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'Oleo Sponge' may be the key to cleaning up after oil spills
Cleaning up after an oil spill isn't an easy job. Just ask Exxon Mobil, or, for a more recent example, BP. Current clean-up methods include skimming it of a body off water's surface or burning it. Neither are ideal for a few reasons, but beyond impacting the environment even further, they don't account for the sludge that's trapped below the waves. That's where the Department of Energy's Oleo Sponge comes in.
Researchers create magic sponge to clean up oil spills
Researchers at Australia's Deakin University claim to have developed a new material that's capable of cleaning up large oil spills in a flash. A team, led by Professor Ying Chen, has created a new method that uses boron nitride powder as the building block for a sponge that can absorb oil separate from water. Since you couldn't just sprinkle the substance onto the area around a crashed oil tanker, it had to be built into a porous 3D structure. In doing so, the team has been able to increase the surface area per gram to roughly five and a half tennis courts.
Magnetic soap could make your next oil spill less oily
Instead of spending millions upon millions to clean up the next oil spill, why don't we just all pitch in and buy some soap? That's basically what researchers at the University of Bristol are proposing, with a new kind of soap that's apparently like no other. This soap, you see, is magnetic, which means it could be easily removed from water without leaving behind any hazardous chemicals -- a potentially major selling point for cleanup crews and environmentalists alike. To create it, the team collected water with chlorine and bromine ions, and used it to dissolve iron particles, creating a metallic core. They proceeded to test their creation by placing the soapy particles within a test tube, underneath layers of water and oil. Much to their delight, they were able to remove the particles with only a magnet, ostensibly providing a template upon which disaster response crews may build.
Waste Landscape installation reminds us why CDs weren't that great (video)
For most people, the term "waste landscape" may evoke images of desolate industrial zones, toxic sewage leaks, or Phish concerts. But architect Clémence Eliard and artist Elise Morin took a slightly more digital approach to the concept, constructing their undulating Waste Landscape installation from 65,000 unsold (and unwanted) CDs. To do this, the pair sewed the discs together by hand, before blanketing them over dune-like wire constructions inside the Centquatre -- a Parisian art space that, appropriately enough, was once a funeral home. The result is an array of sloping, shimmering hills that emerge from the floor like disco ball pimples, creating a space that the artists not-so subtly compare to an oil spill. It's a pretty sobering reminder of the environmental fingerprint archaic technologies can leave behind, but Eliard and Morin's story has a happy ending. When the exhibit comes to a close, every single CD will be recycled into polycarbonate. Spin past the break to see a video that'll make you wanna give your iPod a hug.
MIT Seaswarm autonomous robots coming soon to an oil spill near you (video)
Think of it as an autonomous, swarming, photovoltaic legion of seagoing Roombas (or don't, if you're easily upset). The Seaswarm project at MIT takes a thin, hydrophobic material and drags it behind a robot outfitted with GPS and WiFi for determining its location and communicating within a swarm. When deployed, the group finds the outer edges of an oil spill, and works its way into the center, coordinating the cleanup with minimal human interference. The material itself can take on twenty times its weight in oil. And yes, the whole thing is re-usable. According to researchers, 5,000 of these relatively low cost devices could have cleaned up the BP oil disaster in a month -- which is more than we can say for Kevin Costner! See it in action after the break.
Blue Screen of Death amongst issues that plagued Deepwater Horizon
A recent report in the New York Times details a myriad issues that led up to the eventual explosion that started the mess known as the "BP oil spill," but aside from obvious mishandling of warnings and red flags, one particular issue was troubling those working on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig long before April 20th. Mike Williams, the rig's chief electronics technician, has come forward with a multitude of icky details surrounding the negligence that was involved in the catastrophe, with the one most germane to our discussion being the following: "For months, the computer system had been locking up, producing what the crew called the Blue Screen of Death." Williams continued, noting that "it would just turn blue," with "no data coming through." Of course, it's not as if BSODs are totally uncommon out in the working world -- Microsoft's Windows powers the vast majority of systems that corporations rely on daily -- but this one rubs just a wee bit differently. Hit the source link for the full spill. [Image courtesy of Ultrasaurus]
MIT-based Grassroots Mapping mapping the oil spill with digital camera, kites
Grassroots Mapping, a project born out of MIT fellow Jeffrey Yoo Warren, is seeking to photograph and "map" the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Their project seeks to come up with cheap and easy to find tools for aerial photography. Their newest project is using cameras attached to kites to photograph the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in order to assess the damage and help along the response to it. The Gulf mapping project got under way on May 5th, and the project is now accepting donations to help fund its research. The results (which you can see above) are incredibly striking. A video is below -- hit up the source link for more images.
Kevin Costner sells 32 oil-water separators to BP, testifies before congress
When filming his critically acclaimed documentary Waterworld, Kevin Costner became interested in cost-effective technologies for separating oil from water (such as in the aftermath of an oil spill). Today, he appeared in front of a House committee to drum up interest in the oil-water separator he's been developing over the years in partnership with Louisiana's Ocean Therapy Solutions. It is claimed that the device can process some two-hundred gallons of water a minute, using a centrifuge processing technology that sucks in polluted water, separates the oil, and stores it in a tanker before sending the water itself (now some 99.9 percent purified) back into the gulf. (A company called Enviro Voraxial has a machine that relies on a different technology to process some 500 gallons per minute, which BP is also looking into.) BP has reportedly ordered thirty-two of Costner's machines for testing, although it will be a matter of time before it's determined whether they do the job safely enough to aid in the gulf clean-up effort. What can we say? Our man's come along way since he starred in Sizzle Beach, USA.
BP damage control extends to purchasing search terms like 'oil spill' on Google, Yahoo
If you're looking for the latest updates on the Gulf Oil Disaster, you're probably not wondering "how BP is helping," but that hasn't stopped the company from snatching up keywords on various sites. "We have bought search terms on search engines like Google to make it easier for people to find out more about our efforts in the Gulf," BP spokesman Toby Odone told ABC News. We regret to inform ol' Toby that if it cannot manage the oil spill, managing its PR is not going to placate anybody.
BP unleashes saw-wielding robots in an attempt to plug the leak (livestream)
It might not look like much at the moment, but as we type this BP is sending its vicious saw-wielding robots down to the site of the oil spill in its latest attempt to scuttle the leak -- and CBS is livestreaming the whole affair! Hit the source link to see it for yourself. Update: Looks like CBS switched programming to re-runs of Becker or something. We've updated the source link.
BP's efforts to clean up Gulf of Mexico oil spill livestreamed by PBS
If you're looking to be even more depressed than usual today, you should hit up PBS Newshour's YouTube channel, where they are currently livestreaming the oil spill. That's right, you can see with your own eyes the truly stunning spew of crude happening in the ocean right now, along with BP's "efforts" to clean it up. When we checked in it was pretty quiet on the cleanup effort front, but you know, BP execs have to spend the first 21 hours of each business day counting money. Either way, we'll just have to wait and see if this so-called "Top Kill" is working out or not. PBS is also asking for reader suggestions on how to plug up the hole that's leaking all the oil, so get on over there if you have any good ideas today. Embedded stream follows.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: salad spinners, diapers, and solutions to the Deepwater catastrophe
The Week in Green is a new item from our friends at Inhabitat, recapping the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us. This week renewable energy received a giant jolt forward as Google unveiled plans to invest $40 million in North Dakota wind farms. Solar power is also having a moment in the sun as MIT unveiled the world's first solar cells printed on paper - we can't wait to see a post-it version that we can stick to our walls! Meanwhile a team of Swiss researchers are harnessing rays of light for an entirely different purpose -- they've figured out a way to create rain clouds by shooting laser beams into the sky. With the Deepwater Horizon oil spill still saturating the sea weeks after the leak sprung, we also looked at an array of innovative solutions for cleaning up the catastrophe. The first step to stemming the spill's damage is predicting its spread, which is why scientists are harnessing advanced virtual reality models to aid in cleanup efforts. We also took a look at the BP's first massive oil containment dome, which the company plans to lower 5,000 feet below the sea to plug up the leak. This week we also looked at several ingenious inventions that find incredible new uses for everyday items. Two students at Rice University have transformed a simple salad spinner into a centrifuge that can save lives by diagnosing diseases, and a Japanese company called Super Faith has invented a machine that can transform used adult diapers into an energy source. Finally, we were dazzled by two high-tech garments that harness LEDs to light up the night. Katy Perry recently took to the red carpet wearing a shimmering gown studded with thousands of blinking rainbow lights, and we were impressed by this LED-laden coat that keeps bicyclists safe when they hit the streets at night.
Underwater robots to help stem oil spill
Oil firm Petron is turning is turning to robots to try to keep a massive oil spill from getting any worse after a tanker carrying 53,000 gallons of the black gold sank off the coast of the island of Guimaras in the Philippines on August 11th. So far, the spill has affected some 40,000 nearby residents and damaged close to 200 miles of coastline, with the potential to spread even further. According to Petron, the sinking is also the deepest one in recent memory, making it impossible for divers to even inspect the vessel, hence the robots. As soon as they've pinpointed the exact location of the tanker, the salvage team will send down a remote-operated vehicle to asses the damage. If the ship is upright they'll just connect some lines and suck out rest of the oil inside; but things aren't so accessible, they'll use the robot to drill directly into the oil tanks and siphon it out the hard way. Hmm, forcing robots to clean up our dirty messes- this is something they definitely won't forget during the inevitable uprising.[Via Robot Gossip]
