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X Prize's multimillion-dollar challenge for Gulf oil solutions
An EPA worker takes photos of oil coming ashore in Orange Beach, Alabama.
The X Prize Foundation announced today that it is developing a multimillion-dollar “oil spill cleanup X challenge” to come up with solutions to cleaning up shorelines and open water fouled by oil leaking from the BP Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaking at the TEDxOilSpill conference in Washington, Frances Beland of the X Prize Foundation asked the audience of 300, and many more watching the conference’s videostream, “What do you prize?” Beland told CNN after his appearance that the oil-related challenge will probably offer about $3 million in prize money for a cleanup solution.
The X Prize Foundation gained public attention for its X Prize of $10 million awarded for the development of private spacecraft, and the nonprofit foundation has created other prize challenges.
Beland said the foundation wanted to come up with a prize to find a solution to capping the well but found it was unable to obtain enough data to design such a challenge, so it opted to focus on the cleanup.
“We’re going to launch a prize for cleanup, and we’re going to kick ass,” he said, to applause.
Beland said 35,000 solutions to the Gulf crisis have been proposed to BP, the government and other organizations, including the X Prize Foundation.
“Every time we have a challenge, you know who wins? It’s not someone from the industry, it’s a maverick, a freethinker.”
On Twitter
http://www.englishtips-self-taught.blogspot.com
Who can understand American arrogance!??
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=3203808
In 1920, the United States enacted the Mercahng Marine Act of 1920, also known as the Jones Act. This act only allows US maritime crews and unions to labor in US waters. In 2004 when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico, President Bush suspended the Jones Act to allow any and all willing participants to come in and help. President Obama is too stupid to do the same. He was given the chance to let the Dutch and the Netherlands come in with equipment that could have contained the entire spill, but passed it down. Maybe we should think more about getting a new President. http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=3203808
Ummmm Matthew, instead of reading Fox News outlets how about doing a bit of research on your own. Early on the federal government did waive these provisions to allow ships to help. OLD NEWS Skippy.
AMEN .- O'bama = One Big A$$ Mistake America.. I didn't vote for him
Americans understand....we are driven!
Amuricans are driven by one thing....GREED for MONEY!!! End of story...Close the book!!!
Keep on trollin' they're starting to respond. At least better than BP and Obummer are.
Yea Right...driven...like a frickin NAIL!!!
Yea Right...driven like a frickin NAIL!
Yeah, Obama is too stupid to allow both the Dutch and the Netherlands come in and help!
@Matthew
Deepwater Horizon isn't in our waters – it is in international waters.
Therefore, Obama didn't stop anyone from coming in after the explosion to help.
Yes, we might need some help now that its in our waters and on our shores... but that's not what YOUR side says... your side blames him for not repealing it immediately... which is a moot point.
Get some integrity. Respect the truth.
I'm just going to post this in all of your comments, just so you will understand. The region that this spill occurred in falls within the US-controlled waters. It basically stretches from the southern-tips of Florida and Texas.
Answer: Mother Nature. Mother Nature is very resilient to disasters such as this. One million barrels of oil seeps into the gulf each year and various bacteria, etc. break it down. That is why the flora and fauna essentially recovered to prespill levels from the Ixtoc I oil spill of1979 in 2-3 years, despite only 6% of 3.5 million barrels cleaned up by PEMEX.
that article says Europe has had that technology for years, with BP being a European company, why do they not already have that technology?
The BP spill occurred in international waters. There are over a dozen foreign ships already assisting in the effort, and you may have noticed that BP is itself a foreign company. Obama hasn't suspended the Jones Act because there was no need to – foreign ships already can and are assisting in the effort without any such suspension.
A church friend of mine had heard somewhere that some guy DISCOVERED A BUG
.
.
if the X-Prize guys offer three millions dollars, they SURELY hope to earn $100 million (or more) from this business!!!
.
.
@BreakingNews: Too bad your joke 5 year old crayon-on-paper ideas won't win.....
@BreakingNews: you failfailfail
Jonothan and Jon O,
While the Deepwater Horizon accident occurred in international waters, the are in which it occurred is also US-controlled waters. The two authroties overlap, and therefore the Jones Act restrictions still apply. The US-controlled waters basically extend from the southern tips of Texas and Florida. Here is a simple explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_territory#Maritime_territory_of_the_United_States
Uh, the Dutch are from the Netherlands, Ace, and we did accept their offers of help. That's what you get from watching too much Fox News...
@ JON O
Your a freaking idiot man. All it takes is 15 seconds to search on google to find the location of the oil rig. Deep Horizon is "in the Macondo Prospect located in the Mississippi Canyon Block 252, in the United States exclusive economic zone about 41 miles (66 km) off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico."
Do a little research before you spout your arrogance.
Why don't you do the same? There is already an exemption in the Jones Act for oil spill recovery vessels. No suspension required. Idiot.
Yeah the cap one is not realistic, but then again morons wouldn't understand that.
how about an xprize to convert millions of cars to something that doesn't use gas?
Already being worked on. Research the automotive X-prize.
I always am amazed at the number of people who think the black stuff coming out of the ground is only for cars. How silly. The very keyboard you used to type your post was made from oil. Planes use oil, everyday household items are made with oil. Let's just stop making EVERYTHING!!!
@GARY. I've seen your post hundreds of time and I can't believe your rationale. We all know that oil is good for many applications, but the bulk of it is for gas powered vehicles. If we replace the gas fuel with electric the demand for oil would deepen to a minimum. Those againts gas fuel do not want to eliminate oil completely. Just to reduce the demand so that it stop being a hazard for the environment. Be real.
LUIS IN BROOKLYN,
Please show the percentage numbers to back up your claims. After you do the research (all of it), you will find that a greater percentage of petroleum is used for uses other than car fuel, many other fuels (are we going to stop flying planes and using semis to haul goods – both of these use petroleum just in a different refined form). This notion of electric cars and such is great but how do you create the electricity, coal, fossil fuels, or nuclear and no one wants coal near them and we all know how much nuclear power is liked. Until you can get past the notion of robbing Peter to pay Paul (trade gas cars for electric cars with fuel generated electricity) and come up with real solutions, petroleum will be in our forseeable future.
For reference, here are some charts showing what each source of energy is being used for: https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/energy/energy.html
Luis. I don't think you understand organic chemistry very well. I have a basic understanding, but I know that you know that the crude oil that is gushing into the gulf right now is not all gasoline. The reason for this is that the oil is mostly made up of these things called hydrocarbons. Basically, these are carbons attached together in long strings with oxygen atoms on the sides and ends. The more carbons and oxygens, the heavier the hydrocarbon.
The heaviest ones are often used for tar and similar things, and the level above that is often used for plastic creation. Then, near the top is the light stuff that we know and love as gasoline and natural gas. Even if we were like "Oh, okay. We don't need nearly as much of this light stuff anymore," we would need the same amount of oil. I'm sure there are ways to extract more heavy stuff than light stuff, but you're going to get a slew of different hydrocarbons in every single pump.
Tl;dr: By eliminating the need for one type of hydrocarbon, you do nothing (or a negligible amount) to the level of oil needed to keep society running. Stop acting like you know everything and go back and at least get your GED.
Sorry. I lied. The lightest of the hydrocarbons are used to make plastics and the gasoline and motor oil we love is in the mid range (8 to 50 or so carbons in a chain).
Source: http://science.howstuffworks.com/oil-refining2.htm
I OWN LOTSA STOCK IN ELECTRIC CARS WITH A 250 MILE RANGE AT 70 MPH BUT PEOPLE WILL NOT PAY $30K FOR AN EMISSION FREE NON POLUTING CAR. ALREADY SENY MY IDEA ON HOW TO FIX THE OIL LEAK BUT NO RESPONSE. STILL COULD MAKE A PROTOTYPE THAT WOULD ONLY TAKE HOURS...NOT MONTHS....TO INSTALL!
DREW...
You dont know anything!!!!! Because if you did you would know that hydrocarbons are primarly Hydrogen and Carbon atoms....Not Oxygen dummy.
Put laundry detergent on it or another degreaser on the oil. This way the fish can be clean. Then use liquid nitrogen to freeze it and wa'lah. Or perhaps just put Liquid nitrogen on the top thus freezing it in place and thus no oil spewing out.... just a thought.
Wow. Just....wow. Perhaps we should plug the oil leak with dumb Americans. Shouldn't take too many...and who will miss all of yo- I mean, them, anyway?
xprize for using something other than oil in all our household items, furniture, auto parts, packaging, etc etc etc. We have painted ourselves into a corner.
You know whats so funny. We have technology that exists to already do this. The problem is try selling to the general world public to pay high prices for energy. People just wont do it. Gas is too cheap and produces a very high amout of BTU's. If you are "green" you are thinking about efficiency. Nothing is more effiecient when you calculate the costs of production.
We used to have an alternative to petroleum. The problem was, we were running out of whales to kill to get it.
I submitted an Proposal to kill the well and bolt a flanged spool on the top of the BOP several weeks ago, I was informed yesterday that BP is using part of my idea in two weeks to use a flanged spool instead of the cap to bring ALL the oil to the surface.
if the X-Prize guys offer three millions dollars, they SURELY hope to earn $100 million (or more) from this business!!!
read the DARK SIDE in this article: http://bit.ly/9rkVhR
so, I NEVER send them any my ideas to clean up the shorelines and Gulf's open water, despite I've a VERY GOOD IDEA to do that
-
however, I can give away my idea for free ONLY if reviewed by all the Press to avoid...
-
1. that BP can ignore it and doesn't apply the idea (as already done with ALL the ideas suggested by me and others) and...
-
2. to avoid that other "BP-guys" or "X-guys" could say (again) that MY idea was "developed internally" in their labs... 😐
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Actually, a cap is completely doable, from 0 – 100% shutdown. This link will show you a device that will do it –
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBRCuiDFwS4&w=640&h=360]
I don't have the computer skills to make a "wow" video graphic, but many have seen my device and have said "wow". My device also does something that others do not. I eliminate the need for gaskets/seals which can develop ice crystals and can cause a device to fail under such depth and high pressures. Once my device is installed it is solid containment. And the only tools needed to install it would be a hydraulic ratchet and a robotic arm to hold it in place while the two halves are bolted together.
1 take a trapaozoid 3mile top side 400 m bottom side one mile and a half depth
extend to ocean floor
coral oil well inside
fasten edge together
make cone
inflate boom on top side to float above water above projected storm surge
make sides semipermable so oil stays in cone and water is allowed to escape
siphon oil from inside cone to tanker
take oil in tanker to refinery
done
plan 2 what ever the natural bacteria is that eats oil promote growth deploy instead of disapatient agent
Model take a 12"square pc of close hot glue a magnet in the center of one end fold cut four inches on bottom to the corner on top this should make trapazoid take helium balloon hot glue to top place in bath tub magnet down staple sides together should make cone top above water. take straw and siphon water from center....
My name is Careen Stokes. My father Joseph Kahoe, along with a fellow engineer Brandon Iglesias from LSU have come up with a brilliant invention called EMOPP. I understand that you probably get thousands of ideas on how to stop the leak, but EMOPP needs some serious consideration. EMOPP short for Electro Magnetic Oil Pipe Plugger was not created to contain the oil but to stop it. It also can be installed in pre-existing pipes to make sure this BP mess never occurs again. The Orange County Register, in California, wrote an article on my father and EMOPP. The word is getting out, but not fast enough. I as well as many are angry that this even happened in the first place, but also nothing has been successful in stopping the leak. The lives of all that work the Gulf Waters as well as businesses are being devastated. It breaks my heart seeing all the beautiful wildlife covered in oil and dying. I would appreciate your time to look at EMOPP. You can find it at EMOPP.com as well as Twitter and Facebook. EMOPP can work, all we need is for the word to get out.
Sincerely,
Careen Stokes
I find it so amusing to see everyone of you liberals and the stinking bias media outlets pointing the finger only at BP. This arrogant president of yours is loving this disaster...refusing help from other countries who are experienced with this kind of mess. I suggest you all, including Obama, go off and live elsewhere and have your little socialist island and see how quickly you crumble into the sea. He is doing everything in his power to destroy this nation...spend, spend, spend & tax, tax, tax!!! What a joke he's turned out to be. And also, I love hearing the libs complain over and over again that Sara Palin lacked experience...are you for real? Obama was and still is an empty suit!!!! Looking forward to the new faces in Washington come November!!!!
Dear friend:
I am an inventor with five patents and five pending patents.
I have designed a machine to cleanup oil in the ocean. I am drawing figures and writing description for the machine. Can you tell me where my figures and description to send.
Thanks!
Best regards,
Guixian Lu
If you are tired of BP Oil, then say it on a shirt. Action and money is what the Gulf needs to cleanup this mess. Talk is cheap. BUY A SHIRT and wear it proudly. All proceed go to the Surfrider Foundation.
go to http://WWW.BPSHIRTS.COM and get your shirt today!
Will the winner have to split the winnings with all the people who get sick from helping with the clean up? Just was curious who that responsibility is going to fall on, because people are going to get sick, and they are going to sue. This is america, what more do we expect?
"This is america, what more do we expect?"
People suing those that help improve the cleanup capabilities? Ridiculous. Wait. This IS America. Land of the Lawyers.
I would give up every opportunity I will have for the rest of my life, and live on a park bench if it meant that I could stop this spill and help the gulf cost recover economically and environmentally.
I've never served our armed forces, or pursued political office, but if I could make a worthwhile sacrifice as an engineer to repay my country for the freedoms and opportunities I enjoy, I would.
I realize this is a put-up or shut-up kind of statement, but I'm pretty sick of listening to blow-hards online, and I'm going to make sure that if there is an opportunity to put my Mechanical Engineering degree to use in the service of my nation or my planet, that I don't miss the boat on it.
And Bill, That IS Capitalism!
How about a huge piece of bubble gum?
Please let me know if I won the prize.
CNN can reach me at my email address.
Thanks everybody, and have a nice day.
Nah, bubble gum will just make a big bubble and pop. It should be the late Billy May's Mighty Putty. It can hold the bond of semi-trucks.
BUY NOW, AND WE'LL DOUBLE THE ORDER!!
CNN You love to write stories on government missteps, then write a story on this! Find out the truth! If the Dutch could have helped us avert much of this disaster why didn't we welcome their help? If this is true I'm truly sickened by the state of the US government.
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=3203808
Google the "Jones Act".
Google: 'Commander and Cheif + Crisis Emergency + Worst Oil Spill in History'
This is too easy, keep bulldozing the beach back into the water until all the oil has evaporated in 80-100 years it should be 75% gone and we won't have billions of plastic garbage bags with 15lbs of sand and 4oz of oil.
The flow of the oil spilling can be drastically reduced by pumping a few thousand pounds of steel ball bearing into the pipe. The round shape will slow the flow as they fall to the lowest point. The round shape will keep the balls from log jamming and this method could lower the flow of oil to the equivalent of a broken 3 inch pipe.
Try to jam few thousand pounds of ball bearings in a 21 inch pipe under thousands of pounds of pressure per square inch? You must be in the artillery business.
First they said that golf balls can be used . It seemed ridiculous then and it seemsstupid now.. ball bearings will be dumb idea.
You should try this at home. Get your garden hose, turn it on full blast, and try to stuff it full of marbles. Then report back to us with your findings.
Drop a 40' x 100' tall steel sleeve down around the pipe with the cap still in place to keep the oil flow at a minimum. Then fill the sleeve with concrete. It will not only stabilize the already fragile well head but should stop the leak. How ever many hundreds of tons of the same concrete Haliburton was going to use should do the trick. I think this would be easily able to be fabricated in a shipyard in New Orleans in pieces assembled on site. I'll take the prize money in seafood from the fishermen when they're back to work.
The shut off valve that will not work is probably frozen at 1 mile deep, so why don't they pump hot water down to the valve and warm it up to normal temp. and then try to get it to shut off?
Or why don't they just install another valve where they cut the broken end, then close it? Then there might not be a leak.
Temp at that depth is about 60 degrees F. At the same time there is very high pressure which means nothing is frozen, quite the opposite.
temp at that depth is 34 degF
The "shut-off valve that will not work" as you so eloquently put it, also called a blowout preventer, operates using hydraulics. The temperature at 5000 ft in the gulf is ~40F. No hydraulic fluid that I am aware of freezes at 40F.
agreeing with Adam, & thanks John for the link.
Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. "Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour," Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.
The U.S. government responded with "Thanks but no thanks," remarked Visser, despite BP's desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer –the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge.
Read more: http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=3203808
(1)The Jones Act already has an exemption for oil spill response vessels so why would Obama have to suspend it?
(2) The Dutch offer was to sell skimmers not at "no charge."
Perhaps you shouldn't be relying on a famous global warming denier to tell you what the appropriate environmental solution is.
A sand dike would get absolutely destroyed with the very first hstorm to hit the area. Then all that money and manpower would have just been wasted, plus we would be dealing with the negative effects of digging up thousands of tons of the ocean floor. The Dutch aren't accustomed to designing solutions that will stand up to hurricanes of the degree that the gulf faces.
It seems as though no one is thinking, if you were to construct a large version of a cardiac asngioplasty baloon out of very heavy rubber with grippers, insert it to the bottom of the well casing, inflate with hydrolic fluid, top with water proof concrete, no more oil.
Send superman down to cap it.
Best idea yet!
Dan.....I offered to do it but Obama said nah, don't worry about it. I then called my buddy Chuck Norris to see if he would help out but Obama said nope to him also, we'll just let BP take control of this. And just to think, it would take nothing but the laser beams from my eyes to weld the pipe shut.
Aquaman!
Aquaman! would be great. I mean this is already a Golden Mullet Award moment. might as well get him and MacGyver down there to fix it.
It's pretty clear that they don't even plan to try to contain this well now that a reward has been offered. Whenever a reward is offered it ususlly means john and jane doe USA are going to be the ones to suffer the consequences.. look how well the reward for Osama's head went!! What a joke. Why are they even bothering to "clean" up the oil?
The X Prize Foundation is not affiliated with either BP or any government. This group of independent people try to promote innovation in space and technology. Kudos to them for fronting the money and perhaps generating some productive ideas. Unfortunately I can see BP and the government declining anything that results from this.
Do you engage your brain before you start to type? I am thinking of coding an app that will pick out the spewings of the ignorant. You are the perfect example of a person educated (if you can call it that) in the US. So ignorant than even if you were hugely intelligent it would be wasted on you. People who only approach one side of an issue with one piece of information do not have the right to call themselves literate or intelligent. As you do not have the interest required to educate yourself by reading and studying, and comparing source material, I wonder why you even bother to make comments.
If you don't bother to read, you are illiterate. You are just another dumppuck looking for attention. An opinion with no facts and no ability to reason on the subject is a waste of everyone's time.
@CalgarySandy....You obviously live a miserable life. I bet you spend your days analyzing the worlds flaws and your nights thinking about how brilliant you think you are. Well I've got news for you, you're not as wonderful as you might hope. And as for ignorance? Look in the mirror.
Yeah I'll NEVER understand the Dutch deal either. Offered help for free, and it was turned down. That's got to be one of the DUMBEST decisions in history.
Hello...look who's running the country. He's a bigger disaster than the oil spill.