If we can desalinate sea water, why can't we clean up billions of droplets of oil?

How many gallons of water are desalinated per day in middle east? Anyone know? We have to undestroy what they have destroyed. What a sad state of affairs. We suck for letting this happen.

We?

This isn't my fault.

No way this is pinned on me.

I'm not sure what the real answer is, but you asked a great question here. K&R

That would be after all the engineering required to convert from removing salt to crude.

And knowing engineers like I do. Add another three years.

24/7

As far as the large desalinization plants that are on land, even if they wanted to do that, they can't transport that much tainted water to the plants. Then what about the people who need fresh water while the plants are being used.

Some boats have desalinization machines, but they don't have anywhere near the capacity that would be required to make a difference.

You go and google clean up strategies you might find
that there is biotech that can help a lot.

It's French biotech that exists since the Exon Valdez..

The 30% reductions in EPA since Bush are hurting
everything including replacing expertice.

groundwater. Eeeeek we're doomed.

See, volume is the killer here. When you take the salt out of water, you only need to do it to the amount of water you need, and more salt isn't pouring in by the minute. A bit different from scrubbing a different substance from a vast ocean area, while even more is being added faster than you can scoop it out.

The solvents don't get rid of the oil, they just break it into smaller pieces so it isn't as visable. Same oil PLUS the toxins of the dispersant. That's not a solution, it's just more oil company PR.

What to do indeed. Perhaps we start by taking the government out of the clutches of big criminal industries. Then enforce some sane policies: don't let criminal industries do something they can't fix if they break it.

I am afraid the oil is pretty much permanent. The Gulf has been murdered, along with those workers who died, the wildlife, and the futures of hundreds of thousands. If Big Oil is allowed to take more of these risks, the world seems threatened.

But profits are good, so it's all OK according to the sociopaths running the globe

this a.m. Why would whoever allow BP to do anything with their shit?

Personally, I don't understand why BP is even allowed to exist. Much of the mess in the Middle East has at least some roots in BP's greed and the horrible policies that greed has led governments to enact over decades.

It isn't just on the surface but at various levels down to a mile deep.

They can clean the oil out of the water, but getting the water into a single place to do it is tough.

The oil will eventually degrade, it just takes time.

soaking. Thousands of square miles need to be cleaned then.

There is just no technology to do that, and it is unnecessary. It will degrade. It is basic chemistry.

a decade and a half, ten to fifteen years for nature to normalize and populations to return.

Ten years after Ixtoc 1 the fisheries are back to normal.

Not quite the same process.

It is actually basic science...

:banghead:

You do the experiment, use olive oil though.

Mix water and salt and then create s system to essentially get water to evaporate and travel to a clean vessel for capture. Do the same with olive oil

Test the results, if you did this right, you will still get some oil in your water but zero salt...

By the way, the plants that do the desalinization are HUGE, and actually the left over (salt) in those brine pools, kills things.

water. We can separate white from red blood cells. There has to be a way to clean it up. Someone else states the area is too big. So well fuck, I guess we just throw in the towel and write the final chapter on this western civilization thing. :crazy:

that said the oil is biodegradable... in time yes it will be gone. Again basic science there are bacteria that eat this stuff, why most of it is reddish brown and not black. This is the little factoid people don't want to know.

to surrounding area? Dead?

year or two you get dead zones. Bactera lead to hypoxic waters. Five to yen you get recoveries... a generation from now in the gulf will recover... it has in the past with or without humans.

I've eaten shrimp from the Gulf of Campeche AFTER the Ixtoc. This is basic science. This is not about me or you... but nature. This is the long view.

They fucked it up, we kill them and then clean up after them. :evilgrin: :sarcasm: so no conspiracy to murder charges Sgt Frank.

that is a fact. I wish they did not use Corexit for other reasons, but IT IS biodegradable and the gulf WILL RECOVER... this is basic science. You truly believe this is the first time we have had oil coming to the surface? This happens in nature you know... I am serious... they are called asphalt volcanoes... and if these bacteria did not exist, you and I would not be having this conversation. I am serious... they have happened in the past, hell they are happening NATURALLY mind you, RIGHT NOW.

Here you go

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100426-asphalt-volcanoes-domes-california-underwater/

How do you think nature gets rid of the oil? Skimmers?

Now to the charges for BP personnel, they should be in jail right now. But I am sorry if I am unwilling to jump into that despair boat and cry my heart off since the gulf is dead. No it is not, and nature will recover. And sadly Muricans will forget all about it after the crisis is over and refuse to engage in any of the personal life style changes required if we are ever to get off oil.

Oh and here is what I learned in disaster management, a paraphrase of another saying

First rule of disasters lives change

Second rule of disaster, there is nothing I can do to change rule number one.

and from your same article "...several decades or even centuries to build up to their current size, and that the undersea volcanoes last erupted about 35,000 years ago."


"they are relatively rare"

and nature takes care of them.

Nature will respond to this the same way it does when you have a NATURAL one. That is the point.

No it will not be something humans have patience for, but in time yes nature recovers and life does not disappear.

Now will our civilization go away? I expect a collapse if we do not find a way off oil, and sadly I don't expect it at this point. That is a whole different discussion. And if anything should get OUR people on it, well it should be this. It isn't. The disaster, believe it or not, is not in most people's minds. Nor are people willing to make the changes needed either... or governments willing to mandate the changes needed.

So in the end... well we will see a civilization, not the US, a global civilization collapse, and perhaps, extinction. In the long term, for life on earth... she's fine. Life survived the K-T impact, life will survive this.