Dr. Weinstein sent me an email on oil spill cleanup which has some interesting history. I don’t think he will mind if I publish the email he sent which contains some clues as to the history of these concepts. I remember seeing similar things on TV and in print way back when the Exxon Valdez incident happened. Anyway here is the important part of the email. Feel free to discuss any suggestions or to add further knowledge. From the sign in link above, there are a few lurking resume’s around here.
I developed the enclosed technology after the Exxon Valdez spill, while I was still at NASA. Exxon and others were not interested. Some of the ideas were published as a NASA Tech Brief, and that was the end of that. I later had additional ideas and updated my notes. When the spill in the gulf happened, I sent the enclosed writeup to BP. No interest shown. I know they were mainly concerned by the continuing leak, so I guess they did not want to be distracted by the cleanup details.
The following material contains conceptual subject matter that is being made available due to the present oil spill emergency
OIL SPILL CONFINEMENT AND CLEAN UP SYSTEM
Leonard M. Weinstein, ScD
May 2, 2010
The purposes of the current ideas are to contain and clean up large oil spills in water. This includes preventing spilled oil from contaminating selected areas. The invention would use barrier skirt oil confinement and clean up devices, combined with methods to deploy and use these devices effectively, and with different variations for protective barriers and storage tanks.
Oil spills can cause considerable environmental damage. In addition, the clean up cost and legal penalties can be huge. For the Exxon Valdez leak, the cost was over 1 billion dollars, and damage to portions of the Alaskan coast was extensive.