Team Elastec/American Marine--Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE

[Zooni2]

This is what it is all about. Good men doing great things.

[hymiehymie]

LOVE IT. Posted this to Facebook.

[phillyblunz]

That amazing, these guys deserve a noble prize.

The only better solution I've seen is the bacteria that eat oil and turn it into safe compounds, but that is extremely expensive.

This is the only practical solution for oil spills in the ocean.

Good work, you guys rock.

[electrodacus]

Better to invest in technology that will prevent the spills in the first place.

Or even better technology that will render oil obsolete.

[HsingG32]

one group of elite engineers, great job !!!

[hawkermustang]

This is capitalism!

[MrJohn1966elliott]

It is good job and go ahead to build some, sell for world, waiting for next bigger oil spills

[SpanishThug]

Engineers Should Take Over The World!

[TubeSurfingTroll]

What if we stopped using oil for heating and transportation?... problem mostly solved if we need 80% less

[L3GITME]

Great, But salt water is denser? Will that effect it?

[grambosix]

you guys should keep the oil!!

[KamenRiderBlackSun]

4:50 has too many TF2 Engies

[alienodio]

Oil spills are good for the economy... lol

[lonebannana]

wow. pretty damned impressive!

too bad I already thought about that a long time ago! Where's my prize!

:D

[qaddodi]

yo

[LuuKen]

yo

[iamdrewi]

yo

[ImZa1no]

yo

[JoyeCarrington64]

yo

[ValerieKirchner31]

yo

[RouteZeroDesign]

A very interesting, simple yet clever solution; well done guys :)

Is there any way in which the motor that spins the discs could be powered by combusting some of the oil which is skimmed off?

I understand that with crude oil there would need to be some system for refining the oil before it is used in the engine, but it would be rather cool to use the Elastec technology on some form of semi-autonomous craft.

[chroniclerofthe70s]

@RouteZeroDesign Clever solution? A real oil spill is composed of different oil fractions some of which combine with oceanic salts forming even denser oil fractions several feet beneath the surface. Will the spining affinity discs bind the high viscosity tar spheres and withstand the abrasive salts and organic acids? Over 200 million gallons of oil spilled into the gulf. Some of the oil sludge sank to the bottom of the gulf.

[sunnysang]

Corporations= 1

Occupy Wall Street= 0

[SingularlyDatarific]

Yay for science!

[nmss7]

wow it took that long to shift the groves from the front to the side, they probably knew this shit long before but hey longer working hours means you get paid more now they get paid even more than that.

[beatsiz]

Let me get this straight... BP, The US Government, and other organizations or companies have paid BILLIONS of dollars towards oil but a prevention idea clocks in at $1.4 Million? Am I allowed to say "What the FUCK?" We're talking about 0.00015% of the money allocated to cleaning this up to the best idea we can come up with? Sorry but this is pathetic. Just like NASA's budget being 0.5% of the Federal Budget and being 35% of the Scientific Budget... DOES ANYBODY SEE WHAT IS WRONG OR AM I ALONE?!

[mulletstation]

@beatsiz X-foundation is privately funded, it has nothing to do with the government giving them money.

[beatsiz]

@mulletstation I get that, but my point still stands as to why BILLIONS are spent cleaning up but you can't just fund prizes or companies to come up with better cleanup methods if only 0.1% of your cleanup budget already amounts to $200 Million...

[chroniclerofthe70s]

@beatsiz You are not alone. The U.S. funding for applied science is miniscule in comparison with spending on non-utilitarian programs. Unfortunately, scientists are a small group ( voters ) when compared to other interests groups. The government agency created to safeguard against risky drilling operations outside of accepted routine drilling operations allowed BP to continue drilling. Thus, satisfying political constituents usually takes priority over what is best for the general public.

[krayvis]

Elegant solution is an understatement. This is brilliant. Real world engineering solution for the win.

[chroniclerofthe70s]

@krayvis Brilliant? Real world? There is nothing real about this test. More than 200 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. Alot was burned off while some of it was chemically dispersed and some sank to the bottom of the gulf. This technology is a skimmer. A real world solution will have to address highly viscous oil sludge several feet beneath the surface. Learn before making such statements, fool.

[krayvis]

@chroniclerofthe70s Are you dumb? There is a time and place for everything, this technology included. This approach may not have been optimal for the Gulf spill, but it's sure as hell a useful development. Fool.

[chroniclerofthe70s]

@krayvis Useful developement? Chemists have been extracting organics from aqueous solutions utilizing micro-affinity technology for several decades, fool. Secondly, the contest was created to develope technology that could quickly be applied towards real world oil spills within a very short time span. Technologies already exist that can address the points I made. The difficulty is having companies adopt new applications of scientific knowledge.

[krayvis]

@chroniclerofthe70s Well yea, technologies exist. But that doesn't mean they're necesasrily better than this in every way. Chemistry won't solve all your problems.

What about an oiltanker spill. High concentration of oil in a small region. What's wrong with a more efficient skimmer? It's not a cure-all for your sub-surface sludge, but it's still a welcome application.

[chroniclerofthe70s]

@krayvis I agree. The good thing is Elastec's skimmer is a vast improvement over what has traditionally been used by companies and government agencies. Your right, it will take a multidisciplinary approach requiring chemistry ( hydrophobic interactions ), mathematics, fluid dynamics, etc. The skimmer should be effective on site relative to a newly formed oil spill. It will be a bit more challenging to separate oil/water emulsions containing oceanic salts, micro-animal and plant debri.

[SquirrelFromGradLife]

The really intelligent solution would be to incorporate several of the new technologies with the Elastec skimmer.

[divineagent]

Wow, this industry should never have even existed.

[Divadj2009]

Lets look at history to find out how this industry was established. If it was established by OIL MINING BIGWIGS for spill disaster recovery, then the foundations are right for introducing this industry. What are they saying that Oil mining this world in greed for profit is alright coz they can recover spills, more explaining needed.  Or is this historically foundationally established by inventors with genuine intentions?

[tr0s3ph]

Wadsworth constant applies

[jbdranger]

why are we not deploying this to every damn oil company in existence. oh right, because the risk of billions of barrels being list is greater than paying for the machine. fucking assholes.

[Dronguin]

Wandsworth constant apply to it

[suez00]

Old guy is like, "f#ck helmets, i have my cowboy hat."

[VVizeman]

yeah let's keep up the good job that pays millions...

spill some more oil in the seas so these people can keep buying their ferraris..

[Imakeplanesboom]

Why don't we just invest in renewable energy? then we wouldn't have to worry about oil spills.

[romagen]

@Imakeplanesboom I would like to see the first renewable energy driven airplane that can make airbuses and boeings obsolete. :D man, what you demand will take at least decades to be reality. until then, accidents will happen, and Elastec's method is a pretty good one to solve them.

[Imakeplanesboom]

@romagen Cars would be so simple, powering homes would be so simple. All it takes is cheap energy and some corporate greed and you have an environmental catastrophe on your hands.

[mulletstation]

@Imakeplanesboom because people are dumb as hell, but honestly there's not enough renewable energy right now to make up for the huge proportions of coal/naturalgas/oil we consume. It'll be a long transition, not something that you can just say 'hey lets do it'

[Imakeplanesboom]

@mulletstation But that's all it would take. Someone with money has to just do it. Some energy company needs to take a shitload of money, build photovoltaic panels, wind turbines. But no, we keep screwing up the environment even more.

[aquaguard100]

Good work winning the prize but an offshore machine? 

[SkwerlStyle]

watching all the other competitor videos. These guys definitely are the best.

[ActivityShareSat]

Excellent!

[rasmasyean]

Aside from cleaning spills, is it possible to just open some deepwater wells and then let skimmers fill up their tanks in the zone?

[BeortheMad]

@rasmasyean ....

[mulletstation]

@rasmasyean really? that's a serious idea?

[Omertahun]

youtube.com/watch?v=KXQ2mFYHUJ­A

[Omertahun]

listen, from 3:46

[Omertahun]

What's the music, it's like Epica

[galavicsa]

Don Johnson at 1:16 looks like the guy from 'Will it blend' :) congrats anyway!

[Ryuuken24]

Wasn't there a news story about people dying because of the cleaning solutions used to clean up oil spills?

[mulletstation]

@Ryuuken24 yeah everyone is dead in 4 states because of the cleaning solution.

[shafta99]

those cowboy hard hats are epic!

[chindokumon]

We need this right now in Tauranga, New Zealand.

[adimw]

i find it incredible that they've been making a buisiness of this for 20 years... its disgusting to think we have enough oil f*ck ups to support a buisiness with 100 employees... but fantastic tech, well done Elastec.

[mdlittle5466]

Notice - it took a small group of engineers...not politicians...to resolve problems created by corporations. :)

[refink33]

"And it does it at a nearly 90 percent efficiency rate." holy shit, congrats !!

[Philm35]

Congratulations, Elastec! Well done.

[kimori676]

Does anyone know the name of the song at the beginning and toward the end of the video.

[kelownascott]

Using similar adhesion to a Tesla turbine.

[NeonSequitur]

Sarcasm aside, there's no comparison: Corexit disperses the oil, but skimmers recover it.

[theslimeylimey]

Looks great but can it compete with 2 million gallons of Corexit?

(Yes that was sarcasm...sort of)

[joshbeasley311]

@theslimeylimey ....slimeylimey..... are you Tony Hayward by chance? Just seems like a username appropriated for ignorant British self-absorbed douche bags.

[theslimeylimey]

@joshbeasley311 hahaha :) no. I'm just very cynical that companies like BP won't use any technology that quantifies the size of a spill as long as the size of fines are related to the size of the spill. BP loves the "Spill? what spill?" result that corexit gives and as long as they are allowed to "clean up" their own spill, Corexit will be used whenever possible, regardless of how good these impressive mechanical solutions are.

[slaggy666]

@joshbeasley311 YOU CUNT!!!! the british OWN you111 n if u wanna moan about BP more americans work for bp that brits do and the us owns about the same % as our shareholders do 40% ish so fuck you motherfucker eat a dick!!!

[joshbeasley311]

@slaggy666 It seems that the only ones that should have been offended by my comment would be Mr. slimeylimey himself, or Tony Hayward or perhaps his personal gerbil. Since you're quite obviously neither of the first two, one can only infer that you are the gerbil. The British own me? First try to own a cohesive ability to spell or invoke the english language. You, my friend, are the cunt. No, I take that back. You are the douche bag cunt.

[slaggy666]

@joshbeasley311 u slagged of the british fuck you motherfucker you go eat a big black cock

[joshbeasley311]

@slaggy666 If you can find time (or a means of removing your strategic placement up Tony Haywards ass) then try picking up a dictionary. I am sure that they have one at your elementary school that you attend each day. Your fascination with dicksucking gives away your desire to end your secrecy and to go public with your homosexuality. I applaud your strength. I bet it takes a courageous person to let such a secret out. Best of luck in your ventures. Cocksucker.

[slaggy666]

@joshbeasley311 rofl i love you hahahahahahahaha