Wow, that's really impressive.

I was going to quality this, but the title dissuaded me. Yes, he's wearing overalls. Yes he's southern with a thick accent. Redneck? I don't know.

@blankfist: Changed the title. You're right, "redneck" is a little more offensive than I intended, but when a guy in overalls gives a solution that's basically "dump hay all over it", that's the only word that came to mind

Oh, you didn't have to change the title. I posted this video on facebook and called it "Country Boy Solution", but that's because I have lots of friends in the south and "redneck" is OUR WORD! You can't use it!

It's an important enough video for a *quality either way.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by blankfist.

Holy crap! Bumpkin science for the win!? Would have been nice to have this figured out before the spill grew to the size of a state (specific state variable, depending on date).

[redacted]

The sweet hillbilles hearts are in the right place. too bad we're all doomed anyways

Gotta say, that sounds like a damn good idea.

great work.

Looks good in the bowls, but I wonder if it would scale well. I mean, I'm no boating expert, but as far as I know there aren't very many vessels that are good with dispersing straw.

Also, straw NEVER sinks? Really? I'd like to take his word for it since he seems to know a lot about straw, but NEVER sinks.

I just feel as if this could be like bringing in ferrets to eat the rats, but they eat the native flightless birds instead. You know, unforeseen consequences of tons of oil-laden straw floating in the Gulf.

i'm sure if the straw/hay was clean, it may eventually sink when the water fills the voids in the porous hay. however oil floats... so chances are (non-scientific opinion incoming) oil-laden straw would float.

saltwater is more dense than freshwater (SW = 1.025, FW = 1.0), so it's even more difficult to sink hay, let alone oil soaked hay.

and regarding the solution proposed? why not? i mean, if our choices are 1) possible failure on cleanup at the cost of beef/milk prices rising, or 2) Gulf-coast wasteland... HAY, give it a try! (*groan*)

edit: apparently this idea is already in place using hair, nylon fibers, etc. not entirely sure on the reliability of the link, but here it is anyway: http://www.matteroftrust.org/

Hell of a risk, dumping a scaled up lump of hay all over the thousand of square miles (and the oil will probably layer fairly deep in places, you'd need second passes, probably more than just that too).

Interesting though, really interesting.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

It really seems to work. It should be considered for beach areas at least.

These guys are too smart for Government and the corporate world to listen.

They have found a better low tech solution, Human hair, it typically soak up around four to six times its weight in oil. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jlLeX2Yu-e3M9dqXSTXCdjLB9OxA

[redacted]

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Saturday, May 8th, 2010 2:04pm PDT - promote requested by JiggaJonson.

>> ^vaporlock:

...too smart for Government and the cooperate world to listen.


what

>> ^saber2x:
They have found a better low tech solution, Human hair, it typically soak up around four to six times its weight in oil. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jlLeX2Yu-e3M9dqXSTXCdjLB9OxA


"Better" solution? You have any idea how many tons of hair they will need? Also, if all 6 billion people donated their hair, that would cover only like 43 square miles. The slick is currently 4000+ sq miles and growing.

A lot of people don't understand just how massive the planet is, and just how small we are. Everyone on the planet alive today could stand, 10+ feet from each other, and never leave the state of Rhode Island.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE

--------------------
On another note..

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20100509/tod-hair-fur-nylons-join-fight-to-hold-b-f62056d.html

Edit: Removed a swear word, this was meant to be sort of jovial and it looked pretty aggressive. Brits swear a lot. Sorry payback. Still full of crap though!

5' radius circles for each person to stand 10' apart, he's not off by a huge amount.

>> ^gorillaman:

5' radius circles for each person to stand 10' apart, he's not off by a huge amount.


Oh my god. Fundamental FAIL. QUICK DELETE MY COMMENT.

(Seriously though, i'm a fucking mong, can you believe i do a physics degree?)

It might be worth noting that these guys haven't stumbled upon a radically amazing idea. Using sorbents for oil spills is a long standing technique. Seeking low cost, environmentally friendly and easily deployed sorbents is an active research area.

Further - using hay as a sorbent is not unique either. It is so well established that sometimes highschool students perform a similar experiment as shown in the video above. There are several papers about its efficacy, the effects of layering, cleanup, recycling etc:

Availability of barley straw application on oil spill clean up
Investigation of Oleophilic Nature of Straw Sorbent Conditioned in Water

>> ^gorillaman:
5' radius circles for each person to stand 10' apart, he's not off by a huge amount.


Saw it on the Discovery Channel at some point. Can't remember when.

SUCH IS THE POWER OF CABLE!! BOW DOWN!!!

/beingasillyass

>> ^blankfist:

Oh, you didn't have to change the title. I posted this video on facebook and called it "Country Boy Solution", but that's because I have lots of friends in the south and "redneck" is OUR WORD! You can't use it!
It's an important enough video for a quality either way.


Rednecks are not exclusively in the south...they reign from coast to coast.

^Stop being a redneck, Lann!

^Yuns are just jealous.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=yuns

Intriguing!

Since when did you become this bastion of political correctness??

>> ^blankfist:

I was going to quality this, but the title dissuaded me. Yes, he's wearing overalls. Yes he's southern with a thick accent. Redneck? I don't know.

^I don't know.

True, @Lann. There is an abundant supply of rednecks in the state of California. Probably a disproportionate concentration of them in Southern CA in comparison to most places. We've got more of EVERYTHING here.

In reply to this comment by Lann:
>> ^blankfist:

Oh, you didn't have to change the title. I posted this video on facebook and called it "Country Boy Solution", but that's because I have lots of friends in the south and "redneck" is OUR WORD! You can't use it!
It's an important enough video for a quality either way.


Rednecks are not exclusively in the south...they reign from coast to coast.

I come from a family of farmers, and I did a little farm work myself. An interesting thing that I've noticed about farmers is that while being a farmer doesn't necessarily have a high correlation to being IQ-smart more than any other average job, it does have a strong correlation to skills in problem-solving with supplies limited to mundane objects that one just happens to have access to.

Sometimes that means things get patched up with plastic cut from a 2-liter bottle held on with duct tape, or using a wrench as a hammer, or whatever, but the point is that more often than not the job gets done. With that in mind, I say somebody set up a Government subsidy to let these guys truck a bunch of hay over to the coast and scoop it up with shrimp boats. If it works for them on a small trial, bring on the hay.

Yes, this.

It's a great idea that's in the works, but that has practical issues to overcome before it's implementable on a large scale. However, without doing the legwork to understand the issues, it's easy to say, "Look how great it works in the bowl, let's do it nownownow!!"

>> ^modulous:

It might be worth noting that these guys haven't stumbled upon a radically amazing idea. Using sorbents for oil spills is a long standing technique. Seeking low cost, environmentally friendly and easily deployed sorbents is an active research area.
Further - using hay as a sorbent is not unique either. It is so well established that sometimes highschool students perform a similar experiment as shown in the video above. There are several papers about its efficacy, the effects of layering, cleanup, recycling etc:
Availability of barley straw application on oil spill clean up
Investigation of Oleophilic Nature of Straw Sorbent Conditioned in Water

Hay!

I sincerely hope that if anyone gets massively rich cleaning up the oil spill (and there is ALWAYS money to be made), it's these guys.

It's better than nothing, however, the used motor oil that they are using in this demonstration has very little in common with the tar like substances that could cause problems on the Gulf Coast. Used motor oil is full of additives and detergents that will cause the oil to coat things better. In this case it coats hay really well. Tar, and other crude derivatives with a consistency more like Vaseline, not so much.

Add diced chicken, toss, and serve.

>> ^zor:

It's better than nothing, however, the used motor oil that they are using in this demonstration has very little in common with the tar like substances that could cause problems on the Gulf Coast. Used motor oil is full of additives and detergents that will cause the oil to coat things better. In this case it coats hay really well. Tar, and other crude derivatives with a consistency more like Vaseline, not so much.


I don't understand this. The idea of motor oil is that it is free flowing yet keeps the "oil coating" property inherent with oil. If oil in its natural state didn't have a problem sticking to things, then this wouldn't be a problem in the first place. I don't suppose the natural state of oil would hinder gathering it in this way much, and as they pointed out, the denser nature of crude oil might aid in the process. I mean, just the wording that you used conveys exactly that, "the tar like substance". When I think of tar, I think of a substance so sticky that it drags down woolly mammoths to their doom!

You can't scale this up for thousand square miles of oil.

First question is what are you going to do with all the hey? You can't burn it because the hay will probably water logged.

Also how are you going to deploy the hay and then scoop it back up? You have to have a place to put the hay. You can't just scoop it up with a giant size strainer.

Let's be realistic here. The clean up of the fucking hay will be bigger headache then the actual oil spill.