Thursday, June 10
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Sea Water passes through: Oil Doesn’t
A group at the University of Pittsburgh has developed a chemical that can be used to readily convert textiles (either natural or man-made) into an inexpensive and efficient water-oil separator.
This video shows how a piece of chemically treated cotton cloth is able to separate oil from Gulf of Mexico sea water. The treated cloth allows water to path through but not oil. Quick…someone get Costner on the phone.
You might recall last week I posted about Kevin Costner’s company, Ocean Therapy Solutions. Well, Costner has now apparently sold 32 of his oil spill cleaning machines to BP. The 32 machines are expected to process 6 million gallons of water each day and will extract clean water from the oil with a 99.9% success rate.
Costner testified before the House Energy and Environment subcommittee on Wednesday. Costner said “that as long as the oil industry profits from the sea, they have an obligation to protect it.” He went on to say that the cleaning devices “should be on every ship transporting oil, they should be on every derrick, they should be in every harbor.”
Not a bad idea, Kev.
Kevin Costner sells 32 oil spill machines to BP to recycle 6 million gallons of water a day photos.
When he’s not producing, directing, writing and starring in movies about Wolves, and when he’s not dating Elle MacPherson, not singing in his rock/country band, or running his casino Kevin Costner is an avid environmentalist, fisherman, and greentech entrepreneur.
While making Waterworld in 1995, Costner was troubled by oil spills like the Exxon Valdez and started developing a system to cruise the surface of the sea and clean oily water. His business partner, John Houghtaling, says:
“The machines are essentially like big vacuum cleaners, which sit on barges and suck up oily water and spin it around at high speed,” Houghtaling said. “On one side, it spits out pure oil, which can be recovered. The other side spits out 99% pure water” [Los Angeles Times].
BP and the U.S. Coast Guard plan to test six of the massive devices next week.
