Seaswarm

[fila8712]

Great idea for removing oil form sea but how much for a budget? Who must pay for this process?

[weight854]

How long can we remove 5,000,000 barrels of oil in sea?

[fila8712]

Every countries should remove oil from sea.

[enarolloyd49g]

This video is a favorite on Dominican Republic

[jkausel2008]

Useful but not a good idea to encourage these oil exec idiots!!

[physical815]

This video is very useful

[kingburgerkiler]

What if wave comes up and filp it over ?

[nealshireman]

I read about this in my popular science magazine, pretty cool

[GoOnPlAsS]

What if the sharks are hungry ?

[ThennyDlux]

that oil was spilled on purpose

/watch?v=krcNIWPkNzA

[kgkitchen]

Maybe the swarm should dock with a tanker to unload the oil it has collected.

[IKillLittlegirls]

you're teaching them to work in packs,

this is not good.

[littlebigprominence]

what happens when it flips over.

[lawndart3505]

CNN story today on this thing says they either burn the oil, or bag it & leave it floating for pick up...

[acdavis630]

what propels them? a conveyor belt?

[eydryan]

what's the font used in the credits?

[Tidoublemy]

This is silly - where does all of the oil go assuming you can remove it from the material? There's no storage bin.

[wendland99]

a bit late but very cool!

[003590510]

And where are you storing the oil geinus? Once you heat it and remove the oil off the fabric where does it go? back in the water? lol BP must have thought this one up!

[Pulchism]

Is there anything feeble solar powered treadmills can't do?

[DiveZen]

sounds too good to be true... but I hope it isn't. Love the idea

[DraskyVanderhoff]

Great idea , is easy to deploy and very scalable 8 but why is not working in other place when its need it , right now in africa and south america there are similar situations.

[Dragonstud]

there are much better skimmers than this, look in to coral reef keepers skimmers...these work a treate for any oils fat protein ete ...bp could have sorted this no probs but oil companys never clean there mess.."most of which belong in jail for crimes against humans and nature.. they blame it on us consuming it to start with

[jiberish001]

After going to their website and going over all the info they give; I can't help but wonder why/how they are getting funding for this. Go do the research, it's really quite laughable. The Nano fiber is awesome, and I applaud whoever invented it, but this small robot skimmer will never work the way they want it to if they continue developing it as is.

[STEEVZ13]

Then BP has Laurence Fishburne beat you senseless until you hand over your schematics. Instead of the sleepy NPR gal narrating, how about the more stern intense guy from the original Machete trailer.

[romanmir01]

in the video these things are moving fast and turning and on MIT website they are saying those thing will be powered by 100W solar cells.

1. how are they turning in the water?

2. where does the oil go?

3. 5,000,000 barrels with 5,000 units, over a month, that's 33.3 barrels of oil PER DAY PER UNIT! That's about 185 cubic feet. How are these things going to be removing 185 cubic feet of oil and still moving on 100W of energy?

This is just plainly not true.

[eiffuy]

@romanmir01 exactly, if it were possible someone would be doing it already...

[Mathijsken91]

@eiffuy not true, a lot of things are possible, but need the right amount of investments.

Investing in the environment still isn't that big in the corporate world, it's a nice pr stunt, but nothing more...

[eiffuy]

@Mathijsken91 things that are possible are economically viable. simply because something seems like a good idea does not mean it should be funded at a loss.

Other proven alternative in cleaning up oil spills are working at a price that can be afforded by businesses (which ultimately their customers are willing to pay for).

[notNEWW]

@romanmir01 1. they are not, they are floating mostly

2. it is syphioned off by a larger "control" bouey ( the idea that this machine runs on solar only power is ridiculous) which acts as the power plant/oil receptacle

3....... i think 2 answered it.

[GoOnPlAsS]

@romanmir01 nerd

[romanmir01]

Except that most oil in the gulf is not on top, but is mixed with the water column, partially thanks to the dispersant and partially that's where it broke down into small droplets and achieved buoyancy.

[newagepimp1]

Shark food!

[Kry8ter]

Not only do I wonder how you collect these robots and "ring them out", but what about the wrath of the ocean. As it is not a swimming pool, how do these things correct themselves if they are flipped over? Also, oil has depth, and is not -just- on the surface. :S

[jiberish001]

Maybe I'm missing something here; but where is the collected oil stored? These things don't look very big at all, how often would they need to empty the collected oil? Looks to me like very often. They want them to go out for long periods of time collecting oil by them selves, but that's just not possible if they need to be emptied so often. I love the nano fabric, but I don't think this is the right way to implement it.

[venuecam]

although the idea behind this is extremely intelligent BP NEVER intended on cleaning up the spill. Their 'cost analysis' concluded that spraying toxic COREXIT on it would be a cheaper alternative. All that did was make it sink to the ocean floor and bond with the water molecules and their media release states they 'cleaned up' the spill.

Once again this tech is great but will never be used when corporations plan to f*** up our ecosystem.

[hawkermustang]

I would lay on that thing and float around while getting drunk.

[Red9san]

start of the evil robot army!!!

[larrh]

VERY COOL! I'm sure that there are additional applications as well. Let's hope that THIS product actually comes to mass produced fruition.

[joffeloff]

Okay, okay, guys, the skimmers are funny looking and all.. But this material has a thousand other applications. We use oil absorbent pads and oil/water separators already, if this material is as fantastic as you say you need to commercialize it in some other form than a funny looking solar robot thingy. Funny looking solar robot thingy, cute as it is, is very narrow in its scope and application.

[mtssvnsn]

But what if its still hungry after all the oils is gone?

Just when you thought is was safe to go back into the water....

[slapalib]

mother nature (god?) has taken care of it allready. oil is natural anyway . relax .

[M4ssacre]

@slapalib Yeah mother nature (god?) made a hole into the ground in 1.250m to 10.685m depth .... and spilled 5 million barrel oil into the sea :) Good job mother nature (god?)!

[deviruchi327]

@slapalib fire is natural, lets burn all the forest, relax is natural

[ThepurpleHayes]

@slapalib

yeah, oil is natural in the fact that it stays in the ground. the oil spill into the ecosystem is not natural, hence why animals die.

[romanmir01]

@slapalib many things are completely natural, like HIV in someone's blood or an asteroid hitting a planet or a star going supernova.

None of those things are unnatural or supernatural and all of them will kill you.

[slave880]

bullshit, fake and gay. can you people please invent some thing that are more sensible and practical? how many of these does it take to clean the recent oil spill? and not mention how long does it take? how about some kind of powder that will absorb the oil, dilute itself and environmental friendly. that will take care of all the problem of oil floating on top, on the bottom and in the water itself, right? i am sure we can create some with the current space-age technology

[gumdokim]

This video is great and all...but I can't stop thinkin how much it reminds me of the Umbrella Corporation from Resident Evil, the way the lady sounds its like shes pushing the T-virus haha

[myholename]

very good idea but, sadly we all know anyone with that type of money doesnt give a shit about the environment

[kylehase]

@myholename The solution is to create a law that requires oil companies to have a certain number of these or other reliable cleaning solutions ready to deploy within a reasonable amount of time.

[magikl1]

Sounds good, but what if a wave flips it over? Does it have the photo cells on the top and bottom? If it flipped then it could still power itself? Would also have to change the direction of the track movement also I think.

[allanonmage]

so how much does something like this cost? And where is the oil stored in the bot? How often does it need to be "emptied"?

[lenacardell]

@allanonmage it sounds like the oil is stored in the fabric described ~2:20

[ableiman]

this is simple, elegant and brilliant. why are all these comments hung up on the things they can't do?

[stochasticmonk]

1) what about the plume underwater?

2) can you make a nano-slip'n'slide? you could slide into next week!!

[identikal]

is it me or does the narrator sound like miss teen south carolina??

[kdreibel]

Where does the oil get removed to?

[TheCombatFetus]

good concept. too bad they can get stuck easily; only work in open waters. and where does the oil go once it's trapped? doesn't seem like it can hold much..

[a4neivmeer]

Still it can't the oil underground.

[MarkhamMunky]

Amazing concept!!! I'm really excited for this type of technology...but I still am a little confused as to how it get's rid of oil - "By heating up the material, the oil can be removed" is what is said, but do you refer to onsite combustion or a form of collection? I couldn't really find that detail on your site either.

[philsalesses]

@MarkhamMunky Evaporation. You have to dig deep, but I found that's the answer.

[MarkhamMunky]

@philsalesses Thanks! I don't know how you found it but that's pretty interesting. Cheers!