per minute.
According to Houtaling, the machines cost roughly half a million dollars to build, but also require the hiring of vessels to take them out onto the water.

Though he's glad that BP finally agreed to fund the deployment of the machines, Costner told members of Congress earlier this month that he'd had a hard time getting an opportunity to try out his centrifuge for the Coast Guard.

"We would offer to take our machines out there but we couldn't get onto the spots because the Coast Guard would regulate that we couldn't get there," Costner testified

Houghtaling said that in addition to providing clean-up duty in the gulf, deployment of even more of the devices could aid in shortening the six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling.
He said that he'd like to see the government use the machines as a safety measure to keep the deep-water drilling rigs in operation as safety procedures are reviewed.

To view an animation of how the device works, click the window below:

http://www.wwl.com/Update--Costner-s-machines-working--fantastic-/7521840