Costner-BP skimming operations still slowed by EPA regulations

Flopping Aces ^ | 06-27-10 | Mataharley

[Starman417]

Mid May, actor Kevin Costner provided BP with oil separation centrifuges for testing in the Gulf of Mexico. After successful and extensive testing in actual sea conditions, plus modifications, BP teamed up with the 25 year old Canadian oilfield waste management company, CCS, and D&L Salvage to formally mount these centrifuges (temporarily mounted on the same barge for testing), using the CCS Contained Separation system for the first of their ocean going 80 thousand tank barrel barges to be deployed for clean up - the Energy 8001. According to the BP's Doug Suttles, the additional 32 centrifuges on order will be used to create four new deepwater systems - two more barges and two 280-foot long offshore supply vessels. The deployed technology will be able to process 128,000 barrels of processing capacity daily.

Currently operations are slow. Vessels of opportunity are rigged with skimming equipment, but once they've gathered their quota of oil, they either need to head into shore, or discharge it to a nearby barge with no oil separations capability. This inefficient operation, requiring untold multiple trips simply to get rid of the skimmers catch, might explain why Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor and Gulfport residents are livid that no skimmers are working the Mississippi Sound, where the oil is beginning to encroach. With the introduction of the "Energy 8001" series of ocean tank barges, the VOO skimmers will now have a central discharge processing center at sea, thereby allowing them to work further off shore, and for longer periods of time.

Below is the BP posted YouTube of the barge info...

[VIDEO AT SITE]

Read more at floppingaces.net...

[Jim Robinson]

Nothing but idiots and idiots and idiots as far as the eye can see. Leftist idiocy abounds.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Nothing spells success like B-U-R-E-A-U-C-R-A-C-Y!

[Brilliant]

Makes sense that Costner would blame his slowness on the government regulations. Couldn’t be his technology, could it?

[P-Marlowe]

I think Kevin Costner may become the next Jon Voight after this experience.

Costner is seeing his precious liberalism in action. It does not protect. It only destroys. He invests in something designed to protect the environment and the liberal EPA bureaucracy and the Administration prevent him from using it and put every roadblock up they can while the environment gets ruined.

[opentalk]

Its becoming obvious they dont want it cleaned up.

[Gene Eric]

You could be correct, but bureaucratic patterns suggest otherwise.

[Tawiskaro]

[wagglebee]

Good observation. Though it must be pointed out that, unlike Kevin Costner, Jon Voight can actually act.

[The_Reader_David]

Nope, it's government regulations. One of the climate blogs had a story dealing with the refusal to accept very effective Dutch oil-skimmers. Not because of the Jones Act, but because the technology used, which sucks in massive amounts of oil mixed with sea water, removes virtually all of the oil in usable form, and returns the sea water and some residual oil to the sea violates EPA rules against discharging water mixed with oil into the ocean.

If the Obama administration actually cared about the environoment (as opposed to "caring" about everything the way the left "cares" about things, as a rhetorical excuse for arrogating power to the state), all of the foreign skimmer, Costner's centrifuges, and everything else that's been offered to help would be running full tilt instead of being checked for compliance with regulations that are irrelevant in the face of a disaster of this sort.

[Brilliant]

I am not suggesting that government regs make any sense. I’m just suggesting that hiring Costner was nothing be a PR move. His technology was doomed from the outset. You can’t run the entire Gulf of Mexico thru his centrifuge.

[aruanan]

Makes sense that Costner would blame his slowness on the government regulations. Couldn’t be his technology, could it?

Sometimes the better part about being brilliant is to actually research something instead of making masturbatory snide comments--it feels good to you but doesn't do anyone else any good.

The reason he's having trouble with the EPA is that the effluent from the purification process has a higher level of oil residue than is permitted by the EPA for such an effluent. Never mind that it's cleaned about 99% of the oil out of the water leaving it much cleaner than it was, it's still not as clean as some dork at the EPA pushing outmoded science and technology* says it should be. And so we have a situation where much dirtier water has to be endured because it can't be cleaned up as much as someone else says it should be. This is like saying that you can't have a vaccine against a deadly disease that saves 99 out of 100 victims until you make sure the vaccine saves 99.5 out of every hundred victims.

This is also somewhat like the Bureau of Fish and Wildlife telling folks in Louisiana that they can't build berms to protect the mashes and estuaries because they're "endangered."


*One of my uncles was until recently the CEO of a major midwestern electrical utility for almost 30 years. He's had plenty of experience dealing with the EPA. He said they have to meet the guidelines, but there's no way they would ever, at the EPA's suggestion, take EPA as a parter in renovating things or take government loans, also at the EPA's suggestion, to fund the renovation. He said their science is not state of the art and that their scientists are as outmoded as their techniques.

[Gene Eric]

>> You can’t run the entire Gulf of Mexico thru his centrifuge.

I share your skepticism.

[omega4179]

He should be proud of the government for regulating greedy white males and holding them accountable. /a

[lonestar]

Take the P out of EPA!

[Brilliant]

What portion of the 3.3 million gallons of water in the Gulf of Mexico do you think Costner can put thru his centrifuge? And how much do you think it would cost to do that? His efforts are not going to make the slightest difference in the clean up efforts, no matter what the EPA says. It’s pure PR for BP and the government—nothing more. If he weren’t a celebrity, they would not give him the time of day.

[reg45]

The bureaucrats are always at least ten years behind the technology.

[tx_eggman]

What portion of the 3.3 million gallons of water in the Gulf of Mexico do you think Costner can put thru his centrifuge

Not sure where you came up with 3.3 million gallon figure ... it's well over 600 quadrillion gallons ... so Dances With Wolves is gonna need a crap load of those centrifuge gizmos.

[William of Barsoom]

Most sane people would assume anyone’s purpose would be to fix the problem as quickly as possible, and that cutting red tape in these special circumstances would be the first thing most of us (sane) people would do.

Conclusion: These folks (The Bammy Gang) don’t WANT it fixed. It’s much more useful as a crisis to be exploited for panicking the public.

What a tragedy.

[FreePaul]

The old cream separator on the farm worked just fine. Took a lot of hand cranking though.

The problem with the Kostner solution seems to be finding something to do with the oil once it is collected. Possible that no one thought of that until now. After all, this is a government operation.