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Watch this demonstration of Kevin Costner’s Ocean Therapy centrifuge devices, which are said to be able to siphon up to 97% of the oil from the water, with the largest one handling around 200 gallons of sea water a minute.
A spokesperson in the video says that they are currently refining the technology to capture the other 3%, so that you’ll even be able to drink the water that comes out of it (well, it’s salt water, but you get the point).
I have to say, with Kevin Costner as our potential hero, this whole thing is shaping up to look a bit like a South Park episode.
Compared to the in-situ burns and deployed booms, this seems to be the most effective way to get the oil out of the water, and could do a lot to address the underwater plumes. Let’s just hope he gets out there as soon as possible and that these devices work, because it’s getting uglier by the day.
49 Comments
thanks Brian, rec.
– saw this on the teevee earlier – would like to find an independent verification of it’s capability. looks good though
Thanks
BP is supposedly testing the 6 devices to see if they can be deployed:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/05/19/2010-05-19_gulf_oil_spill_bp_oks_tests_of_kevin_costners_invention__device_to_clean_oil_fro.html
Costner’s team of scientists have seemed pretty enthusiastic about it, and it seems like a lot of money and research has been put into this project over a decade. It seems promising.
looks like mr costner spent millions on a worthless party trick. Look up invention in the dictionary. This isn’t one.
Well i’m not sure anyone’s arguing that Kevin Costner invented the centrifuge, if that’s what you mean.
He did, however, pour millions of dollars into inventing one large enough and capable of separating the oil and water to such a high degree.
I wonder if this centrifuge uses aluminum tubing machined to very close tolerances…
NPR just reported that the EPA has ordered BP to discontinue the use of a “mildly toxic dispersant to humans.” No mention of the toxicity to any other life forms. NPR is a national disgrace. If I want propaganda that bolsters the status quo I’ll watch Fox.
If Kevin Costner’s coming to the rescue, someone better be standing at the ready with a camera set to shoot a lot of slow-mo.
Costner is okay by me. I wish him and his brother and this enterprise all the best. Just don’t make Water World 2.
IMO, they should probably not be using dispersants at all.
Haha, if that were the case, this would be some publicity stunt, wouldn’t it?
BP could have been vacuuming it up with tankers like they did in Saudi Arabia already.
I don’t think Mr. Costner has to pay, out of pocket for publicity for any movies he is in. This is him supporting his scientist brother and something that might help some people, if not on an international level, perhaps on a more local level.
Beats the hell out of a cheetos afternoon, imo.
Maybe we can borrow centrifuges from Iran. They have lots.
They’re busy scratching their heads. (And, yes, this comment is Begging for an edit.)
Finally an idea a safe Green idea that looks like it could work. And its not from big business and their million, Billion? Dollar research labs but from a Lefty!!
I want Kevin here to give a talk!
Any ideas how to get oil thats seeped into the ocean sand?
That would mean the oil tankers all sitting waiting for higher oil prices would have to unload their oil.
WooHoo! Lower gas prices just what the economy needs to get going!
Obama should seize the tankers declare a national emergency. The Banks, Hedgefunds and oil speculators don’t like it to bad.
Obama can always say we can tax the oil to pay for the clean up and all the unemployed workers.
Man, I’m sorry, but if Kevin Costner is able to save us from environmental disaster, this world has gotten too weird for me.
If it works who cares?
Obama can always say we can tax the oil to pay for the clean up and all the unemployed workers.
Don’t give them any bright ideas. That one gives me the willies.
I hope this device can scale up a couple orders of magnitude.
It’s an invention. An idea.
PS…it’s already a really weird world. You didn’t have to wait for this diary.
I hope this device can scale up a couple orders of
magnitude. margaritas.Unfortunately I haven’t even heard a word about that. The tone is as if it’s not going to be a possibility
Why?
Agitate vibrate the sand stir up the oil then put sand filters on the nozzle of Kevin’s device not all the heavy oil will move true and reaching all the oil in the ocean depths might not be practical but we now where the fisheries and oysters are I think its worth trying out.
Kevin should get all the money he spent on his various ideas back America should reward smartness and concern for the environment. Then he should license the tech for a small fee.
South Park…. or Waterworld?!
I think we are heading toward a Waterworld, or some other civilization destroying calamity, personally. This underwater Oil volcano is just the chocolate sauce on all the shit that has been going on so far!
I hope his machine works so they can ramp up production of larger machines.
If this works Kevin could run for Governor of any oil spill state easy, Big Easy. GOPers always say they can run a business however Kevin might save the fishing and tourist industries of how many states?
Thats how many Billions of dollars over the decades it takes the ocean to recover from an oil spill.
I have not felt this good bout an invention since the cold fusion hoax.
Thank you!
i certainly think there should be some sort of plan to clean up some of the ocean floor, but it’s going to be difficult because its going to be tar (i would assume, because of the dispersants that ball it up and the pressure from that depth), not liquid oil.
well that’s always what it looks like in South Park before the hero swoops in and bizarrly saves the day, right?
Yes and the Righteous must work to save the planet and humanity…from themselves and the unrestrained free market:)
Your welcome:) any special reason for the thanks?
Agreed we need a plan lets get Kevin and his brother here and brainstorm.
We are going to need empty oil tankers to put all the oil Kevin’s device captures at sea assuming it works.
Obama better empty the oil tankers.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/35155
Ok just how many oil tankers do we have sitting in the gulf or can be moved to gulf quick Tankers full waiting for the price of oil to rise?
How much total can Kevin’s machines clean up? How fast can our machine shops build Kevin’s machines a pump an electric motor ( I assume ) a centirfuge it shouldn’t take long.
Where is Oldandslow he knows metal fabrication we need estimates. Every minute more fish die and this gets bigger.
A number for just how many oil tankers are sitting in the gulf waiting for oil prices to go up would be good I can’t find an exact number:(
If this works, I’m prepared to forgive him for Waterworld.
And for fan-shooting nine bullets out of his six gun in Open Range.
please excuse my skepticism/
Since when did actors… thesbians…
grow the new trait of: mechanical aptitude?
I don’t think it impossible though…
Good question. Maybe that’s why Costner “has been funding a team of scientists for 15 years in hopes of developing a technology to clean up massive oil spills.”
His Brother did it Kevin just paid him to do the work.
Everybody is gaga over the mile depth of the seabed. 2000 lbs psi pressure. that is not the big deal. I agree with the “perps” on that point. Science is already equiped to provide solutions to this. It may not be in the way they want it however. The crooks want a different story line.
Instead of working harder than hell to sink and destroy the fn evidence.. It might be nice if some of these highly paid ceo’s could offer up some answers… to the probem they made…
Where is the performance? That little shit Brit can pull off that stunt: saying ” It is a tiny little drop in that huge sea of the Carabbean. It may as well be some kind of bean. Like: The Caribbean is now a kind of f’n bean pardnar. after these…POS s get done with it. !!
Would you like carib oil with your bean?
I’m workin my words and writing
200 gallons a minute eh? it would take about 34 days, non stop to process 10 million gallons of water at the speed. not bad until you realize that there are 1.1 x 10 to the 12th power, of gallons of water in a cubic mile. the affected area is approaching thousands of cubic miles. let that sink in.
But what about the underwater frozen plume blob? The tarballs washing up in Florida from the plume.
Oilprice.com, the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) has learned from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sources that U.S. Navy submarines deployed to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast have detected what amounts to a frozen oil blob from the oil geyser at the destroyed Deep Horizon off-shore oil rig south of Louisiana.
The Navy submarines have trained video cameras on the moving blob, which remains frozen at depths of between 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Because the oil blob is heavier than water, it remains frozen at current depths.
FEMA and Corps of Engineers employees are upset that the White House and the Pentagon remain tight-lipped and in cover-up mode about the images of the massive and fast-moving frozen coagulated oil blob that is being imaged by Navy submarines that are tracking its movement. The sources point out that BP and the White House conspired to withhold videos from BP-contracted submersibles that showed the oil geyser that was spewing oil from the chasm underneath the datum of the Deep Horizon at rates far exceeding originally reported amounts. We have learned that it was largely WMR’s scoop on the existence of the BP videos that forced the company and its White House patrons to finally agree to the release of the video footage.
The White House is officially stating that it does not know where the officially reported 10 miles long by 3 miles wide “plume” is actually located or in what direction it is heading. However, WMR’s sources claim the White House is getting real-time reports from Navy submarines as to the blob’s location. We have learned that the blob is transiting the Florida Straits between Florida and Cuba, propelled by the Gulf’s Loop Current, and that parts of it that is encountering warmer waters are breaking off into smaller tar balls that are now washing ashore in the environmentally-sensitive Florida Keys
and Dry Tortugas.
Corps of Engineers and FEMA officials are also livid about the cover-up of the extent of the oil damage being promulgated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its marine research vessel in the Gulf, RV Pelican. NOAA stands accused by the aforementioned agencies of acting as a virtual public relations arm for BP. NOAA is a component of the business-oriented Department of Commerce.
……….
WMR sources also report that the oil mass has resulted in dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico that have cut off oxygen and killed massive numbers of marine creatures and plant life.
………
There is also evidence that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean sank a drill to a depth of 35,000 feet at the Deep Horizon site some six months ago without the required permits from the federal government. (It should be noted that this depth is much greater than the reported depth of the rig)
……
Corps of Engineers and FEMA sources also give a failing grade to both Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who stands accused of being woefully incompetent in handling the disaster, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Government sources say both secretaries should immediately step down or be fired.
That could explain why the US and Cuba are holding rare talks on how to deal with the Gulf oil spill.
The US and Cuba just do not talk.
Period.
The fact they are holding talks about this tells you just how grave this situation is.
“the blob” wont remain hidden. if it should reach the gulf stream and turn north? if a large percentage of marine life in the northern hemishphere has to die i hope 1/2 breaks off and oozes up the potomac river , the other half up the thames.
Well there’s your first problem.
For pointing out that Costner’s celebrity status is irrelevant to the technological issue.