Can you stop the Gulf oil spill?

[Old Ducker]

Emergency Response 2.0 : Solutions to Respond to Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

Recently, an explosion on an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico caused both loss of life and a sizable and ongoing oil spill. We are asking Solvers worldwide to respond quickly with ideas and approaches to react to this very serious environmental threat. Can you make a difference? Yes, InnoCentive's work with the Oil Spill Recovery Institute a few years ago is proof positive of this. We encourage you to get involved. Note: This is not a competition. This is an urgent call to action to help respond to a dangerous situation affecting the environment, wildlife, and human health of the world. There will be no award made for this Challenge. You can try our new Team Project functionality on this Challenge.
(#9383447)
Deadline: May 30, 2010
Reward: See Details

https://gw.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9383447

[foofighter20x]

I can stop the gulf oil spill.

Proposal: any one who can reclaim the spilled oil can keep it free of charge and without taxation on the profits from its sale.


People will flock to clean it up...

[edit: then again, the no taxation part provides a lot of incentive to intentionally spill oil from other rigs...]
[edit 2: solved that: only provide the tax exemption for those who aren't oil companies, their employees, or shareholders]

[Chester Copperpot]

I can stop the gulf oil spill.

Proposal: any one who can reclaim the spilled oil can keep it free of charge and without taxation on the profits from its sale.


People will flock to clean it up...

[edit: then again, the no taxation part provides a lot of incentive to intentionally spill oil from other rigs...]
[edit 2: solved that: only provide the tax exemption for those who aren't oil companies, their employees, or shareholders]

BINGO.. now I expect you to get your prize

[DjLoTi]

i have an idea... lets stop using oil. If the oil companies wouldn't stifle technology for our cars, we'd have cars that were fully electric and self-sufficient. We could then use the money we save from not buying oil, and use that to build an infrastructure to cater to our new technologically advanced vehicles.

In a perfect world....

[bkreigh]

I can stop the gulf oil spill.

Proposal: any one who can reclaim the spilled oil can keep it free of charge and without taxation on the profits from its sale.


People will flock to clean it up...

[edit: then again, the no taxation part provides a lot of incentive to intentionally spill oil from other rigs...]
[edit 2: solved that: only provide the tax exemption for those who aren't oil companies, their employees, or shareholders]

Couple flaws in this. Where are the folks going to store the oil while waiting to sell it? I would guess most folks would store it in an unsafe containment resulting in the oil polluting for a second time. Furthermore, i dont see oil companies wasting their time buying small amounts of oil from folks. The transportation and transfer operations would not make it very profitable.

You are on the right track though. Let folks go out (after proper training) and recover the oil. Once recovered BP then pays said person X amount of dollars for each barrel, gallon, etc. for the amount they recovered.

[libertythor]

i have an idea... lets stop using oil. If the oil companies wouldn't stifle technology for our cars, we'd have cars that were fully electric and self-sufficient. We could then use the money we save from not buying oil, and use that to build an infrastructure to cater to our new technologically advanced vehicles.

In a perfect world....

How do they stifle the technology?

[nate895]

i have an idea... lets stop using oil. If the oil companies wouldn't stifle technology for our cars, we'd have cars that were fully electric and self-sufficient. We could then use the money we save from not buying oil, and use that to build an infrastructure to cater to our new technologically advanced vehicles.

In a perfect world....

The idea that we'd have electric cars by now is bogus. That was experimented with in the early days of automobiles, and ever since electric automobiles have always underperformed gas-operated autos. You can actually get fully electric cars now anyway, it's just that many can't get up to freeway speeds, and the few that can have other issues, such as range issues.

[lynnf]

BINGO.. now I expect you to get your prize


I think you missed the fine print there, dude --- there is no prize!

one of the last lines: "There will be no award made for this Challenge."

lynn

[tangent4ronpaul]

https://gw.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9383447

You TOTALLY SUCK Old Ducker! - What do you mean putting some perfectly cooked prime steak in front of my nose????

I just might slay my best horse and mount his skin on a pole directed at your house!

JOKING!!!!! :D:D:D:D

I had fun with this! - Almost all the ideas I had within a minute, but to write it up took a while... (OK - all night....) as well as read the other contributors ideas - which gave me a couple of more...

----------------8<----------------8<----------------8<----------------8<--------------

My contribution to the forms, so far - I have not submitted a formal reply submission yet - want to touch base with some engineer and scientist friends to polish it before I do....

Few facts, primarily picked up from a DHS briefing on C-SPAN and to a lesser extent the MSM, so take them with a grain of salt:

5,000 barrels leaking per day. 1 barrel = 55 gal.
Depth of leak = 1 mile. Pressure at that depth is 20,000 lb per sq in.
Oil company has not been able to seal the leak, primarily because the pressure of the oil coming out is too great. They plan to drill another well nearby in order to reduce this pressure. This will takes weeks, at best.
Oil slick diameter is > 100 miles. That was 2 days ago. It's probably twice that now. Just heard, three times that size...
Oil changes chemically after a couple of days in sea water. Beyond the lighter fractions separating, I'm not sure what's happening here chemically. It's apparently the lighter fractions that are washing ashore now. What effect this has on the usefulness of the oil that might be collected from the surface or it's ability to be burned off, if unknown.
Normally, oil slicks are contained by burning. You must have a 1 – 10” thick slick in order to be reliably ignited. While there are certainly areas like this, with the spread, many areas are not. Weather has largely prevented the burns.
This appears to be an “octopus” style rig – that is one rig serves many wells, some many miles away. I could be wrong here.,,


Leak Containment

My initial idea is similar to taylorse's “funnel”. Like the “grabber” arcade game, or retrieving a ship from the oceans floor to the surface, build a, say, 20 ton reinforced cement or steel dome. Place 4 valves, like the failed blow out valve around the upper part – about 2/3rds of the way up, evenly spaced and a sonar unit/camera/other sensor in the center inside, facing down. The valves could be controlled via a tether to “steer” the domes decent into position by partially opening and closing valves, then once in place, hooked up to the normal collection system. As noted, a level or at least compressible landing zone would be critical.

If the pipe is accessible, construct a really huge “jaws of life”, attach it to a deep sea submersible, and crimp it.


Leak Mitigation

Along the lines of the “vacuum” and windsock ideas, pushing / pulling anything to depth is difficult. In order to minimize the amount of uncontrolled oil reaching the surface, I'd propose trying to get a vacuum a bit deeper in the sea. Maybe half or a quarter mile and try to scoop up what can be caught. In order to get it deeper than would normally be possible, put the equivalent of a laboratory aspirator on the collection end. Perhaps, a membrane mounted at an angle to do a preliminary separation, and in so doing create a vacuum to help get the petroleum going where you one it. Providing a little push – or initial pull, as the case may be and reduce the load on the surface equipment, allowing a deeper depth of operation than would normally be possible.

While radio waves travel poorly through water, I have seen papers where desalination was accomplished with tuned microwaves. .Perhaps acoustic energy could be pulled into play. I'm thinking along the lines of altering the aquatic environment by creating a freshwater funnel for containment, or dumping minerals and trying to get them to to weigh down the crude oil or getting the oil to congeal / become denser and thus sink. Something like that.


Semi-autonomous swarms of aerial delivered micro-tugboats (mini-torpedos) for oil slick containment and concentration.

The concept is to develop teams (swarms) composed of pairs of autonomous proportion units, each of which would seek out and slowly drag a containment barrier in order to collect and concentrate parts of an oil slick where the distance and manpower would not allow tasking manpower, until a sufficient quantity had been collected to warrant recovery or destruction. Swarm technology is fairly well developed, so deploying masses of such units, that would operate in convert, like a school of fish, should be an off the shelf proposal.

Delivery would be by low level, static line parachute drop. The “parachute” being the oil drag net / barrier / boome, Something longer than a normal oil barrier and folded in strips to make up the canopy. Strip down, 90 deg fold, another immediate 90 deg fold, repeat. Both ends of the canopy would end up looking like a saw blade. Either sew or glue the non-permanent static lines and where the strips join together with something that will dissolve relatively quickly in sea water. .

Once in the water, the top (flotation) chamber would optionally need to be filled with a gas. Possibilities include a small air compressor and tubing on board the micro-tugs, a small CO2, or similar cylinder – as used to carbonate water or inflate life vests or a chemical reaction with water releasing the gas, and sealing accomplished by something like “fix-a-flat” that will contain the gas once pressure is present. This might not be necessary as a solid of gas flotation element probably would not interfere with the canopy. The weighted bottom is a different story – not something you want as part of a parachute. Producing and pumping something in-situ would be ideal – perhaps using membranes to concentrate sea water into a “heavy sea water” would work or a packet of weights dropped with the tugs that would be pulled into place when tug operations commenced. Beyond that, self check, network with other units and forming the swarm to start look for concentrations of oil. Call home and report status.

Almost everything I'm talking about here involves off the shelf components and technology – a team of grad students could deliver an initial working swarm in 2 weeks or less, if they dropped everything else. We are looking at units that are slow, cheap, relatively dumb (intelligence of an ant + ), and slightly out of control. Enough of them could clean this mess up!

Each unit would need: a radio, most low power, one or two in a swarm more high power, only a couple would need better sensors – due to power requirements, these should not be the ones with better radios, each would need a GPS unit, a recharging unit, a power generation unit or two, an electrical engine / propeller, a computer, probably some inflation, etc hardware (opt), a bit of custom software.

Power generation: There are high efficiency solar cells out there – put them on the back of the “fish”. There are also panels that are flexible that could be dragged behind the flotation chambers on the surface. Providing about 24 volts should make this work. A second option is dripping a short wire and a long wire in salt water. The thermal difference generates a low charge.

Navigation – either on board sensors and these would also be needed to determine how much of a slick has accumulated. How many inches deep. Perhaps viscosity meters, something to navigate on. The combination of micro-tugs and a UAV for intel and command and control would be powerful. Directing the swarm to likely harvests.

Once located and collected, the swarm could call in an air strike (oil slick infighters, and, leave the area or submerge – though that capability would take more engineering. self destruct – if disposable – setting them off, or leaving some charges and egressing the area. To get better travel time, the pairs in each swarm could hook up – effectively causing the “net” to fold in half, and perhaps sew strong magnets into the boone edges to reduce drag. Head for the next oil concentration.

These could stay operational indefinably, if engineered correctly.

I was really impressed with some of the other idea's presented. In particular (beyond those mentioned), burying the leak, explosive compression of the pipe using national lab technology and drilling and placing charges to cause a sidewards movement of the sea bed.

[tangent4ronpaul]

I think you missed the fine print there, dude --- there is no prize!

one of the last lines: "There will be no award made for this Challenge."

lynn

No - I didn't miss it. It's called doing the right thing.

If you are so focused on personal gain, I will be sure to note to never trust you as far as I can spit.

-t

[DjLoTi]

Haven't yall seen who killed the electric car? That movie was made in 2006. That was 4 years ago.. I'm sure we have even better technology now.

9 of the 10 top companies in the world are oil companies. You think they're just going to let their bread and butter be wiped away because of a few measly technological advances?

When I was running Ron Paul radio.com, I talked to a famous inventor who told me that, without a doubt, we have technology that supersedes the combustible engine.

Lots of people argue with me on this, but I'm 100% confident I'm correct in my assertion that we have the technology to do away with cars requiring oil and gas.

[Cowlesy]

I hope our thinkers out there figure out a way to cap that thing, because the gov't sure doesn't have a clue, and BP plc seems hopeless, too.

[torchbearer]

I hope our thinkers out there figure out a way to cap that thing, because the gov't sure doesn't have a clue, and BP plc seems hopeless, too.

they have to release the pressure with another well. it will take 3 months.

[Todd]

I can stop the gulf oil spill.

Proposal: any one who can reclaim the spilled oil can keep it free of charge and without taxation on the profits from its sale.


People will flock to clean it up...

[edit: then again, the no taxation part provides a lot of incentive to intentionally spill oil from other rigs...]
[edit 2: solved that: only provide the tax exemption for those who aren't oil companies, their employees, or shareholders]

that is a really great idea

but the reality will be it will be cleaned up by you and me one way or another.

[tangent4ronpaul]

that is a really great idea

but the reality will be it will be cleaned up by you and me one way or another.

Lemme guess - Haliburton gets hired to take care of the problem and through 20 levels of their subsidiaries charges the tax payer $80 an hour for wetback labor they import from Mexico and pay 80 cents an hour - while using sub-standard materials to do it - Katrina Daja-Vu!!!!

:rolleyes:

-t

[TruckinMike]

sidebar...


The idea that we'd have electric cars by now is bogus. That was experimented with in the early days of automobiles, and ever since electric automobiles have always underperformed gas-operated autos. You can actually get fully electric cars now anyway, it's just that many can't get up to freeway speeds, and the few that can have other issues, such as range issues.

Try this link (http://www.envisionmotorcompany.com/) out for size. 200+ mile Range, and up to 75mph -- all electric wagon, truck and van.

There is a thread on this somewhere??

TMike

[Cowlesy]

they have to release the pressure with another well. it will take 3 months.

What the hell happens if it is a bad hurricane season??

[torchbearer]

What the hell happens if it is a bad hurricane season??

the Gulf of Mexico will be renamed to the Shimmering Sea.

[tangent4ronpaul]

What the hell happens if it is a bad hurricane season??

BLACK RAIN!

And a bad season is the forecast....

-t

[DjLoTi]

Try this link (http://www.envisionmotorcompany.com/) out for size. 200+ mile Range, and up to 75mph -- all electric wagon, truck and van.

If we took all the money we spent on oil and used it to push fully electric cars/trucks, we would have fleets and fleets of fully electric vehicles.

And if there was tons of money in this industry, and it started becoming mass-produced, we'd create even BETTER and CHEAPER technology

But the oil companies are obviously preventing this as best they can. They will lose *all* their money.

[dwdollar]

Here's an idea.



...

[1000-points-of-fright]

i have an idea... lets stop using oil.

Ok, let's stop using oil. Woops, your computer just disappeared. So did the internet. So did all your CDs and ipods and TVs. You know what else disappears? Your electric cars.

[DjLoTi]

Ok, let's stop using oil. Woops, your computer just disappeared. So did the internet. So did all your CDs and ipods and TVs. You know what else disappears? Your electric cars.

lol.. it's not an overnight process. The only thing we need oil for is plastics, and that requires something like a whole 1% of the oil consumption used...

It's called working towards a goal...

I'm not sure if your 'arguments' are elaborated enough. Perhaps you could elaborate for us

[aravoth]

Well, given that some estimates put this reserve as the second largest ever discovered. The fact that it's 5,000 feet underwater, and was drilling into a pocket 30,000 feet down, and is rumored to be gushing close to 100,000 barrells a day.

I'd say that nothing is going to stop it.

The amount of presssure was immense. Think about it.

The pressure overwhelmed every single saftey mechanisim on the pipe, destroyed a rig that is 3.5 acres in diameter, and now, that big ass rig is stting on top of a gushing torrent of oil.

Good luck patching that shit up.

[Matt Collins]

BLACK RAIN!

And a bad season is the forecast....

-t
Think about this..... when a hurricane drops water over land, does it drop fresh water or salt water? :rolleyes:

[Old Ducker]

My stupid, but simple idea is simply to lower a parachute-like device over the wellhead to collect oil after it emerges from the well and the pressure is released. Once filled, it would rise on its own due to the lower density of oil and would be fitted with a valve on top to connect to pumpout hoses after surfacing. A bunch of these could be used in bucket-brigade fashion until the well is capped. Of course the practicality of this is dependent on just how much oil is coming out. It made sense when they were talking about 200,000 gallons a day (140 gpm) but if its five or six times that, it would require some really big "balloons" to have sufficent fill residence time.

[Old Ducker]

You TOTALLY SUCK Old Ducker! - What do you mean putting some perfectly cooked prime steak in front of my nose????

I just might slay my best horse and mount his skin on a pole directed at your house!

JOKING!!!!! :D:D:D:D

Tangent, Innocentive is a VERY cool site. Although the vast majority of the challenges are far removed from my areas of expertise, I have responded to two of them, without success, so far. :mad:

Registration is free, I suggest u become a member. They send out bulletins with new stuff on it every few days. That's how I became aware of this.

[Original_Intent]

Old Ducker - that is a really good idea. If I picture what you are saying correctly, the filled containers would rise which would also lower the empty containers.

In an unrelated note, I have been reading rumors that a North Korean mini-sub torpedoed and then self destructed under the drilling platform, and that this is being reported in Russia and elsewhere but there is a blackout in the U.S. - let's get those tn-foil hats on!

[tangent4ronpaul]

Tangent, Innocentive is a VERY cool site. Although the vast majority of the challenges are far removed from my areas of expertise, I have responded to two of them, without success, so far. :mad:

Registration is free, I suggest u become a member. They send out bulletins with new stuff on it every few days. That's how I became aware of this.

I joined! - thanks! see post 9 for what I posted to the message form. I have not submitted any formal proposals yet, as I want to think them through and have been looking for team members to flesh out where I'm weak.

thanks again!

-t

[michaelwise]

I believe a tactical nuclear warhead placed in a 100meter drilled down adjacent hole would do quite well in plugging the hole. After detonation of course.

[rancher89]

snip

In an unrelated note, I have been reading rumors that a North Korean mini-sub torpedoed and then self destructed under the drilling platform, and that this is being reported in Russia and elsewhere but there is a blackout in the U.S. - let's get those tn-foil hats on!

Yep, the husband is all over that report....sigh

I asked him didn't someone come up with oil eating bacteria, and he said that I was thinking of a sci fi movie.

Still think it's a good idea

[tangent4ronpaul]

Yep, the husband is all over that report....sigh

I asked him didn't someone come up with oil eating bacteria, and he said that I was thinking of a sci fi movie.

Still think it's a good idea

Your husband is wrong!

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B8CX4-4VNGRV6-M&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1320430763&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a633b5f9f8847e33efeb0823b4d701cd
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/life_sciences/report-25707.html
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1999-05/926359264.Mi.r.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=7yo0Baa0lgwC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=bacteria+eating+petroleum+sabotage&source=bl&ots=sFw4k7VQ7y&sig=bxvuyrIJJSSiFkQfQmxuQoJoYg8&hl=en&ei=ZMbeS963Fo-g9QSEoITKBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CDgQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.asknature.org/strategy/58aec09fea7b3aba5e4c9489823014c0

-t

[SLSteven]

Not to worry guys...I heard that flocks of lawyers are going to the gulf coast to take care of the problem.

[aravoth]

I believe a tactical nuclear warhead placed in a 100meter drilled down adjacent hole would do quite well in plugging the hole. After detonation of course.

rofl...

actually, you're probably on the right track there.

[foofighter20x]

that is a really great idea

but the reality will be it will be cleaned up by you and me one way or another.

Might as well let us all profit off of it then...

[bucfish]

Send Jenna Jameson down there she can suck the gusher up, LOL

[KCIndy]

If we took all the money we spent on oil and used it to push fully electric cars/trucks, we would have fleets and fleets of fully electric vehicles.

I'm all in favor of electric vehicles.... BUT... the big question is, HOW DO WE GENERATE THE ELECTRICITY???

We can burn more coal, which is (arguably) dirty technology, we can start building more nuclear power plants with all the joys and wonder of nuclear waste with a 10,000 year half life, we can burn natural gas, which is (arguably) dangerous to store and transport (and the big winner of the "Not In My Backyard!" category) or we can use solar power, which is very expensive, not all that efficient, and only works well in the U.S. southwest. There's wind power, but again, that doesn't work everywhere either, and is inconsistent at best. How do you generate power when the wind quits?

Until a really good, cheap, clean and simple method of generating massive amounts of electricity is invented, electric cars are likely to be problematic. And that's not even addressing the issue of taking one on a cross country trip. It takes about five minutes to fill a tank with gas, but up to five hours or more to recharge a full set of electric car batteries. :(

BUT... if you'd like to buy me an electric car, here's the one I keep asking Santa for:


http://www.carforums.net/reviews/makes/pictures/34-tesla-roadster.jpg
www.teslamotors.com

0-60 in 3.7 seconds
236 mile range

"Driving the Roadster Sport.... felt like having sex while being sprayed with Champagne." -- Matthew DeBord

http://www.thebigmoney.com/blogs/shifting-gears/2010/03/10/review-tesla-roadster-sport-130000-electric-orange-sex?page=full

[tangent4ronpaul]

Napalm Rings / Floating Holding Tanks

Deposit napalm – the gelling agent, not the finished product – in a circumference around a large concentration of floating oil to form a boom / floating holding tank made out of petroleum. Possibly reinforce with cloth, cable, rope or some other material. Then drop a few bouys in the holding tank and attach anchors. The point being to keep the slick out at sea until it can be dealt with. If done over the area the oil is coming up, it would fill from the bottom.

[Someone asked about a roof or higher walls due to waves and choppy seas...]


All napalm is not created equal.


Sure.- All napalms are not created equal. While there may have been advances in formulation since WWII, the one I know of that is suitable for in-situ production was referred to as Napalm X-104. A 12% solution, after a single stir produced a gel that was “tough, strong and sticks”. It takes 2-3 hours to completely set, but becomes a gel immediately. You would obviously want to make it when the sea was calmer. For a cap – at least some feet in, simply distributing a thin layer across of gelling compound inbound as opposed to the fairly significant amounts for the ring should do the job. I'm thinking containers that are miles in diameter.

For something smaller, with walls, the same technique used at Arcosanti could be used. There they dig forms in the earth and poor concrete, here, booms could form molds and rectangles jelled. They are sticky so gluing them together, with perhaps a bit more napalm for the joints, should form long sections of wall easily. It would probably take a crane or two to right the sections and a tug or two to join the two ends.

-t

[Promontorium]

I do not understand. They had all of history to ask this question. Why are they asking now? There is a 0:infinity chance someone's idea will be used at this point (even if the idea was perfect and free, and actually brought extinct species back to life, and Jesus and Optimus Prime).

This is a joke.