This is baked except for the way to get it paid for and immediately implemented.
BP pays fishing boats by the ton of oily hay brought back to shore at designated drop off points.
They already employ fishing fleet boats with special oil collecting rigs but there are only about 1,500 of those and every fishing boat has a net and a hold to put hay in.
Any boat so equipped can throw the hay in the water and scoop it up in their nets. No need to put the stuff in their hold, they can just tow it back to shore. If BP has to pay these guys for loss of fishing revenue anyway, I'm sure the fishermen would rather receive some of that compensation from helping the cleanup process.
Oil is easier to find than fish, it's right on the surface and you know exactly where it is.
If the nets need to be replaced, ok, BP pays for that too.
If all the money goes to litigation, only the lawyers will get rich. This at least mitigates the problem to some extent and most importantly does something to clean the gulf.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 16 2010 Video circulationing about using hay back in April http://thehayride.c...roubling-questions/I thought that this solution wouldn't be original. [Aristotle, Jun 17 2010] This Canadian inventor has a somehwat halfbaked solution. http://waxforpollution.blogspot.com/I'm guessing one major problem with the solution is the amount of wax needed. [rcarty, Jun 21 2010] Boat Captain hired by BP does himself in. http://latimesblogs...ommits-suicide.html [nomocrow, Jun 24 2010] I'm curious, how does the hay keep from sucking up water?-- RayfordSteele, Jun 17 2010 I think hay takes some measure of time to absorb water and sink, but it would get coated with oil before it had a chance.
Granted, it would be a disgusting mess, but it would be easier to deal with.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 17 2010 Unfortunately this method risks increasing the amount of toxic waste by adding hay and nets to bulk it all out [-].-- Aristotle, Jun 17 2010 Hay and nets are toxic waste? Maybe I'm not understanding the post. I am suggesting that the oil soaked hay be removed from the water, maybe I didn't clarify that.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 17 2010 The hay would be contaminated by the oil and even if you separated it would still be considered toxic. That way you risk even more work before the whole mess hits a landfill.
What I would recommend considering is adding something designed to make the oil both easy to collect and simple for the collected material to be used for some safe purpose.
Otherwise you risk trading a sea disaster for a land disaster ...-- Aristotle, Jun 17 2010 Well, we store oil on land all the time with no issues, it's when it's floating around killing fish that it becomes a problem.
Anyway, I'd vote for an existing non-perfect solution rather than a non-existing perfect solution.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 17 2010 Hey, if somebody comes up with a potion that turns oil into cupcakes and leave the ocean with a lemon fresh scent, great. In the meantime it might be a good idea to get it out of the water as best we can.
But the argument that you shouldn't take oil out of the ocean because oil's stinky and yucky doesn't make much sense to me.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 17 2010 Uses for contaminated straw - you mean you don't know of any?
Here are some to start you off; wattle and daub, pykcrete, building wicker men to burn people who are into cupcakes, feeding mutant ponies and building straw men to knock down ...
However looking at nuclear cleanup mistakes you'll find that the amount of toxic waste can be increased dramatically by using the wrong thing.-- Aristotle, Jun 17 2010 Yes, straw is as dangerous as plutonium in untrained hands.
Why do you have to use the straw for anything? Take it and the oil out of the water and put is where it can't kill things, that's all.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 17 2010 The straw factor: Threat or menace?
On an un-related topic, if there's ever a Halfbakery newsletter it should be called "Bones 'n Scones".-- doctorremulac3, Jun 17 2010 That depends on whether you pronounce the o in scones with a long o, or a short one. Otherwise, you might have a Sean Bean type situation on your hands.-- zen_tom, Jun 17 2010 Buns 'n Bones?
Na, sounds like a porno movie.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 17 2010 It's worth watching his hairdresser - have you seen Sean Bean being shorn?-- pocmloc, Jun 17 2010 Ha no, but I understand that were his hairdresser (Siobahn) to occasionally do work at a Swedish maternity clinic; It might provide the opportunity to have seen Sean Bean being shorn while Shawn Bjorn is born.-- zen_tom, Jun 17 2010 hahaha, 'being' born shirley.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 17 2010 IIRC most cereals have a hydrophobic leaf. This means water condenses on the surface and is not absorbed and must drop close to the root system. IIRC this is why most cereals have root structures that occupy a similar area to the area subtended by the shadow of the leaves on the ground . (once dated a girl that had a degree in grasses, IYCBT)
Not liking water turns out (in the biological world) to be the same as liking oil. The reasons are many and varied ranging from "hair like" trichome structures to the actual cell wall structure of the upper epidermis. Point is hay is good at liking (soaking) oil and not good at (liking) soaking water. That idea is old.
The idea that we pay fishermen for oily hay is new and soaks cork. The volumetric discrepencies between price per kilo/m^3 of seafood and price per kilo/m^3 oil are enormous. More specifically because you cannot pass any of this cost onto a consumer of any kind.-- 4whom, Jun 17 2010 Aristotle //I thought that this solution wouldn't be original.//
The first line in my post is: "This is baked except for the way to get it paid for and immediately implemented."
The idea (again) is for BP to pay out of work fishermen some amount of money for mopped up oil they bring in. This would be viewed by the court favorably as an attempt to mitigate damage to both the financial situation of the fishermen and the damage to the environment.
But most importantly, the oil would start to get cleaned up.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 18 2010 I do like this. I propose a use for the oily hay stockpile - burn it to run an electricity generating plant. That should require minimal pre-processing, and the end product is immediately saleable back to the grid. Probably massively inefficient in terms of GHGs, though they could be scrubbed from the exhaust afterwards.-- BunsenHoneydew, Jun 18 2010 Reading a bit further along that link I provided and people raised another issue - where exactly would get that much hay from (and therefore for this idea enough sailing boats)?
I realise that a disaster in your own backyard can be a bit of a shock but the wise man does not deal with the immediate problem by dumping an increased mass of unpleasant material (the oil with hay, nets and probably fishing boats too) somewhere else. I guess that the basics of environmental care can be a bit hard for some people to grasp - you might want to look at the "recovery" efforts at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal to look at best practises ...
As people have pointed out, even if you could separate the hay from the oil the burning would still cause additional problems.-- Aristotle, Jun 19 2010 //the wise man does not deal with the immediate problem by...//
// I guess that the basics of environmental care can be a bit hard for some people to grasp//
Oh puuulease.
This from someone whose solution is to have somebody invent a magic substance that solves the problem with no side effects.
You've been obsessing about this for 3 days A. Don't get your toga in a twist, let it go already. You got to say how wise you are. Ok, great, good for you, must be nice. Let's move on now.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 19 2010 Re: link
//I'm guessing one major problem with the solution is the amount of wax needed.//
There is that. What ever you use you'd need a lot of it so it better be cheap.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 21 2010 piscine: adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a fish or fishes.
I had to look it up. It means "fishy"-- doctorremulac3, Jun 21 2010 If these guys were reduced to trolling for hay-soaked oil, I think a lot of them would just do themselves in.-- nomocrow, Jun 21 2010 Really? When the alternative is trawling for nothing and watching their $100,000+ boats rot at the pier?-- BunsenHoneydew, Jun 21 2010 Yeah, really.-- nomocrow, Jun 22 2010 Well, to those people, I'd suggest that killing yourself in a crisis rather than doing everything you can to get through the problem isn't a very good solution.
And I don't see why cleaning the environment would be considered some kind of lowly job. I think taking care of the corner of the world where you make your living would be something to be pretty proud of.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 24 2010 It's hard to be proud of being paid by someone to clean up the shit they just took in your living room.
Yes, we should all be so proud as we go hand-in-hand to clean up the dead turtles and machete the heads off the blind pelicans. These are not lowly jobs, they are the very height of human aspiration.-- nomocrow, Jun 24 2010 They're neither lowly jobs or the height of human aspiration. Some times you just need to clean up messes or else messes don't get cleaned up.
But I'd have more respect for a person grabbing a pitchfork and some hay to clean the spill than some poet sitting on the shore lamenting the tragedy through his tears.
I've always said, in any fight-for-survival-post- apocalyptic world, poets better hope they have something more to offer than flowery prose or they'll be looked at more as a source of protein than inspiration.
Not by me mind you, I'm a sensitive guy who cries at sunsets, but I'm just sayin'.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 24 2010 //I've always said, in any fight-for-survival-post- apocalyptic world, poets better hope they have something more to offer than flowery prose or they'll be looked at more as a source of protein than inspiration. //
Well you got that right. Unfortunately the idea still sucks, until you can (at least) get a breakeven on returned oily hay bails v operational expense, not to mention ROI.
Fishermen are going to do what they always have done, move to the cash crop. Oily hay ain't gonna cut it. You can't pass the expense to the consumer (unless a great demand for oily hay appears). Whereas if there is a supply constriction on seafood, and demand remains stable, cost will be passed on to consumer plus VAT. Margin remains the same or even increases for the fishermen.will increase on the lower volumes.-- 4whom, Jun 24 2010 Your kidding right?
Return on investment? Break even point? Market value of oily hay?
What does this have to do with taking the fact that BP is quite possibly going to go bankrupt through litigation because of this anyway, taking some of their money (while they still have some) and putting it towards the cleanup of the gulf by paying fishermen (who are out of work anyway) to do the task?-- doctorremulac3, Jun 25 2010 Nope, if you told me to drag oily hay from my current fishing grounds for remuneration versus go and catch fish in other fishing grounds and sell it for far more per kilo than last season (supply demand) plus additional cost (new fishing grounds). I will vote with my rudder.
In fact, because demand for seafood will always be there, any subsidy you put on oily hay will only increase my margin on actual seafood.-- 4whom, Jun 25 2010 //In fact, because demand for seafood will always be there, any subsidy you put on oily hay will only increase my margin on actual seafood.//
Subsidy for oily hay? Hu?
Whose talking about a subsidy? And how does BP paying for cleanup of their mess effect anything but BPs bank accounts, the fisherman's bank accounts and the amount of oil floating around?
I agree though, we should only be talking about actual seafood, not the other kind.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 25 2010 If you pay fisherman to clean up the mess, some will opt for it. The fleet catching seafood decreases by that number. Supply drops. Demand remains steady. Price increases.
Your words //BP pays fishing boats by the ton of oily hay brought back to shore at designated drop off points.// Demand for oily hay not exactly at it highest. So any oily hay brought in by boats and paid for by BP is, by definition, a subsidy.
The fisherman is now confronted with an oppurtunity cost choice. Have oily hay in the bank or go and look for seafood. Oily hay has only one customer (probably the worst debtor at the moment, any rating agency worth their salt will give them a b- maximum) and zero commercial demand (it is a subsidy). Seafood has lots of (legacy/market) demand and a quite horrible supply constriction. No Brainer.-- 4whom, Jun 25 2010 So they should just go find other fishing grounds and that solves the problem?
You're not working for BP are you?
//If you pay fisherman to clean up the mess, some will opt for it. The fleet catching seafood decreases by that number. Supply drops. Demand remains steady. Price increases.//
What fleet catching what seafood? What supply?
The oil spill has pretty much shut down the fishing industry in those areas. If there was fishing to do, obviously they'd to it. I'm not saying "Give fishermen who are working and making lots of money the choice to go scoop up oily hay instead."
They're out of work, BPs gotta fork over the bucks anyway, might as well have that inevitable bring about some actual cleaning. The only price that will be effected is the actual price of actual oil but that's going to happen anyway so might as well try to get some cleanup out of it.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 25 2010 random, halfbakery