Posted on 06/27/2010 2:27:36 PM PDT by Starman417
Mid May, actor Kevin Costner provided BP with oil separation centrifuges for testing in the Gulf of Mexico. After successful and extensive testing in actual sea conditions, plus modifications, BP teamed up with the 25 year old Canadian oilfield waste management company, CCS, and D&L Salvage to formally mount these centrifuges (temporarily mounted on the same barge for testing), using the CCS Contained Separation system for the first of their ocean going 80 thousand tank barrel barges to be deployed for clean up - the Energy 8001. According to the BP's Doug Suttles, the additional 32 centrifuges on order will be used to create four new deepwater systems - two more barges and two 280-foot long offshore supply vessels. The deployed technology will be able to process 128,000 barrels of processing capacity daily.
Currently operations are slow. Vessels of opportunity are rigged with skimming equipment, but once they've gathered their quota of oil, they either need to head into shore, or discharge it to a nearby barge with no oil separations capability. This inefficient operation, requiring untold multiple trips simply to get rid of the skimmers catch, might explain why Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor and Gulfport residents are livid that no skimmers are working the Mississippi Sound, where the oil is beginning to encroach. With the introduction of the "Energy 8001" series of ocean tank barges, the VOO skimmers will now have a central discharge processing center at sea, thereby allowing them to work further off shore, and for longer periods of time.
Below is the BP posted YouTube of the barge info...
[VIDEO AT SITE]
Read more at floppingaces.net...
Good post. I’m keeping my eye on Costner too, just the fact that he thought about and approached this in a practical sense without any publicity says something. And, btw, Jon Voight rocks. He mc’d the Memorial Day program at Los Angeles National Cemetery. He is passionately patriotic.
2,270,000,000,000 gallons. That's 2.27 quadrillion gallons.
Skimming any deeper would only add to the amount to be processed. They won't have to process the whole gulf, I hope. That's still a lot of water/oil/etc. to process. I don't know how much the Kostner machines can process per hour but I'll bet that thirty two of them may help a little, just a little. That is as long as the Obama regime doesn't interfere any more.
I have no doubt that the machine works. But it’s like trying to remove the oil with a spoon. A spoon would work as well.
I hate to make ad hominem attacks, but you really need to either change your screen name, or else start researching and thinking before you comment.
I am no fan of Costner. However, the oil separators linked to his name have been developed by a company funded by Kevin with his older brother, Dan, probably heading up the science & engineering. Check out the animations at their website, http://www.cincmfg.com/category_s/182.htm, to see how the process works. You will probably agree that these machines are better than a spoon.
These separator barges will be used in conjunction with smaller skimmer vessels (often fishing boats pulling booms) to concentrate oily water collected on the surface. This concentrate will then be pumped into the collector barge and later run through the centrifuges. The oil will be stored in tanks on the barge for later transfer to another ship/barge which will transport the oil to the refinery.
The EPA is complaining that the water coming out of the centrifugal separators has more that 15 parts oil per million parts water, the current EPA standard for bilge water discharge. Any sane person would realize that the separator discharge (currently at about 80 ppm) is much, much cleaner that the water in which the barge is floating.
http://bp.concerts.com/gom/costnercentrifugetechnology_062010.htm
In other words, the Costner Brothers equipment is CLEANING UP THE GULF! GET OUT OF THE WAY AND LET THEM ALL GET TO WORK!
I’ll just return the attack... Costner is not going to clean up the Gulf. Yes, his technology works, but the Gulf is a huge place, and the energy that you need to run a centrifuge makes it far too costly to make any noticeable dent in this problem. It’s a fantasy. Like I said in an earlier post, might as well use a spoon. That works too.
I agree completely! Kevin Costner doesn't get it all. The dead sea bunny body count needs to get much higher before this crisis can be used to sell the left wing envirowacko agenda to enough of the people. They want to ban all hydrocarbon usage. The global warming thing has fizzled on them and they need something new. This is what they are going to be hanging their hat on for the next ten years. No more drilling anywhere!
NOAA regularly posts trajectory maps, and you can see the the latest one here, forecast to June 29th.
Pay careful attention to the color coding of the amount of oil in that trajectory... the majority is light, spotted medium, and the heavy concentration at the well site itself.
The Gulf is the 9th largest body of water in the world, and this spill doesn't even come close to heavily saturating the majority of it. With the centrifuge OWS systems, they can attack the heavy and medium concentrations, as well as the more vunerable marshlands. Sand can be replaced for beaches.
Add Mother Nature, always at work as well. You needn't vacuum the entire areas because, if you break up the spills sufficiently, the ocean's micro'organisms digest the oil and get fat and happy. Add a well placed storm that churns the water, speeds up the degradation process, plus drives the oil further offshore (trajectory towards the Florida panhandle and to the east of the spill) and you could have a perfect "perfect storm" clean up.
I might also ask why you have the impression that running these OWS systems is so costly for energy. The barge is equipped with ample generating power, and the savings from having the smaller skimming boats burn fuel for a ga'zillion more trips to shore is obvious.
That's equivalent to 224,000 gallons per hour. That WolframAlpha site is darned handy....
I take it that you believe that since his devices won’t clean the entire gulf in 1 day, they should just be ignored.
That’s not brilliant, that’s dumb.
No the LIMITED amount of devices he has available won’t clean the entire gulf, BUT SOMETHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING.
32 of Dances With Wolves gizmos can do 6,000,000 gallons a day, do the math.
2.27 quadrillion gallons will take just a bit over 1000 years.
Heaven forbid we should ever give props to someone from evil, debauched Hollywood.
Have you ever heard of cost benefit analysis? If the skimmers can pick up thousands of barrels of oil per day just by scooping it up, and doing away with the centrifuge, and they can do so until hell freezes over because there is that much oil, then why would you spend a lot more per barrel to run a centrifuge?
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