That's a fantastic idea, but I'm pretty sure BIG OIL doesn't want to spend its hard-earned money on any solution that doesn't line its own pockets - which of course it needs in order to line its lawyers' pockets when the trials begin.
I was skeptical when I first started watching this, but I was impressed by the end of it. Then I thought, just how much hay would that take? Here's the math:
BP says the spill is leaking 5,000 barrels a day. The US Geological Survey says it is 19,000 barrels a day. I believe the USGS.
The guy in the video used 1/4 pound of hay to clean up what looked like one gallon of water. There are 42 gallons in a barrel of oil, therefore requiring 10.5 pounds of hay per barrel.
19,000 barrels x 10.5 pounds of hay=199,500 pounds, or about 100 tons of hay per day. Hay averages about $100 per ton, so that's $10,000 per day just to contain what leaks on a daily basis.
There's tons of leftover hay...once it it is past its prime and can no longer be sold. I don't know what they do with it. I actually know very little about it, except that one time a crazy rich gal asked me to find her some hay and I tried, and a bunch of folks told me it was old and dry because I/she waited too long.
Don't kick me, but according to Wikipedia (yes, I KNOW...!): "Alfalfa is the most cultivated legume in the world. Worldwide production was around 436 million tons in 2006.[44]. The US is the largest alfalfa producer in the world, but considerable area is found in Argentina (primarily grazed), Australia, South Africa, and the Middle East."
All over the country? I think we could solicit it from all over the world!
I know if oil got dumped in my pond, I'd be trying anything, including this. I'm just glad that people are thinking and trying to get involved. I agree with you Ruth, nothing is impossible.
Improbable, maybe, but not impossible. To make my point, here's a list of stuff that was thought to be impossible : the world being round, air travel, inter continental communication, organ transplant, harnessing electricity, storing a dictionary in a space smaller than the head of a pin, Madonna making it in the music business, hair plugs, solar power, somebody marrying Rush Limbaugh, carbon dating, children willfully eating vegetables, surviving breast cancer, space travel, a black man becoming president of the U.S., hand-held transponders (Star Trek), indoor plumbing, in vitro fertilization, microwave burritos, video-phone, dogs and cats living together, musical synthesizers, women voting or smoking in public, a 4 minute mile ( Roger Bannister), reaching the North Pole, reaching the South Pole, climbing Mt. Everest, Simon Cowell leaving American Idol, .....You get the idea.
It was just on the news that a baby humpback whale died and washed up on Jones Beach. They don't know what caused this, but I'm afraid we'll be seeing a lot more of this happening. Tragic.
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