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June 6th, 2010
02:24 AM ET
Your Oil Cleanup Ideas: Molecules and Ice Pops
We're taking a look at some of the ideas being offered to help sop up the oil mess in the Gulf of Mexico.
Will they work? Tell us what you think. And join TJ Holmes weekend mornings in the CNN Newsroom beginning 6am ET/ 3am PT.
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Anyone who shows an idea to anyone, or send it into BP should have it 'notarized' first. BP will use your idea, and if it works they will not compensate you for it. I sent BP a 'Funnel' design on 4/23/2010, and 5/20/2010 on it's website like what they are using now, only they have cannabalized it, and changed it's name. They are not even using it in the proper place of my design. I designed a device that 'Contains AND seals' 100% while getting the fluids, and gases topside. BP has proven to be a smuck with it's attitude, and the way it has ruined so many Americans livelyhoods while Obama just sits and talks tough, making sure the GO'VT got THEIR $69 million bill, all the while Americans are still waiting to be compensated for the losses.
to the idea about freezing the oil on the beaches and possibly in the water...are we sure we want to use carbon dioxide?...as in the greenhouse gas...with a highly active hurricane season ahead?
I would send Bush and Cheney to the Gulf to physically help the others in the clean up effort....for as long as it takes.
They need to think about stopping the leak before any sopping up can move forward, If BP would just insert a pipe down into the oil well with a large balloon on it and then force a large amount of expandable foam into this balloon this stuff as it is called should choke off the oil flow.
When NASA puts a robot on Mars they spend all kinds of money to sterilize it so as not to infect another planet with microbes from Earth and yet Mars is basically a dead planet! Too bad BP didn't think about all the damage that could occur to the only living planet we know of. The BP, Trans-Union and Halliburton execs who made these reckless decisions should all be thrown into the Gulf so they know what it's like to be covered in oil. Then they should spend the rest of their lives, which is how long it will take, sopping up the mess in the wet lands. Make no mistake this is not just a disaster or the end of the Gulf. This is the end of the world as we know it.
Why aren't they using the super Tankers to help clean up this oil mess in the gulf? The pumps they have on those are huge and they can also hold many gallons of oil. Then they can take it in to a refinery unload and go back out. The former president of Shell oil recommended this idea, but why would anyone in govt, coast guard, or bp listen to him. I realize it wasn't one of their ideas but so what, this is a national emergency. The guy surely knows the oil business.This idea is proven to work. Maybe when the oil gets around to the Atlantic side of the country they will try it.
How do you cleanup a poison? That doesn't go away for hundreds of years ?
Our goverment and all oil companies are aligned ! Hmmm
I think that BP should have a huge vaccum style equipment like (septic tank truck ) put on an oil tanker and suck up as much as possible.Go to all containment buoys and suck up whats on top , by time they go to all start over. Save what they can and recycle it . Same process by the marsh suck up. Dont know if it would work but worth a try I think. heart goes out to all the people and animals effected by this. Jeff
I saw these interviews, sunday morning. Why cant some of these ideas, be shown on primetime? I, believe, there are many answers to cleaning up this oil. I think there are even "simple" answers. But, the oil companies, in thier "superiority", would not agree. They think, they are superior in science and intellect. What it really comes down to, is money. You cant expect, an oil company, to have any heart...they dont.
Wouldn't it be possible to barge out large stones, gravel and sand (as used in concrete mix) and dump or tremie (sp?) pipe the materials down to the blow-out preventer and just bury the device? After you have stemmed the flow, perhaps we could seal the pile with concrete. These are just the rantings of an old retired Civil Engineer, but I haven't heard of anything else that has worked.
I don't know if I'm in the right spot to submit an idea on how to stop the oil gusher... but i have a great one that would benift all... what BP should do is pump liquid nitrogen into the blowout proventer freezing the oil at the source temporarily until a tight fitting seal can be made with the top hat or a new riser pipe can be attatched at the flange... then as the frozen oil thaws it will be able to be fully recovered to the surface... This would allow BP and the coast guard consentrait on the clean up in full force ... I think this idea would work well and hell... what do you really have to lose at this point
If they have a clean cut on the pipe, why do they not slide a compression fitting of some sort over this pipe, have an ROVoutfitted with a wrench to tighten it down, and then send the oil, ALL the oil, up a flexible riser pipe.....have it all assembled before even trying to put the fitting on, weight it however, inverted funnel shaped opening, to counter the pressure as it is seated, shape it like a funnel to allow it to be positioned easily as it is lowered, then when it it over the pipe, cinch it, and pull in the tankers to catch it.....It works on most pipe breaks, at least temporarily, this would not have to be as precise.....
I see stuff on the clean up image and I see comments about what they are doing wrong and right. Lets be honest, if they don't shut that thing down, none of that will matter. Since the people working this with PH D's and other high level degrees seem to be absorbed in finding the hard solution I would like the following passed on. STOP looking at the book and stop saying there is NO way anyone without a degree can see a workable solution. This was the first lesson I learned from my little community college professor. Here are 2 workable solutions for you. 1. If you can run a drill that far down, you can run that drill with a 3 piece thread cutter on it. Cut threads into that pipe and CAP IT before it creates a mess we will never recover from. 2. Look at the design of a simple compression fitting. Enlarge that and put it on the end of the pipe to either connect in a working way to capture the oil or shutdown that well. Common people, hasn't there been enough damage or are you waiting for it to kill everything.
This idea would be for the next spill.
The military should have an option tested and ready.
Hours after a spill, huge cargo planes like the Hercules, the Starlifter, and the Globemaster, would fly in over the water and push huge pallets of absorbant materials out the back door as they do with other on the fly military deliveries. Like chains of big diapers they would soak up oil and remain afloat, these materials could be dropped on the oil soon as it threatened a beach or wetlands. They could wash up on a beach and be hauled away, or be harvested in the water by specially designed equipment towed between two Navy ships.
Advantage... response in hours. As soon as the planes could be alerted, loaded, and fly to the scene.
Why not put the prison inmates busy on the beaches from the states that are affected. Cleanup on the beaches will take a large effort and these inmates could help with this cause. This would be similar to the effort back in past days,where inmates worked to build roads, and etc., this would help lessen the financial burden that the perspective gulf states are going to face with the future cleanup.
I have had extensive explosive ordinance training and it seems to me that a circle of shaped charges placed or drilled into the sea floor down to a level of a hundred feet or so, in a circle around the pipe and designed to blow inward at a central point. This would exert enough pressure to close off the pipe and seal the hole and stop the leak.
Why hasn't BP done this? This is fairly elementary isn't it?
Looks like they need a large vac. cleaner to clean oil on surface or under water ,Why not adapt a dredge boat to do this.