[ale] OT - Have you seen this almost trivial solution to the oil mess?

[Greg Freemyer]

On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 12:58 PM, Jim Lynch
<ale_nospam at fayettedigital.com> wrote:
> Greg Clifton wrote:
>> I haven't watched the video, but I suspect that what they are
>> referring to as hay (basically dried bermuda, fescue or some such
>> grass or dried alfalfa for a higher protein feed) was actually wheat
>> straw (or should have been). Wheat straw is hollow like a drinking
>> straw, which would nearly double, or at least greatly increase the
>> surface area (I'm not a mathlete, so I'll leave the calculations for
>> those who are) for the oil to bind to. It is also useless for animal
>> fodder, but popular for landscaping (think hydro seeding or more
>> commonly dry seeding) for moisture retention and erosion prevention
>> while newly sown grass is being established. If I'm correct, the
>> animals and their owners wouldn't suffer so much as the developers and
>> landscapers, but those businesses are rather slow [HUGE
>> understatement] these days.
>> GC
> They only tested fescue and bermuda, but suggested straw would most
> likely work as well and mentioned we are only a few weeks away from a
> large production of straw.
>
> I suspect that after collection some bright individual would come up
> with a clean way to burn it in an  environmentally friendly way to
> produce electricity.  I recall experiments years ago where they
> introduced water into a furnace burning waste to cause almost complete
> combustion and eliminate contaminants.
>
> Jim.

And if farms are seeing the same increase in production my yard is
(which I don't water / fertilize etc.) then production could be double
a normal year.

So having a need for 10% of GA's production this season doesn't sound
like a huge deal offhand.  Obviously the other issues still stand.
(ie. logistics, what to do the oily mess at the end, etc.)

I don't think even the guys on the video were arguing it was the only
solution, but as stated it could be used in large areas to work at the
surface.  They claimed in the middle of the ocean you could just shoot
the hay straight up and let the wind spread it around.  And unlike
most solutions, the windier the better.  They also said if it got to
the shore, it would prevent the oil saturating the sand, thus making
clean up much easier.

So maybe you spread hay on windy days and other solutions on calm days.

Greg