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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Hay You

Hay You

by John Cole|  May 30, 20104:18 pm| 54 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Science & Technology

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Look- I have no idea whether or not this will work or if it is a viable solution for the crisis or not, but I loved watching it. I hate it when politicians do the “Americans are the most innovative and greatest people on the planet blah blah blah” spiel (usually by a politician who has never been outside the country to a group of people who have never been outside their state), but at the same time, I do love the fact that there does seem to be a kind of “git r done” attitude to Americans at large. And even better, I love the fact that if something like this DOES work, people will just say “I’ll be damned” and start using it without much fuss.

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54Comments

  1. 1.

    Phoebe

    May 30, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    I sent a giant box of human hair [from a friend’s salon] to these people last week. Click on the youtube videos they have on the left sidebar to see how well those hairmats work. And from elsewhere on the site, they get rid of the oil soaked booms and mats in a very eco-sound way.

  2. 2.

    jwb

    May 30, 2010 at 4:28 pm

    Presuming it would work, I have to wonder how much hay it would take to do this on the very large scale of the Gulf spill. Then I have to wonder what we would do to replace all that hay, which would ordinarily be used as feed for animals.

  3. 3.

    MikeJ

    May 30, 2010 at 4:32 pm

    Oil spreads largely because of wind. Hair or hay give it more surface area to catch the wind and act like a sail. If you’ve got it completely boomed off it’s ok, otherwise you’ll just spread it to hell and back.

  4. 4.

    Dee Loralei

    May 30, 2010 at 4:33 pm

    Damn that’s brilliant, good ole American ingenuity. I’d like some scientist to test the water that remains in the bowl to see how much of the chemical nastiness the hay draws out.

    Wonder if kudzu would work? We could clean yp the entire southeast if it did, and not have to worry about animal feed.

  5. 5.

    Violet

    May 30, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    This is awesome. I love these guys. No idea whether it would really work, but it’s great to see people thinking about and working on the problem.

  6. 6.

    anonymoose

    May 30, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    So their plan is to scoop up oil in giant woks and have guys with bib overalls a saute hay with the mixture?

    problems with the scheme (and there seems to be many)

    1) Do we have enough hay to cover the entire gulf of mexico?
    2) If you need to keep the oil in a contained area, just how much more efficient is this vs. boom containment + oil skimmers
    3) just how are they expecting to get the oil soaked hay out of the water or off of the beaches? a fleet of hay baling harvesters on top of barges? Bulldozers in the middle of protected wetlands (which may destroy the habitat faster than the oil.

    I personally think they just need to cover the entire gulf and beaches with ShamWoW!s.

  7. 7.

    licensed to kill time

    May 30, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    I saw Bill Nye the Science Guy today on CNN Int’l watching a bunch of YouTube videos of people with their homemade solutions, and shooting them down one by one with science. He seemed a bit glum, and pointed out that the top scientific minds are and have been working on this all along.

    I made the exact same comment to my SO that it was endearing to see so many basement entrepreneurs with their surefire solutions (although a couple of them gave off a ‘can’t give away too much in hopes of snagging a big contract/big bucks’ vibe).

  8. 8.

    Davis X. Machina

    May 30, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    NOAA is not very bullish on the prospects for hair booms, according to tests conducted in February.

    “Our priority when cleaning up an oil spill is to find the most efficient and expedient way to remove the oil from the affected area while causing no additional damage,” said Charlie Henry, NOAA’s Scientific Support Coordinator in Robert, La.
    —
    Tests done in February during an oil spill in Texas proved that commercial sorbent boom absorbed more oil and much less water than hair boom, officials said, making it the “better operational choice.”
    —
    “One problem with the hair boom is that it became water-logged and sank within a short period of time,” Henry said

    .

  9. 9.

    Ecks

    May 30, 2010 at 4:35 pm

    I have no idea either, but it seems like the main innovation here is that it makes skimming easier… Even if you blew hundreds of square miles of hay out over the slick, you’d still have to come along and scoop up those hundreds of square miles of oil-soaked hay.

    Maybe this would be useful for oil that is in close to the shore somewhere, or getting into a bay or something, but it doesn’t seem like a practical solution for the volumes of oil they are talking about for the full gig (especially the plumes that are way under the surface).

    Would certainly like to be wrong about this tho :/

    EDIT: And this is assuming that the oil soaked hay doesn’t sink or break apart and turn into mulch within a day or two in the water.

  10. 10.

    Ella in NM

    May 30, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    It seems to me that we have an incredible scientific opportunity before us, with the Gulf being the perfect laboratory. We, as a nation, just need to decide we want to actually SOLVE the problem, not use it as a political baseball bat.

  11. 11.

    Maude

    May 30, 2010 at 4:39 pm

    On Oil Drum, there’s talk of having separate threads on ideas to stop the oil leak.
    One good thing to come out of this is that a lot of people around the world watched the live BP feed of the top kill. Some commenters could tell the difference between the ROVs.
    You never know when an idea just may work.
    It’s good to see some thinking about solutions.
    It gets people involved with important issues in the country even tho the media is whining and wanting an emo show ala Clinton’s drama of the day.
    I do hope BP does live feed of the ROVs working on the riser/BOP.
    I think having Bush for eight years had the same effect as being hit on the head with a cast iron skillet. I hope we are coming out of that phase.

  12. 12.

    MikeJ

    May 30, 2010 at 4:41 pm

    @Ella in NM: You think anybody doesn’t want to solve it?

    “We, as a nation, just need to decide we want to actually SOLVE the problem, not use it as a political baseball bat. ”

    This is a null sentence. It doesn’t mean anything. Everybody wants to solve it, but wanting it doesn’t make it possible.

  13. 13.

    Violet

    May 30, 2010 at 4:41 pm

    @Ella in NM:
    Yeah, we really should have a “man on the moon by the end of this decade” type of movement for renewable energy, safer oil drilling, and so on. I hope once the well is finally stopped (that’s going to happen eventually, right?) that the Obama administration finds a way to do that.

  14. 14.

    Allison W.

    May 30, 2010 at 4:43 pm

    @Ella: this is certainly an opportunity. While we should take measures to prevent spills, taking this moment to learn new ways to combat this problem should it happen again is very important.

  15. 15.

    licensed to kill time

    May 30, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    This is the Bill Nye video if anybody’s interested.

  16. 16.

    jharp

    May 30, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    It’s my opinion that Americans are the dumbest and laziest people on the planet.

    My teabagger sister in law is visiting and bitching like hell about ObamaCare. Stating that the government has no business forcing her to buy crummy government provided health insurance. And she has a diabetic grandchild that ObamaCare guarantees will never be denied health insurance.

    And she’s a fucking nurse. How fucking stupid can people be.

  17. 17.

    jl

    May 30, 2010 at 4:47 pm

    Meanwhile, our intrepid national press continues to drivel. As I mentioned in the previous thread, all three NY Times opinion pundits are all analyzing the emo quotient of Obama, and why it is not quite just what it should be, and how its ever so slightly, or its outrageously mighty, miscalibration will destroy him and life as we know it.

    Rich actually has a rundown of some history, which makes his column marginally better. I give Rich a D rather than an F.

  18. 18.

    sherifffruitfly

    May 30, 2010 at 4:49 pm

    If nothing else, whether or not such an idea scales needs to be addressed. Preferably by somebody other than ma and pa hick.

  19. 19.

    Ecks

    May 30, 2010 at 4:49 pm

    @jharp: You need to get out more. There’s dumb as shit people everywhere.

  20. 20.

    urbanmeemaw

    May 30, 2010 at 4:49 pm

    I’m glad people are thinking about alternatives. It’s possible that “someone in authority” with an open mind could adopt or combine some of these ideas to deal with various phases of cleanup. Here in Cincinnati a truck carrying frozen chickens overturned on the expressway, which had to be shut down because the grease made the highway impassable. After a few futile hours of attempting to clean up the mess, P&G provided Dawn detergent to clean up the spill. It worked.

  21. 21.

    Xoebe

    May 30, 2010 at 4:50 pm

    This was discussed on MetaFilter a few days ago. Here’s a link to the most telling comment in the thread:
    http://www.metafilter.com/91769/Git-er-Done#3080224

  22. 22.

    DougJ

    May 30, 2010 at 4:51 pm

    @urbanmeemaw:

    That was my favorite episode of WKRP.

  23. 23.

    John Cole

    May 30, 2010 at 4:52 pm

    @urbanmeemaw: There’s a Less Nessman joke to be made here.

  24. 24.

    licensed to kill time

    May 30, 2010 at 4:54 pm

    @Xoebe:

    funny comment:

    Oh great. Another bale out.
    posted by hal9k

  25. 25.

    John Cole

    May 30, 2010 at 4:55 pm

    @DougJ: Damn you.

  26. 26.

    Cara

    May 30, 2010 at 4:57 pm

    Here’s the latest video from Matter of Trust. BP has not been interested in using the hair booms. PETCO grooming salons have sent thousands of pounds of hair a couple of weeks ago and were then told to stop as the donated warehouses were full and then BP said the hair booms would sink and make more of a mess???

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W68L53WkIAw

  27. 27.

    Ecks

    May 30, 2010 at 4:58 pm

    The Bill Nye video talks about the hay idea. He thinks it’s great, and apparently that’s more or less how oil skimming is already done – you spray absorbent stuff on the surface then reel it in… The problem is just one of scale.

  28. 28.

    Nellcote

    May 30, 2010 at 4:59 pm

    You could put straw/hay along the coast between the booms and the shore to grab any oil the comes to the marshes/wetland. It might help keep it off the live plants. It'[s not a silver bullet but would be effective in specific locations. I remember them using it in Santa Barbara.

  29. 29.

    slapperina

    May 30, 2010 at 5:00 pm

    I commend those guys for trying, but that wasn’t exactly a scientific demonstration. I assume that wasn’t salt water, and they didn’t take into account the effects of the dispersants on the disaster oil.

  30. 30.

    jwb

    May 30, 2010 at 5:11 pm

    @jl: I think Rich still fails this week. Given past performance, the others should be expelled.

  31. 31.

    Richard

    May 30, 2010 at 5:11 pm

    I’ve done about half a dozen oil spill response trainings, and one of the issues of month old oil, or even week old oil, is that it becomes emulsified with salt water and absorbent boom becomes significantly less effective. I’d love if this worked, and would like to see these guys and some ragtag Gulf fishermen running out there with bales of this stuff and picking it back up, but I don’t see it working too well.

    But speaking of ingenuity and American exceptionalism or whatever, take a look at this from the Exxon Valdez spill. Protection from the spill on Kodiak happened without Exxon’s or the Federal government’s consent – it just happened. Are there any cases of this in the Gulf yet?

  32. 32.

    Allison W.

    May 30, 2010 at 5:13 pm

    @licensed to kill time:

    Thanks for the video. Is this video only on the internet or was it shown on tv also? I like what he said about the respect and understanding the complexity of the problem. It’s amazing what information you get from an actual expert rather than a lobbyist or politicians.

    Anyways, the lady who suggested air filters? I initially thought she said stop the leak by using “our media”. I thought “Great Idea!”, but that’s not what she said.

  33. 33.

    jl

    May 30, 2010 at 5:16 pm

    @Xoebe: Interesting comment. It says that unless you can clean up the oil soaked hay very quickly, the stuff is moved much more easily by the wind than the oil slick itself is, and would result in a much more mobile spill area.

    Best thing that Bill Nye pointed out is that the people working on this have training in physics, chemistry, engineering and natural systems. And other people do have experience actually working on spills. So it is doubtful any miracle cure has been overlooked.

    Anyone see any homebrew ideas for how to clean up the massive underwater spill?

    From what I have read, the idea of the dispersants being pumped underwater is to, first, dilute the oil, and second, to emulsify it in way that makes it easier for bacteria to degrade quickly. But seems like this program is done a scale vastly larger, and deeper than ever before.

    The big lesson I take away about how to deal with problems like this is, first and last, don’t let anything ever happen like this again. Which might be silly if this were a totally unforeseen accident that came out of the blue. But evidence so far is that it is not that at all, but rather due to shoddy work by an under regulated Big Oil industry.

    I see some nutcases on the The Oil Drum, and other places, still complaining that this tragedy points out the hazards of over regulation. Maybe those comments were dry snark. Though I was so angered and shocked by them that I wanted to gulp down a bottle of 180 proof wet snark when I read them.

  34. 34.

    jl

    May 30, 2010 at 5:17 pm

    @jwb: I almost gave Rich an F plus, but thought I was being harsh.

  35. 35.

    Jules

    May 30, 2010 at 5:20 pm

    So the hair thing would be great to help protect a beach near your home or specific parts of a wetland, but not for the whole spill which is mostly underwater.

  36. 36.

    licensed to kill time

    May 30, 2010 at 5:22 pm

    @Allison W.:

    I saw it aired today on CNN International channel. They do a kind of weekend highlights show or something, so the video itself is not new today. The lady who said “our media” was using the term in the sense of “the stuff we use to soak up stuff” (I thought it was funny, too).

    She was also the one who seemed eager to protect what her “media” was, in case somebody stole her idea and got the big contract/big bucks, IMHO. That goes hand in hand with the American entrepreneurial spirit, I think…the idea that if you build a better mousetrap you’ll rake in the dough.

  37. 37.

    jl

    May 30, 2010 at 5:23 pm

    @Richard: Did you link to the wrong section of the book? the pages I read said that the spill destroyed the herring fishery around the Prince William Sound, and nothing about anything being saved.

    BTW, loss of herring fishery probably happened in SF bay from much smaller oil spills.

    Oil spill devastated Bay herring
    By: John Upton, SF Examiner
    October 31, 2009
    http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Oil-spill-devastated-Bay-herring-68005492.html

  38. 38.

    Mike in NC

    May 30, 2010 at 5:28 pm

    OT: there’s a story out today that the new wingnut governor of Virginia wants to put toll booths on Interstate 95 to raise revenue for the state. At least one location at the VA-NC border has been proposed. Leave it to the Republicans to come up with new and creative ways to screw over the little guy.

  39. 39.

    StacyM

    May 30, 2010 at 5:31 pm

    I really wish the Peat Moss idea from Minnesota would get more serious play. It sounds like it could work well, the peat basically soaks up all the oil like a sponge without soaking up water with it, and then you can use the oil-soaked peat as fuel so it wouldn’t be a total waste. Jim Oberstar and Al Frankin are both starting to push for looking into using it, I hope it leads somewhere.

  40. 40.

    Richard

    May 30, 2010 at 5:35 pm

    @jl: Oh, there’s just one section about the Kitoi Bay hatchery, where they were able to actually harvest the fish because they boomed it off way ahead of time. As the story goes, they did it without anyone giving them the green light or encouraging them to do it, using every means necessary.

    That’s really sad about the SF Bay herring fishery.

  41. 41.

    Currants

    May 30, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    @jharp: Wait, are we related and I don’t know it? Your relatives sound like MINE!

  42. 42.

    Culture of Truth

    May 30, 2010 at 6:01 pm

    It seems like a high ratio of hay to oil, given that the spill is not just on the surface, but below, it in massive amounts.

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    May 30, 2010 at 6:06 pm

    BP video feed is interesting this p.m., showing our li’l robot buddies prepping for the sawing and capping. It’s really unfortunate there’s no narration to explain what we’re watching.

    http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html

  44. 44.

    Ecks

    May 30, 2010 at 6:25 pm

    @trollhattan: Just looks completely black to me, except for the white text superimposed on it. Weird.

  45. 45.

    Southern Beale

    May 30, 2010 at 6:54 pm

    Yeah that’s what I thought about Philliop McCrory, the ex-hairdresser who figured out hair absorbs oil. But then I heard the hair booms were getting waterlogged and sinking (why is this a problem when the oil is coming out of the bottom of the ocean? I dunno?) and they’ve asked people to stop sending hair.

    I dunno, seems like it would still work but people just don’t have the patience to figure this stuff out. They’d rather use the toxic dispersants made by the company their CEO has an ownership stake in, or whatever.

  46. 46.

    scav

    May 30, 2010 at 7:21 pm

    @Southern Beale: well, one problem is the attention span. The time to get the ideas, develop, test, retweak, and rebuild them is before the accident — ah, but that’s the time where nobody wants to “waste” the money on debbie downer’s or harry tree-hugger’s ideas about worst case accidents that are never going to happen because they’ve never happened in the past. ‘Member Rush telling us all this was no big deal and the ocean would take care of anything? The cry of “Where’s the Oil! ? !” was loud and clear in late April.

    oh, and you do actually understand the difference between bottom of the ocean but on top of the dirt and bottom of the ocean but underneath a solid layer of rock, I would assume.

  47. 47.

    FlipYrWhig

    May 30, 2010 at 8:30 pm

    How about some Mr. Clean Magic Erasers? Those work wonders on all kinds of greasy surfaces!

  48. 48.

    Cain

    May 30, 2010 at 9:21 pm

    @DougJ:

    That was my favorite episode of WKRP.

    “As God as my witness, I swear I thought turkeys could fly..”

    cain

  49. 49.

    Airmon

    May 30, 2010 at 10:03 pm

    Using straw ( or hay ) to absorb oil is not new. I remembered seeing photos of hay being used to absorb oil at the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, and googling for the image I found this guys site, talking about the same thing.
    http://www.rense.com/general90/barb.htm

    Still, could be a good idea. We’ve got a lot of it and it’s cheap.

  50. 50.

    trollhattan

    May 30, 2010 at 11:58 pm

    @Ecks:

    Checking back in, it’s now just a static shot of the discharge from the broken end of the prostrate riser pipe end. Black, black oil.

    Sigh.

  51. 51.

    Citizen Alan

    May 31, 2010 at 1:06 am

    @MikeJ:

    Everybody wants to solve it….

    I don’t believe that’s true at all. I think most Republicans in this country who don’t actually live on the Gulf Coast would be happy to see this spill go on indefinitely because they think it undermines Obama and will make it easier to retake Congress and the White House. Certainly, the conduct of Republicans in D.C. and in the conservative media seems to show that using the spill as a cudgel against Obama is more important than actually solving things. Why do you think they’re still fighting to protect BP from increased tort liability?

  52. 52.

    Citizen Alan

    May 31, 2010 at 1:14 am

    @sherifffruitfly:

    Preferably by somebody other than ma and pa hick.

    I find this naked contempt for everyone in the world who wears overalls (which I’ve noticed in several posts) to be extremely off-putting. Here are people who are proposing what they believe may be a relatively inexpensive and green solution to this catastrophe, a solution that, in this video at least, seems to show impressive results, particularly in comparison to our current policy of toxic dispersents in massive quantities. Will hay and Bermuda grass work on the scale we need? I don’t know, but I don’t think the answer to that question turns on whether the guys giving the demonstration are wearing neckties and have posh Harvard accents either.

  53. 53.

    Mako

    May 31, 2010 at 11:35 am

    @Airmon:
    Alien technology could also be used. Surprised Rense hasn’t mentioned it yet.

  54. 54.

    mitch

    May 31, 2010 at 1:05 pm

    This show from Canada (see Pt. 2 — Oil Spill Clean-up) goes into various ideas raised by individuals, including the hay one here.

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