A couple of red necks figure out the oil spill solution
- Thread starter Bill the Pirate
- Start date
If it fixes this mess, I don't care what they do...I get sick just thinking about this issue.
no matter what you say, that shit picked up the oil outta the pan..........BTW: this isn't the first time I've seen hay/straw etc used. I've seen it used to pick up spills on the road. I've also seen it used (as he said) along erosion areas......
Straw acts similar to 'Speedy Dry' that was used years ago to clean up industrial oil spills in plants/factories. Speedy Dry soaked up oil spills quickly and did a great job till it was outlawed in the States.
Logistics,
After they throw the straw out into the ocean, it has to be gathered up. It will be heavy with water and oil. There are no readily available ships capable of handling and transporting the wet greasy mess of straw, oil and water.
After they throw the straw out into the ocean, it has to be gathered up. It will be heavy with water and oil. There are no readily available ships capable of handling and transporting the wet greasy mess of straw, oil and water.
Couple questions...
1) How readily available is this straw/hay? Isn't it used for livestock feed? In which case, won't this solution drive the price of feed through the roof???
2) The oil slick is now bigger than Ontario. That's a fucking lot of oil to soak up. Look how long it took him to do two bowls full. I think this spill is way past such simple solutions.
1) How readily available is this straw/hay? Isn't it used for livestock feed? In which case, won't this solution drive the price of feed through the roof???
2) The oil slick is now bigger than Ontario. That's a fucking lot of oil to soak up. Look how long it took him to do two bowls full. I think this spill is way past such simple solutions.
For sure. There are all kinds of materials that can soak up oil....but not enough supply to begin to touch this mess. Estimates of up to 20.000 barrels per day...that's a lot of oil.
Dispersing it is still the best temporary solution...there's a hell of a lot of water out there to disperse it into, and below certain concentrations nature can take care of it. But dispersing this amount of oil takes a lot of dispersants as well...and supply of those is limited...and the side effects of those might be bad as well.
Hay is used for feed, straw and "bermuda grass" isn't. It is used for bedding and to soak up the shit and urine etc. Bermuda grass grows wild along most beaches, it is nature's erosion protector.
Even if the oil slick is bigger than north america, that doesn't mean anything. The oil is really a problem when it reaches shore because, in this case, it will further destroy LA's wetlands.
As for how to pick it up, the guys in the video explained it: if it reaches shore, via a front end loader. At sea via nets, a front end loader, construction scoop. It would be much easier to manage now it is a solid and can be handled as such.
As for the chemical dispersants. That just turns it into a toxic soup suspended below the surface as opposed to riding on the surface. It simply hides the problem it doesn't treat it. Kind of like if you find a leaky oil tank in your yard, simply covering it with dirt doesn't stop the oil from leaching into the water table.
Let nature treat it? Nature treats it by washing it up on shore. You saw the oil stuck to the sides of the bowl? That's how nature deals with it. The wave action is nature's way of cleaning it's ocean surface. If the oil (via dispersant) sinks to the bottom, it can destroy the food chain.
Ok, IF the cost of beef goes up because all the straw in North and south america is used, then BP should subsidize the cost of beef back down to normal levels. it doesn't matter WHAT the cost of treatment is, if it has to be done......
I cannot understand why the OP refers to these two men as 'rednecks'? Is it because they are Southerners? Or because they are Caucasian Southerners? Why the racist stereotyping? If they were black would you have called them 'picanninies'? And if not, why the double standard?
Sometimes simple is best. Perhaps it is being overshadowed by the energy used to stop the oil in the first place.
Yes and Yes. Heck, even rednecks call themselves rednecks.
In all your "sensitivity" you yourself used a racist term, "black", people of colour aren't called black anymore, they're african american!
My point is that what looks practical in two bowls on a workbench indoors can be quite the opposite when you try to apply it in the "real world"...
Even if this plan is practical and works, it doesn't "solve" the oil spill. It's more of a post-leak solution that helps with the cleanup.
Sure, no doubt about it, but you never know until you try correct? Believe me, in my business I encounter trades who have been doing it "this way" for so long, they can't see the forest for the trees.
For eg: (this might get a little confusing)
Speaking to a framer when I was designing a house. He said: for a cathedral ceiling you have to use a 2 x 12. But they are 4 times the price of a 2 x 4. So, you have to use it for adequate air space for the insulation.
Ok, so I don't need a 2 x 12 for structural reasons, just air space? A 2 x 4 would be fine for snow load correct? Yes
A 2 x 4 would be fine to hold up the drywall inside correct? Yes.
So why can't you use 2 rows of 2 x 4? Because you have to use a 2 x 12.
So I did a little research and you can buy an engineered truss, made up of 2 2 x 4s for half the cost of a 2 x 12. How many people are paying 4 times more for something because of this guy's narrowmindedness?
Same applies to the oil situation. The "pros" are doing things that are not solving the problem. So if they aren't solving the problem, why not get a fresh outlook into the situation and try something else? What's the harm? NONE.
Earlier this week on The Edge, Josie Dye was complaining that James Camerson was sitting in on a brainstorming session with the pros. She was harping on "what does he know? he makes movies....and how she hates it when hollywood people think they know more than the experts and he's just going to slow down the process". I said to her: but the pros ain't doing shit? What they're doing now, didn't work 30 yrs ago so how can he be slowing things down? By him getting involved will he make MORE oil leak out? The answer is no, he won't. The thing is, he thinks outside the box and if he has the imagination to come up with some of the things he does, why can't he apply that same imagination to THIS problem?
The question is: will putting down tons of straw on the coast make the oil spill worse? No. Will it be a waste of time? Maybe but what they're doing now is a waste of time.
What if they try it and it works? YIPPEE.
As I see it, there is no downside to trying it. A lot of the grasses the guy described in the video grows wild. There are acres and acres of the stuff all over the place (since it is basically a weed). Now you don't pull up the plant by the roots, you send a thrasher out and cut it off 5" from the ground. The plant grows back quite rapidly. You bail it up and truck it to NOLA. Put it on a barge and see what happens.
One thing I've learned over the years: is when a "pro" thinks he knows everything, more often than not, he doesn't......
People equate Cameron to Terminator and Titanic, but they forget about The Abyss and for those that aren't into documentaries, there's a great one he did on the Bismarck.
