Well, oil clumps have been washing ashore here in the US. We should sequester them and then sell tickets to a fun crazy grab bag of the oil clumps and let the winners do what they will. It may spur a rogue energy industry.
-- daseva, Jun 16 2010

Oil-catching cloth http://www.news.pit....html&id=4079&-Find
As mentioned in an annotation [Vernon, Jun 16 2010]

Perhaps the fishermen should change their nets to some recently developed special cloth (link), and go trawling for oil. It's as free to catch as the fish, after all, and whatever is hauled aboard can be sold....
-- Vernon, Jun 16 2010


+ I like this, as I was thinking that homeless people can use them for fuel in those barrels they make fires in...
-- xandram, Jun 16 2010


I envision a Stanley Steamer type vehicle: an omnivorous burner which could be fueled by soiled detritus or solid clumps of oil. Maybe a boat with a scoop?

This vehicle would probably fail emissions standards (spectacularly) and so would have to be a work of art.

The best would be if these things were autonomous. The working part (furnace, boiler, motor, propeller) could be standardized, but then mounted within found objects and released.
-- bungston, Jun 16 2010



random, halfbakery