Amazing Simple Method to Clean Up the Oil Spill

Awesome!

Simple.

Starred and flagged.

Kind of similar to a loose Hay Waddle used at construction sites to catch loose building materials paint, cement Etc. before it goes down the drains into the river/lakes.
Great idea and even if it failed i'm sure we would be better off than when we started. S&F !!

Originally posted by nixie_nox
aye aye aye. The problem isn't how to absorb the oil. The pressure of the massive deep resovoire popped every saftey on a massive oil rig like a champagne cork.

You really think some bales of hay are 1) your gonna be able to sink that much 5k feet into the ocean? 2) that would require a lot of friggin hay.

[edit on 7-5-2010 by nixie_nox]

The hay does not need to get all the way down to the leak to be effective. The surface of the Gulf is where all of the spawning, breeding, feeding and living is done for the most part. If this hay can be used to mop up the oil on the surface, that would go a long way towards keeping this catastrophe to a manageable level. I like this idea a lot more than the thought of all those chemical dispersants they are spraying on the water right now.

s+f. Lots of eyeballs need to see this.

Originally posted by argentus
reply to post by schrodingers dog

 

Right, dawg. You probably noticed that the area of the hay was greated than that of the oil in the demonstration. However, 1. Are there fields of moldy hay that cannot be sold and might be transported to the Gulf? and 2. Will the oil-soaked hay stay within containment of, say, a sorbent boom?

y'gotta love people working on the problem. That gives me hope that they even give a crap enough to try it and share their method.

Dispersants are more than mere surfactants, but I wonder if a very dense surfactant (TSP?) might cause the crude to coalesce more?

Even if it doesn't it will just wash up on the beach like sea weed and can be easily cleaned up. This idea is actually pretty genius! Crude will stick to the hay even better then the motor oil they used for the demo.

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting
You've got to love the American people. Here are two guys in their garage trying to figure out how to deal with this problem. Whether it works or not (I'm not sure we can fill the ocean up with hay) they are giving it a shot.

There's a great deal of brainstorming going on all around the country right now. I find the efforts most admirable.

I had the same heart-bursting feeling when I watched these guys. There are so many creative thinkers, so many "everyday geniuses" out there...I just hope the people that make the decisions open themselves up to all suggestions and don't just dismiss people out of hand because they are not PhD's in engineering.

Hill Jack science fair, thats what this is Hill Jack Science Fair.

Obama's Katrina x 2, love it!

I think its a good idea that warrants more research...

Having said that, this is the only redneck solution I've ever seen which didn't involve duct tape. LOL

Not that I have anything against rednecks

[edit on 7-5-2010 by FalselyFlagged]

Ok folks,
I just sent that vid to Obama (and took full credit for finding it, of course) along with my brilliant plan for it's implimentation.
So I told ol' bama that there are a ton of folks looking for work in a country called GREECE. Yes GREECE. You know... grease, oil... Whatever, Obama is a smart guy I think he got the pun. "God works in mysterious ways", I told him. So pretty soon you can expect to see some Greece folks out on boats full of hay in the gulf any day now. And you can thank me for it .

This idea is just plain DUMB! Hilljack science for sure!

Lets say BP decides to spread millions of tons of hay out in the gulf, what makes you think its going to just stay put in large clumps to await collection and not disperse in the choppy waters of the Gulf of Mexico? Or worse yet get picked up by the wind a spread all over making a much bigger mess!

Even if it stayed put you would still have to spend countless hours combing the ocean collecting a million tons of the stuff and offload it on to trucks...Now BP would have to figure out where the hell to store all that crap while it dries, Then load it all up again for transport to a facility to burn and pollute the air!

Or you could just drop chemical dispersant on the slick and be done with it, which is exactly whats their doing!!!

Sorry to bust your bubble friends but this idea is just plain dumb...



[edit on 7-5-2010 by Niccawhois]

I admire these guys for their creativity and I think the idea holds some merit. It's great to see my fellow americans step forward with quick ideas to try to resolve such a problem when something like this happens. I say give it a try.

In the many years I worked with the Government there seemed to be an unwritten rule. "If it makes sense, We don't do it" Considering the Federal Government is smack dab in the middle of this thing I wouldn't hold my breath.

Even if they did consider going this route it would require at least 6 months of deliberation. I'm not trying to be funny here, I have seen how these people operate.

Yep this will work for surface problems. If you check out the ornamental pond stores most do sell hay and barley traps and such to catch algae and other contaminants to make the water crystal clear. It will work better if it is spread out though and not kept in bales. Just tear the bales apart and throw in. It will stay within the booms. Think of pieces of grass floating just on the surface.

Pond owners have been using this for decades to clean up even oil and other contaminants that has entered their ponds.

Modesto Bee 1984
In this article a pond was contaminated with oil and hay was used to clean it. Warning some sort of Google proprietary archive.

Park Department employees tossed hay into the water Monday and Tuesday. They were assisted on Tuesday by 20 inmates from the Department of Corrections Honor Farm.

The hay picks up oil droplets as it is blown across the pond and is collected
as it washes up on shore.

I can't imagine though that any solution will be easy. It is so large scale. The reason this isn't widely known is because labeling hay for cleaning water puts it under EPA guidelines as a chemical.











[edit on 7/5/10 by toochaos4u]

[edit on 7/5/10 by toochaos4u]

Originally posted by intelinside451
Obama's Katrina x 2, love it!

There's one in every crowd.

Originally posted by Niccawhois
This idea is just plain DUMB! Hilljack science for sure!

Lets say BP decides to spread millions of tons of hay out in the gulf, what makes you think its going to just stay put in large clumps to await collection and not disperse in the choppy waters of the Gulf of Mexico? Or worse yet get picked up by the wind a spread all over making a much bigger mess!

It can be contained with booms. If some of it gets away it washes up on beaches and can be picked up easily just like sea weed. if the wind picks up the hay it's friggen grass its not going to hurt anything... Sigh

Even if it stayed put you would still have to spend countless hours combing the ocean collecting a million tons of the stuff and offload it on to trucks...Now BP would have to figure out where the hell to store all that crap while it dries, Then load it all up again for transport to a facility to burn and pollute the air!

Or you could just drop chemical dispersant on the slick and be done with it, which is exactly whats their doing!!!

Yeah leave the oil in the water and add chemicals to disperse it so now it and the chemicals can contaminate even more of the ocean rather then actually remove most of of the oil. Briliant watson, you must be a friggen genius.... /sarcasm

Sorry to bust your bubble friends but this idea is just plain dumb...

Dumb indeed is leaving the oil in the water and adding chemicals!

[edit on 7-5-2010 by hawkiye]

I do like alternative solutions to such a grave problem. The one you enlightened us to is a good one. But here is natures organic a nd natural means to rid us of a petroleum spill:

eyeteeth.blogspot.com...

If there is a better idea, i wanna hear it.

Peace and Love

Originally posted by VenusOnTheHalfShell
I do like alternative solutions to such a grave problem. The one you enlightened us to is a good one. But here is natures organic a nd natural means to rid us of a petroleum spill:

eyeteeth.blogspot.com...

If there is a better idea, i wanna hear it.

Peace and Love

That is pretty cool but can mushrooms grow in the ocean? I doubt it. Sounds to me like these two can work together. We pick up all the oil with the hay and then where ever the hay is stored we bring in the mushrooms and let them do thier thing.

I was thinking more along the lines of the worlds biggest Sham-WOW.

Second line.

In this demonstration, the hay soaked up the oil in a very shallow (only a few inches) level of water.

The oil slick is thousands of feet deep - it's not just on the surface.

I don't think there's that much hay available either - most farm animals are now fed on soy or corn.

Nice idea in principle, but I think that once in practice it would flounder. If it was this simple, they would have done it this way for decades.

I'd would have hoped they would have tried the hay before they went ahead and dumped a bunch of other non-naturally occuring chemicals into the mix. Not to mention the big dumb box they are lowering to catch the oil - please - I heard they said they thought the four story box could possibly capture 80% of the oil, but then they say a lot of things.

I'm just curious how many years it's been since the Exxon-valdez spill and bopal pesticide thing happened. neither one of those has been satisfactorilly cleaned up yet - what makes this so different?

I say let the good ol boys try their thing and tell BP to get the hell out of our water. Go soil up your cliffs of dover or whatever.