The Spectacle Blog
Hay! Could It Work?
This has been around the Web for a couple of weeks — is it a legitimate cleanup solution for the Gulf?
This has been around the Web for a couple of weeks — is it a legitimate cleanup solution for the Gulf?
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http://spectator.org/blog/2010/05/28/hay-could-it-work
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Eric Cartman| 5.28.10 @ 9:05AM
Leave it to some good-ole-boys to come up with a solution - got to love it.
Curly Smith| 5.28.10 @ 9:11AM
For building booms and other physical barriers... yes.
For absorbing the oil... no.
I've seen the same reports as you, that say "clean up would be easy, both the oil and hay can be burned and electricity generated" but it's extremely unlikely that a bio-mass facility that burns hay, corn stalks, etc would be equipped with emissions equipment suitable for burning oil. Not to mention that the oil would play havoc with the combustion chamber. And, it's a virtual certainty that an oil burning facility would be equipped with the means to load hay and then unload the ash.
The chemical absorbents and dispersants work much better than hay (or hair). In fact, they were developed to overcome the deficiencies in the natural products. It's really no different than organic farming and normal farming. All farming used to be organic and people starved. Modern farming methods were developed with chemical fertilizers and pesticides and now ever the poor are plump.
And, even if we decided Hay!, how would we lay it? We've got boats with booms sitting at docks awaiting permits. The biggest problem is that the EPA, MMS, Coast Guard plus other Federal Agencies have specific duties and responsibilities during an oil spill. But they've been woefully unprepared to exercise their duties. They should have had a contingency plan developed and honed over the last 25 years to know what to do and when to do it. A private company is required to have such a plan and it includes information on where to source all needed assets.
Sadly, they're like Obama. They want to be in charge but they don't want to be responsible.
Curly Smith| 5.28.10 @ 9:15AM
That should say "an oil burning facility wouldn't be equipped with the means to load hay"
L. Ross| 5.28.10 @ 5:23PM
I know it wouldn't be the cleanest thing on earth, but neither is an oil spill. The only facility they would need would be an old school incinerator.
Oklahoma| 5.28.10 @ 7:18PM
Why bother with an incinerator? Let it dry out and then pile it up on the beach and burn it. That would kill two birds with one stone: Getting rid of the oil and hay plus driving the EPA up the wall.
Crusader| 5.28.10 @ 9:58AM
Naah. We need more commissions full of Haaaaahvad eggheads to discuss for weeks on end what to do.
leave it alone| 5.28.10 @ 2:09PM
That would be the best thing that could happen. If they talk long enough, (weeks won't be long enough, months and years would be much better) mother nature will clean it up herself. If we rush to spray more stuff on it to "fix the mess" we will have a disaster for years to come. mother nature cleaned up the more massive Ixtoc1 spill in a few years, the areas hit by the Valdez disaster that were not "cleaned" by the environmentalists that were trying to save things are in much better shape today than are the areas that were "cleaned". ps what is Obama and his lackeys doing to remediate the largest pollution problem that affects the GOM? What is he doing about the trillion gallons of pollution that dumps into the same area as the BP oil spill every year? What is he doing about the dead zone in the GOM that is caused by this pollution? The dead zone that affects a much larger area than the spill does, what's he doing about that? Nothing that's what.
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 5.28.10 @ 11:07AM
Unless they were using some sort of gimmick, I think they just found the solution to the oil reaching the beaches. It's too late for some beaches already, but for the ones not hit yet, get the hay out, and get it out fast!!
Oldefarte| 5.28.10 @ 4:07PM
Paul, You or someone need to get this video to Louisiana Governor Jindal fast!!!!!!!