Local man pitches oil spill solution to BP

Local man pitches oil spill solution to BP

www.winknews.com

Gary Miller is in the business of making lawns across Southwest Florida beautiful, but it's his idea on how to stop the oil leak in the gulf that could make him famous. Miller, who is President of Business Beautification, has been in contact with British Petroleum after drawing up a plan involving a series of pipes and cotton.

Read more: www.winknews.com...

(visit the link for the full news article)

Edit to fix links.



[edit on 15/5/2010 by Iamonlyhuman]

Miller developed his solution after becoming frustrated with efforts by BP to cap the leak were unsuccessful. It involved packing bales of cottons into pipes and running into the leaking oil rig in the gulf in hopes of creating a clot and stopping the leak.

"[cotton] expands 10 times its size and will clog up the oil spill", he told BP.

I think this may very well be a viable solution... and BP does too.

The article goes on to say that he is not looking to make money off of his idea nor does he care if they make changes to it... just that it stops the leak. He seems sincere in this.

However, the last statement in the article made me angry(er) with BP:

BP has stressed it will not pay for plans submitted by people to cap the leak.

If BP uses this man's idea, which is relatively cheap in relation to all the other things they've tried so far, and it works, they SHOULD pay this man whether he's asking for it or not. After all, he would have saved them millions or tens of millions. They won't, of course...

Their attitude STINKS.

www.winknews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Edit to fix links

[edit on 15/5/2010 by Iamonlyhuman]

Interesting idea. At this point, I don't care what they do as long as it works. I think it could work.

I agree with your last comment about BP paying the man. It's even sadder that they appear to be focused on making it clear that they will not pay the man for his idea, above actually fixing the damn problem.

Nice post. S&F,

Edited to remove cleared up issue with the title.

[edit on 15-5-2010 by broahes]

BP has stressed it will not pay for plans submitted by people to cap the leak.

No, they probably will pay for a plan that let them continue to take the oil out.

Sadly the only solution for that was that dome and that didn't work, and since a new relief well will take months and they don't have another method to get the oil.

And how do they want to get that cotton in, there is no platform to get it down, too much pressure on the leak and cotton floats.

reply to post by Grey Magic


The video in the article is the man explaining that they can inject the cotton into it. Watch the video, he explains it much better. The man has already tested his idea and apparently it worked.

[edit on 15/5/2010 by Iamonlyhuman]

reply to post by Iamonlyhuman

He tested the idea with a half-inch PVC pipe and a low pressure sprinkler that was leaking.

This is a five feet pipe with extreme pressure, cotton doesn't grow that large, personally I am surprised he even got called back.

If they use this plan and it works I'll eat my tinfoil hat.

reply to post by Iamonlyhuman


This is a new solution. And I don't see why they don't just go ahead and use them all.

Another is an organic sugar product infused with "oil eaters" sprinkled on top of the spilled oil to make it clump and become biodegradable dirt. This came from another Florida man.

There is the "hair" solution which I think to be patriotic every single hair salon should participate and donate their hair and every citizen should get a hair cut.

There is a fiber created in bundles of string like things that are proven to attract and collect 10 times their weight in oil.

Another fella in Texas or somewhere has the "prairie grass" solution where in this incredibly absorbent grass is laid on top of the spillage and forms a thick layer of organic stuff that can be scooped off.

None except perhaps this "tampon" method (sorry - my visual ) of blocking the leak is a "cure" but meanwhile I think we should throw everything we have against this catastrophe.
Go American inventors and innovators!

Years ago I was invited to dinner with a big wig from Exxon right after the Valdez spill. Way back then they had already developed a biological life form that ate oil to help with that disaster. I remember thinking of dangerous and science fiction type implications of this lab made life form. "The Blob" comes to mind...
Now if we can only get these oil eaters to mimic typical American eating habits. They will soon be fat as blimps and our oil problem will be greatly abated!

Here is a story about the oil eating bugs written in 1975!! www.time.com...
A snippet:

Of all industrial accidents, few are messier than oil spills. Floating booms can contain surface oil and keep it from spreading while it is picked up and recovered by giant vacuum cleaners. Straw filters can be used to pick up oil that makes its way into shallow waters. But scientists have been trying for years to develop more effective methods of dealing with spills. Now one team seems to have succeeded. General Electric announced last week that scientists at its Schenectady, N.Y., laboratories have created a microbe that can eat petroleum in quantity. The bug that eats oil is the result of nearly six years of work by Ananda Chakrabarty, 41, an Indian-born microbiologist. Like most of his colleagues, Chakrabarty knew that at least four strains of the common pseudomonas bacteria contained enzymes that enabled them to break down different hydrocarbons—the major ingredients of oil. He combined these strains into what he describes as a "superbug" that can eat oil faster than any one of the four can individually.

[edit on 15-5-2010 by rusethorcain]

reply to post by Grey Magic


Simply stuff a smaller pipe full of cotton and plunge it out. sort of like a tampon. Heck even use a super string to completely copy the design.

But, then BP may have to pay the royalties on tampon patent.

Granted stopping the leak comes first but it's sad to hear them say that BP, with countless billions, won't pay anyone that comes up with a solution. Pretty darn insincere.

Everyone is assuming the leak is an accident.

What if, while Halliburton was cementing the seal, they set explosives and rigged the BOP to send gas up the pipe.

BP would probably have been on board. They are the elite, the banksters, the oil barons, controlled by the London Interbank cartel.

The leak won't stop, unless US citizens push BP the Hell out of there, and take charge. Get the government out of there too.

Friggen Ken Salazar is a potato farmer.

Dauphin Island, right off the coast of Alabama, was one of the first places to report oil making landfall on its shores. The oil hit Dauphin's beach in the form of small tar balls -- similar to those I found washing up on the shore of Louisiana. Now, just a few days later, hundreds of dead fish have washed up on the same island. I captured the grisly scene, or at least attempted to -- there were too many dead catfish littering the beach to photograph.

Another reporter staying on Dauphin tipped me off that fish were washing ashore in droves on a public beach, so I headed over to check it out. Sure enough, the beach was lined with dead fish

www.treehugger.com...



[edit on 15-5-2010 by Soular System]

reply to post by Grey Magic


Seems to me (I'm not an engineer), that all they'd have to do is increase the amount of the "ingredients" (i.e. the cotton, pressure, etc.) enough to plug it up.

I'm all for trying simple ideas before extreme measures, i.e. nuking it or whatever.

Screw BP. If they used his idea, and it worked, then he should set up a paypal address and I bet a helluva lot of people including me would go donate to his well being. A tiny amount by a whole lot of people could still add up to a heck of a thanks.

RC

reply to post by Soular System


This video left me weeping. They've ruined our beautiful Gulf of Mexico.
I have this sick feeling in my stomach.

They don't care, they don't care or they would have it stopped by now. They can't stop a freaking pipe from gushing? What kind of engineers are these?

reply to post by Iamonlyhuman


transcripts.cnn.com...

INES FERRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT:
Well, there's all sorts of ideas that people are coming up with, but let me show you some of them.

1. One of them is prairie grass to help clean up the oil slick. Now, this Minnesota farmer says that he has about 600,000 pounds of it.
Don Vogt says that the grass naturally floats, and with the help of the water, collects the oil. Listen to this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DON VOGT, MINNESOTA FARMER: The oil is probably leaning on the ocean at maybe 16 centimeters thick. If this stuff was put out in the right way and with the water action, it's going to make a mat this thick. Now, if they can put a magnesium torch on it, then it will burn. (END VIDEO CLIP) WHITFIELD: That's a pretty fascinating idea. FERRE: Yes.

WHITFIELD: I'd love to know what the scientists think about that. FERRE: Definitely. And Fred, there are other ideas that some people have.

2. The owner of one Boca Raton company saying that he has this biodegradable material, and it's perfect for stopping oil from washing ashore, and he says all you do is you sprinkle this powder substance on to the oil, and within weeks, it turns into dirt.
The powder is made from sugar cane and fibers and also it has microbes that actually eat the oil.

And then check this out.

3. This is from a material, the same material that's made to make bags of rice or dog food. This material is woven into a string like -- WHITFIELD: Wow! FERRE: Yes, a material there that you see, and it attracts oil absorbing the water, and they call it the quicker oil picker upper. Different companies that have come up with ideas and people who are just saying, hey, I've got a solution.... FERRE: Yes, actually, they say that they've set up a hotline. ... It's 281-366-5511 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              281-366-5511      end_of_the_skype_highlighting... and what they do is they take these idea. They take down your name, and they've got engineers. They've got the experts that go through these ideas and then they sift through them and see if they can be taken to the next level.

These are the three ways I thought were feasible added to the cotton plug and our own hair. (see video)




[edit on 26-5-2010 by rusethorcain]