BP enlists Costner to fight spill
Updated Sun Jun 20, 2010 12:09am AEST
"Hollywood star Kevin COSTNER and BP have announced plans to use an invention the actor says will accelerate the clean-up of gushing oil in the Gulf of MEXICO. "I didn't come here to save the day. I have come to participate," COSTNER said.
BP chief operating officer Doug SUTTLES says the company has purchased 32 centrifugal oil-water separator machines from COSTNER's company Ocean THERAPY Solutions. "This is real technology with real science behind it," said Mr SUTTLES, a mechanical engineer.
Used in conjunction with other oil spill collection operations, COSTNER's V-20 technology will eventually help BP process up to 128,000 barrels of oily water daily from Gulf waters and polluted shorelines, Mr SUTTLES said.
Three of the 4,500-pound machines were displayed aboard a barge at a Port FOURCHON shipyard before their deployment to the heart of the spill at the site of the sunken Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off the LOUISIANA coast.
More of the filters will be deployed along 193 kilometres of the oil-scarred LOUISIANA shoreline over the next 60 days, according to Ocean officials.
COSTNER says the machines can separate oil and water at a rate of 200 gallons (757 litres) per minute - achieving 99 per cent purity levels for both liquids - without the use of chemical or biologic agents.
By comparison, traditional oil skimming operations can collect only 20 per cent of the crude and 80 per cent of the water, COSTNER said on June 9 in testimony before a US House Science and Technology Committee. The broken wellhead is leaking oil at a rate of up to 60,000 barrels daily, according to the latest government figures"...
SOURCE / QUELLE dieses Ausschnitts:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/19/2931657.htm