Really, really stupid ideas on how to clean up the Gulf.

Well after my friend suggested something really, really stupid to me, I decided to make this thread to contain all of the horrible, stupid, or impossible ideas on how to clean the Gulf and stop the oil.



My friend suggested that a giant dam be built from Florida to Cuba, and then to the Yucatan Peninsula, as well as multiple ones to block off all tributaries from land into the Gulf. He then proposed that the Gulf be drained, the water cleaned, filtered, desalinated, and stored for future emergency (which I admit is a good idea considering the coming Water Wars), and then just keep piping away the oil until the pressure equalizes.


Have you heard any equally weird, outrageous, or impossible ideas?

Originally posted by SG-17
Well after my friend suggested something really, really stupid to me, I decided to make this thread to contain all of the horrible, stupid, or impossible ideas on how to clean the Gulf and stop the oil.



My friend suggested that a giant dam be built from Florida to Cuba, and then to the Yucatan Peninsula, as well as multiple ones to block off all tributaries from land into the Gulf. He then proposed that the Gulf be drained, the water cleaned, filtered, desalinated, and stored for future emergency (which I admit is a good idea considering the coming Water Wars), and then just keep piping away the oil until the pressure equalizes.


Have you heard any equally weird, outrageous, or impossible ideas?

Well we could try to make the world's biggest sponge and drop it on the ocean....Wouldn't that be fun?

I actually thought of your friends idea of building a giant dam that would block the gulf from the Atlantic ocean.. but I quickly realized how impossible this is.

All we need to clean up the mess is self replicating Nano-Bots that eat oil? That should do the trick unless they keep eating and destroy us all.

Not totally crazy I guess.

Ask BP, they are churning out some silly ones for ya

2nd line

1. put together 60" x 5000' steel pipe and push it down over the top of the well and deep into the sea floor. Then have a butt load of tankers come and pump oil; out of the 60"x5000' casing until the wells are completed.

2. Insert a 4" pipe (small enough diameter to allow the oil to go around the pipe while inserting the plug) deep into the well below the casing blowout and inflate a massive plug out the bottom of the 4".

3. Or just make a 100 ton steel plug that is the size of the smallest size casing used (exapmle 7"x500' round solid steel plug) and push it down to the bottom of that well.



[edit on 16-6-2010 by KINGKONG]

I have the ULTIMATE Gulf Clean-Up Strategy:






























[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/5b65fede8e5a.jpg[/atsimg]

Hmmm... Ridiculous ideas?

Hot, molten lava put in layers on top of the entire area.

Everyone in the govt and BP is given buckets, and they scoop out every. Last. Drop. Which they then separate oil from water, which is then trucked to the atlantic or pacific.

Someone find freaking Superman..... Actually, no... Supergirl. I volunteer to take her to dinner later in appreciation. Lots, and LOTS of appreciation.

Build a wall, and find some super science-y way to harden water and oil, which then can be carved up. I dont mean frozen.

[edit on 16-6-2010 by wylekat]

No, this will fix it for sure.






[edit on 16/6/2010 by Sauron]

1. Invent a teleportation device and beam the oil particles into space (with the BP executives where they can spend eternity with their precious black gold).

2. Invent a time machine and prevent the disaster.

3. Call Superman.

4. Pollute the oceans with something worse so the oil spill seems less disastrous.

5. Mass suicide unless god sorts it out, and convince god to give us a new planet.

6. Hope ET is watching and forgets about the non-interference "prime directive".

Someone the other night called coast to coast and suggested using mushrooms. I mean, mushrooms do absorb a lot of oil, but really, there would never be enough mushrooms in the world for that!

I remember one time in the past watching a show about oil spills and someone took something like chewing gum base and froze it in liquid nitrogen. The base was then crushed to a fine powder which would absorb a lot of oil. The stuff was sprinkled on oil and turned it into a mass of gum which would harden and float.

Maybe it would be easier to clean up chunks of oil instead of fluid oil, I don't know.

It sounds silly but I remember in the show it seemed to work. They'd need tons of it. But it has to be cleaner that that dispersant stuff they are using.



[edit on 16-6-2010 by jessieg]

[edit on 16-6-2010 by jessieg]

reply to post by who-me?


We'll need more than that!

Run a 3" pipe down into the top of the BOP and pump liquid nitrogen down till the BOP is frozen solid.
The oil will be like hard tar when frozen with liquid nitrogen

Then use a down hole retrieval tool to grab the drill pipe and screw a plug in it.

A giant dust buster...

Those things never worked.

reply to post by blamethegreys


That made my day

I was not expecting the picture

Thanks for the laugh, it's good to keep some levity among all the bad news