Message to BP - Start Pumping

The most effective way to remove the oil from the oceans is to pump it out (believe it or not). Sure, you may get a lot of water with it, but luckily there is an easy and fast method to separate oil and water.

After you cap the leak and stop the flow, you best rush and rent, purchase, and find, any all all pumps you can get your hands on, and fix them to ships. Some ships already have pumps installed. Some ship's propulsion systems are pumps.

You can probably even run enormous pumps from land, and protect the mainland from approaching oil.

It would be a very LARGE task, which is why I suggest you start now.

Here is the idea...

1: Gather all the pumps you can. Pump jets from watercraft and ships, industrial water pumps, ANYTHING that pumps water and oil. The larger the better.

2: Gather all the storage space you can for this water and oil. I suggest digging temporary extremely large ditches into the Earth on land. You can even use tanker ships, trucks, trains, jets, swimming pools, anything that can store oil and water.

3: This step is important. Make sure these storage spaces are fixed with a drain on the bottom with a control valve. Once the oil and water is put into these storage spaces, wait until the oil surfaces to the top. Once the oil is on top, you drain the water from the bottom effectively "filtering" and separating the oil out of the water.

4: You then pump the remaining oil into their long term storage spots, and reuse the temporary storage again, and pump more ocean water and oil into them, and repeat the process.

This method would be nearly 100% effective. Yes it would be a huge task, and would cost a pretty dime, but it would work without fail.

If you pump the oil off the surface of the ocean, you can minimize the amount of water that is collected.

If you start now you may just be able to pump all of it out before it reaches important places.

Any flaws in this suggestion could be worked out...

ATS, what do you think?


[edit on 11-5-2010 by ALLis0NE]

They would do these things if they wanted to save the planet.

But has it occured to anyone that this oil spill is not an accident?

Sorry to burst your balloon OP but, after a period of time, oil emulsifies that means mixes with water. Your plan won't work.
Using ships to skim the surface would be far more efficient and effective.

Come on swiming pools with drains? You serious?

reply to post by who-me?


Even if the oil emulsifies with water you should still get it out of the ocean! Yes, it is a big task.... so start now! Once you have it out of the ocean, you can take as long as you want to filter it out alternative ways.


Yes swimming pools with drains can be used. It is much better to temporary destroy a swimming pool than it is to destroy a wildlife preservation.

I can see it now, 100's of people donating their swimming pools to temporarily store oil water until it is filtered out (with other devices). Then getting their pools restored via BP reimbursement. (this would be last resort of course)

The average size in ground swimming pool is 30 x 40 x 5 feet. That would hold 29600 gallons of water and oil.

I read somewhere that the oil leak is leaking 200,000 gallons a day. That would be 7 average size swimming pools a day.

You would need 50 average size swimming pools to contain 1,480,000 gallons.

Once again, swimming pools for storage would be last resort.

[edit on 11-5-2010 by ALLis0NE]

reply to post by ALLis0NE


Wow! and yet another scientist with another ingenius idea to save the world. Yes indeed BP start pumping

Gloomers, you'all make my day.

Originally posted by ALLis0NE
reply to post by who-me?

 

Even if the oil emulsifies with water you should still get it out of the ocean! Yes, it is a big task.... so start now! Once you have it out of the ocean, you can take as long as you want to filter it out alternative ways.


Yes swimming pools with drains can be used. It is much better to temporary destroy a swimming pool than it is to destroy a wildlife preservation.

I can see it now, 100's of people donating their swimming pools to temporarily store oil water until it is filtered out. Then getting their pools restored via BP reimbursement. (this would be last resort of course)


[edit on 11-5-2010 by ALLis0NE]

Swimming pools

swimming pools!!!

It emulsifies?

Like a huge Crude-oil vinagrette?!?!?

Just dunp it all on a big salad. Bill it as a diet plan, bottle it and make an info-mercial and you will have a self-funding clean-up method!

Come on, can't you see that however good your intentions may be, the idea of shipping millions of litres of water and oil mixed to peoples swimming pools for separation and then shipping the water back is completely ludicrous.

[sarcasm] I have a better idea, why don't we send a giant pipe into orbit and attach it to a Geo-stationary satellite over the slick. Then we can put one end over that nasty nasty oil and the vacuum of space will suck all the oil to outer-space. Fixed Yay. [/sarcasm] Please nobody answer why this won't work.



[edit on 11/5/2010 by who-me?]

reply to post by Just Wondering


I don't get your post... are you trying to call me a gloomer?

I was just offering a way to clean up the oil before it reaches the hard-to-clean areas. I am not here trying to scare people into thinking the oil will destroy the world.

-edit-

After looking at your replies to all the other oil related topics, I see you call anyone who thinks the oil is a problem a "gloomer". I guess you have some type of problem.


[edit on 11-5-2010 by ALLis0NE]

reply to post by who-me?


Yes shipping millions of gallons of oil and water to and from swimming pools is very ridiculous. When I suggested swimming pools I suggested it LAST. It was a "last resort" type of thing. I was almost joking..

I doubt they would ever need swimming pools.

My main idea is to find a large area of land, dig HUGE ditches/holes, and fill them up. You can run pipes all the way to these ditches directly from the pumps.

The whole point is to just get the oil out of the ocean, and put it somewhere else that would be easier to clean up.

Why are you so stuck on the swimming pool thing??? You are just being a negative downer, and making stupid jokes about satellites. Get a life.


[edit on 11-5-2010 by ALLis0NE]

Please, I'm not being negative or a downer, but open your eyes, everything you have suggested is ridiculous. Digging ditches, buy a bunch of pumps, swimming pools etc doesn't matter what order you mentioned things, they're all not gonna work. It'd be like putting out a bush fire with 1 bucket of water.
I don't intend to offend, I'm trying to demonstrate why your ideas won't work and the scale of whats happened.

reply to post by who-me?


Like putting out a brush fire with 1 bucket? Are you on crack?

I am suggesting a 100% fool proof way to get the oil out of the water, out of harms way. Yes it will take a lot of resources but it is not impossible.

They don't have to buy pumps, they can rent them.

I used to work around industrial water pumps run by Caterpillar engines, there are literally 1000s of pumps sitting around waiting to be installed in water pump facilities. 20 of these pumps alone are enough to suck every square inch of oil coming directly out of the oil leak.

The same amount pumps could be run for a week straight and suck up every inch of oil already in the water. You just need a place to store it all.

I admit the idea seems like a very large task, but it's not impossible, and certainly not ridiculous. It would be 100% effective.

Do you have a better idea besides your obvious b.s. and negativity?

-edit-

Neat tip - One fire engine is capable of pumping 1,000 gallons of water a minute. 60,000 an hour. 1,440,000 a day.





[edit on 11-5-2010 by ALLis0NE]

I think this is a Satanic offering- sacrificing our precious oceans.

Unblievable stuff.

reply to post by ALLis0NE


Seriously, your saying that we pump the oil and water mix from 40 miles off shore into storage ditches we haven't dug yet using the "thousands of caterpillar pumps lying around" or failing that peoples swimming pools and then you have the audacity to say I'm the one on crack ROFL. You have the mind of Karl Pilkington.
Love it.

Originally posted by who-me?
reply to post by ALLis0NE

 

Seriously, your saying that we pump the oil and water mix from 40 miles off shore into storage ditches we haven't dug yet using the "thousands of caterpillar pumps lying around" or failing that peoples swimming pools and then you have the audacity to say I'm the one on crack ROFL. You have the mind of Karl Pilkington.
Love it.

What part of it is impossible? None of it. You are being negative, and ignorant. Extreme problems require extreme solutions. Get real.

Do you realize that BP was trying to make a funnel, and collect all of the oil coming out of the leak? That is a lot of oil, where do you think they were going to store that? What would be the difference of pumping the water and oil and collecting that? Not very much difference. The only difference is volume.

Also, you don't even have to pump it directly on land, you can pump it into tanker ships, and then ship it to containers on land.

Like I said in my first post, any problems with this idea can be solved. Once again you are being negative and actually quite insulting by making sarcastic jokes...

Are you going to help think of an idea? Or are you going to sit on your ass and ridicule people that are?

So far, all you are doing is being ignorant.

Go away now, you already proved you are no help.

[edit on 11-5-2010 by ALLis0NE]

How many oil spills has your method been used before on Allisone ?

Just curious to see whether or not you're an expert in the field of oil spill extraction methods.

If you're no expert then I'd suggest you leave it to the experts to solve the mess as they've probably got many many years of this kind of thing under their belts

Also why are you telling us instead of contacting the head offices of BP for this idea ?

I would sicc the entrepreneurs on the problem by telling them that they will be paid per barrel of oil captured/contained.

A large number of massive polyurethane bladders could be created relatively easily and then fitted (or positioned) in such a way as to catch as much oil as possible, before being floated to the surface.

From there the oil would be extracted into tankers from the plastic bladders.

A more efficient version of this system would see the bladder used in the same manner that the 'dome' was to be used - with the oil flowing into the massive bladder and being extracted into a tanker as it floats to the top.

The primary advantage of the bladder system over the dome one would be in flexibility. Unlike the dome system, the bladder would not have to be positioned so precisely as the dome and would be relying on it's massive volume and the low density of oil to accomplish its task . The oil would rise to the top of the bladder displacing the water - this would mean that the extraction pipe at the top of the bladder leading to the tanker would be sucking up mostly oil.

*As a bonus, the entrepreneurs would also be able to keep and sell any oil they manage to capture.


If this idea gets used, I hope you guys give me and Darrman some credit (and I hope the entrepreneurs give us money).




[edit on 11-5-2010 by Exuberant1]

Look guys, I'm not trying to ridicule or insult anyone, but the simple physics of this problem makes all of the solutions in this thread absurd. The dome idea attempted by BP is possible, they have had issues with gas icing - yeah that's right icing due to the pressure 5000m deep remember. Plastic bags, pipes and pump cannot work and have never been used in the past. There is a reason for that. It doesn't work.

To be effective you have to collect the oil faster than it is leaking - do you agree?
Show me how pumps and piping etc getting boats out there moving oil over distances of 40miles is gonna happen faster than the leak? Answer, its not.

I'm being negative? Here's my solution or suggestion, I by no means claim adamantly it is a fool proof idea but it sure is more realistic and practical.

Used existing technology skimmers and booms to collect the surface oil, bigger larger and ":deeper" than ever before. Thus encircling the leak from the surface and removing the rising oil from within that circle.

reply to post by who-me?

Originally posted by who-me?
To be effective you have to collect the oil faster than it is leaking - do you agree?
Show me how pumps and piping etc getting boats out there moving oil over distances of 40miles is gonna happen faster than the leak? Answer, its not.

Man, you are all kinds of wrong...

Did you not read my first post?

After you cap the leak and stop the flow...

This idea is about cleanup. Not stopping the flow.

Your idea of using skimmers to get the oil of the surface is the SAME as my idea, but I was saying to PUMP the oil off the surface.

Do you see how blatantly blind you have been now?

I was not talking about how to stop the leak, I was talking about clean up.

--

Funny enough, on ATS, when I WAS talking about how to stop the leak, before I even read about the solution BP was going to use, and before most News reporters reported it, I suggest they use a "funnel" and place it over the leak to channel the oil to the surface, and collect the oil any way possible.

Then later I found out, they are doing almost exactly the idea I was thinking about. I might as well be working for them..

Originally posted by who-me?
Thus encircling the leak from the surface and removing the rising oil from within that circle.

When you say "removing the rising oil", where do you think they are going to store it once they remove it?

Also, there is no "circle" when underwater streams can push the oil out of the circle.

I too was thinking about them using a team of boats with some type of tool to push the surface oil into manageable areas (a circle), kind of like herding sheep. However I figured the oil could still escape from underneath.

Anyway... people these days.


[edit on 11-5-2010 by ALLis0NE]

After they cap the leak? That's like saying once the faster than light speed engines finished, it doesn't matter because we can move to another planet.

Sorry, but.... FAIL again. Were all on the same page here a solution to the problem is whats needed, my primary point is that its not in this thread yet.