Hollywood to the oil spill rescue?

[CoolBreeze]

The "Kevin Costner solution" to the worsening oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico might actually work, and none too soon for the president of Plaquemines Parish.

Costner has invested 15 years and about $24 million in a novel way of sifting oil spills that he began working on while making his own maritime film, "Waterworld," released in 1995.

"Titanic" and "Avatar" director James Cameron has said he would make his underwater vessels available.

It is not the first time Hollywood has come to the rescue with cutting-edge technology. Paul Winchell, a versatile ventriloquist and the voice of Tigger in "Winnie the Pooh," also was an inventor who patented an early artificial heart in the 1960s. In 1940, glamorous movie star Hedy Lamarr helped design an un-jammable communications system for use against Nazi Germany.

Houghtaling said Costner bought the technology, which was originally developed with help from the U.S. Department of Energy, after the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster and turned it over to a team of scientists and engineers for fine-tuning.

"The machines are essentially like big vacuum cleaners, which sit on barges and suck up oily water and spin it around at high speed," Houghtaling said. "On one side, it spits out pure oil, which can be recovered. The other side spits out 99 percent pure water."

more....

http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201005211019

[Bob Campbell]

That can't be true. Those Hollywood commies would never do anything good for the country.

[CoolBreeze]

You're right! 95% of them would love to see the overthrow of the nation and a "utopia" like Cuba established here.

[AmpedNow]

I knew we were screwed when BP set up a website to take suggestions from the general public...

We'll probably need a lot of these things, because if this "junk plug" doesn't work, then it will be another two months before the relief well can be drilled.

[Bob Campbell]

You're right! 95% of them would love to see the overthrow of the nation and a "utopia" like Cuba established here.

You're right. It's all just a waste of my tax dollars. I don't live on the Gulf Coast. Why are the Feds getting involved in what should be a state issue? Let Louisiana and Florida take care of their own coasts.