BP has purchased 32 machines from Kevin Costner’s company Ocean Therapy Solutions for separating oil from water in the Gulf. This is great news and I think it gives a sense of hope for the situation that seems insurmountable to most. ABC News has a story about this new technology that could help to save the Gulf of Mexico, here are some chunks of that piece…
Costner has spent the past 15 years and more than $20 million of his own money into developing the oil separator, a powerful centrifuge that he claims can separate oil from water and dump the oil into a holding tank, leaving the water 99 percent clean of crude…
…Costner said BP had ordered 32 of the machines. While he acknowledged that a great deal of damage had already been done in the Gulf, he said the machines could still mitigate much of the problem.
“It’s not too late … That oil’s going to keep coming towards those people. That well has not stopped. So we have to be out at the source, sucking it up … I mean, we have to treat it a little bit like war,” he said. “We mustered logistically everything we had to get the beaches of Normandy. We have to muster everything we can to keep it from hitting our beaches.”
I want to personally thank Kevin Costner for investing in this company and caring about clean water. I’m not necessarily a big fan of his movies, but I love the man for doing this. I have to wonder whether a company that didn’t have Kevin Costner backing them up would have been listened to at all. Those BP characters are something else, they act like Republicans. :) And they probably are too.
Extreme Liberal's Blog 
Hey here is some good news:
The White House’s plan for financial reform wont address “too big to fail” banks.
Remember cheering as Obama said in September that he “intended to put an end to the idea that some firms are ‘too big to fail’.”
Those banks pay him now. So much for “change”.
I heard Elizabeth Warren the other day on NPR and she talked about how the “too big to fail” obsession is a distraction, an oversimplification of the problem. Size doesn’t necessarily matter in this case. Of course, for simple people, it is easy to understand. There are a lot more issues other than size that have a greater impact on financial stability in the markets. You firebaggers will always find something to bitch about, won’t you?
what’s a firebagger?
It’s a term of affection. “Firedoglake” + “Teabaggers”= Firebaggers.
What it means to me is probably different than for others. I can’t remember who first coined it, but I laughed my ass off when I saw it. It was during the health care debate.
You are so right on.
Don’t know how this went from oil capture to banks but some minds work in mysterious ways.
I heard about the company Costner was part of several weeks ago. What is frustrating about this issue, besides BP laid back attitude, is there have been a number of ideas presented that are being “studied”. Why not have them all come down and show what they can do. This is true bureaucracy at it’s worst and is turning from “lets find a solution” to “lets assign blame”. Stuff golf balls, unused atlas rockets, hundreds of the still unread healthcare reform acts, down the hole and give Mohegan her wish, plug the hole daddy.
Werk changed the direction by posting about the financial reform bill. You know, being negative when I was trying to show a ray of hope with my post.
Very similar to your comment, negative shit man. Yes, corporations are bad, evil and only think about the bottom line…..I get it. BP is run by a bunch of idiots, stone-age thinkers….Republicans. Not much we can do about that now right, except bitch, bitch, bitch.
I’m personally getting sick of the bitching about everything, we are a country of fucking whiners and like I call this current generation…”The What-Have-You-Done-For-Me-Lately Generation”
I call it a microwave mentality, Jim. Our attention span is about as long as it takes to pop a bag of popcorn, and even then we’re tapping our toes because three minutes is a loooong time to wait. We, as a nation, have taken this attitude to the nth degree on everything that touches our lives.
The government, no matter who sits in the WH, just gets in the way. This is a private industry disaster and the best thing the government could do is tell them, you broke it, you fix it, and get out of the way.
Instead they hold hearings on building barrier islands, decline help from the Dutch, “study” ideas submitted and grind everything to a halt through the bureaucracy of the federal government.
There is plenty of time to assign blame but little time to correct the condition. Look what happened to Nashville and Iowa with the floods. The government got out of the way and in NY they did nothing but slow the process.
Should have been NO not NY
I’m seriously thinking of moving to a socialist country, or at least one with a higher average IQ level. I’ve heard and read more bullshit in the last few weeks…arghhh.
I sent you an email Staci…..
Part of what caused the problem was a White House that got out of the way of business. Way out of the way….I admit and I wish more people did, that I don’t know what the solution is. I hear a lot of people say what should be done, or should have been done or wasn’t done correctly and everyone seems to be a petroleum engineer now, talking like they know exactly what should be done.
Several countries are helping now including the Dutch, there is a lot going on that is positive but everyone seems to be loving wallowing in misery, woe is me, poor me, whaaaaaa. Kevin Costner’s machine and I’m sure many new innovative technologies are going to come from this, we did go to the moon and we’ll figure this out too. I’m not buying into the armageddon, sky is falling – emotional response.
Oh, firedoglake. Another liberal news site. Not interested in corporatists’ news so I don’t really read that.