Undecided

Costner’s centrifugal ocean therapy machine promises to be a potential solution to the BP Gulf Oil Spill. [Direct Link: Ocean Therapy Solutions]

Synopsis:

The largest of these machines (imagined by and created with Kevin Costner’s $20 million investment) has the potential to process 210,000 gallons of oil per day (200 gallons per minute) out of ocean water.  According to rough estimates, over 1,200,000 gallons of oil per day are leaking in to the gulf.  BP has ordered thirty-two of these machines while the US government has not ordered any, despite the fact that Costner appeared before a House Committee on Science & Technology early in June.

Early tests seem to have flopped due to unexpectedly high consistancy of the oil being separated (allegedly the consistancy of peanut butter), but OTS has claimed to have put fixes in place to resolve the issue and are resuming field trials.  OTS goes so far as to make bold that their tests on the weekend of June 5-6 have been successful.  (An earlier press release indicates that testing began mid-May, but no claims of success were made for 3 weeks.  This is, presumably, the timeframe in which the early failures were evaluated and fixes were applied to the technology to adjust for unexpected conditions.)

During Costner’s testimony to the House Committee, Costner urged the house to legislate that machines like his should be mandated for all off shore drilling operations, much like life preservers are mandated.

Editorial:

My early concerns about claims that water is 99% clean harkons back to the fishbowl keeping days of my youth.  I learned very quickly that if you changed the water purity quickly (exchanging bowl water for tap water) the fish would die of shock.  I don’t understand the science behind this phenomena, but it’s real.

So the question I have is, is it 99% clean or 99% clean of petroleum?  The latter, leaving most other impurities/salt/etc. in the water strikes me as being the desirable outcome.  Cleaning the water of ecosystem killing oil, only to kill it with purified water does not seem like a great solution.

But, if this machine removes only the crude oil from the water, leaving most other elements in place (salt, etc.), this could be the wonder machine of the decade.