Can Kevin Costner's Machines Really Help the Gulf Cleanup?
The oil-separating centrifuges will work, but they would have worked better months ago
By Dave Levitan / July 2010
14 July 2010—After 85 days, the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is now partially contained, and relief wells to stem the flow are inching closer to completion. Once the leak is fixed, the focus will shift to removing the oil that’s already in the water. The actor Kevin Costner has appeared on TV and in front of the U.S. Congress to tout his oil cleanup machines, but can they actually make a dent in the still-spreading environmental disaster?
Costner’s testimony on 9 June may have provided comedic fodder for late-night talk-show hosts, but according to David Meikrantz, a chemical engineer at Idaho National Laboratory who developed the technology in the early 1990s, the machines are no joke. He says there is no reason that the devices, essentially liquid-liquid separation centrifuges, shouldn’t work in the Gulf. They performed so well in BP’s initial tests that as many as 32 of them could be spinning in the Gulf in the coming weeks. But even though the technology is proven, Costner’s devices are no silver bullet.
“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.” —Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises
Imagine connecting item & service-requests to those lacking basic needs into a global online and mobile market forum like a Craigslist.org merged with Kiva+ SMS/txt message capabilities, something like Ushahidi, Wikimapia, as well as GoogleEarth-like & SecondLife-like 3D map to post photos and messages of requests and successful transactions without a centralized “middle-man” who manages everything.
Example: An African farmer needs a part for 1950’s Romanian pump. An aid worker posts need via UNICEF Rapid SMS. A Romanian engineer volunteers to make the part; a German pays for FedEx from Romania to Nigeria; a tourist commits to personally delivering it and posting a photograph of the farmer and repaired engine online to close out need.
It would be designed so that anyone could add “affordable” items (that meet a particular criteria) to the list. Please email earthintelnet |at| gmail.com if you have suggestions. For more info on the concept, see page 7 of the Earth Intelligence Network overview draft and this global range of nano-needs graphic. On 7/21/10 Craig Newmark of Craigslist.org sent this email: “..a number of people say they're working on similar efforts,” but he did not specify. Another great example is Practical Action's “Practical Presents” store where a goat, fish cage, farm tools, and many more products can be purchased for donation.
Global Range of Needs Index/Map/Forum could include the following items:
+ Cheap colloidal silver-treated water filters: see Potters Without Borders & Potters for Peace
+ Lifestraw, the one person water filter that can be worn around the neck
Phi Beta Iota: Ralph Peters does not gush very often. Noted and recommended. By and large, America's so-called flag officers are a global disgrace–battalion commanders in way over the head, with no clue on multinational, joint, operations other than war, acquisition, military education & training, the list is long. The Secretary of Defense and the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence have been especially disappointing, since there is nothing about defense that is “intelligence-driven” and most especially acquisition–hence, as brilliant as this particular flag officer is, and we almost always agree with Ralph Peters' judgment, he is “lipstick on the pig.” It is still a pig.
Innovators are being asked to friend Uncle Sam as the next good ideas for the government are being sought through social networks.
By Emily Badger
Anil Dash sums up the power of crowdsourcing with a simple question he put to his Twitter feed a few months back. It was time for a new cell phone, he announced. What should he get?
“Somebody I don’t even really know said, ‘Here’s a list of the most popular handsets in America ranked by how much radiation they put out,’” Dash recalled.
Now he had an info stream he hadn’t even thought to consider. And if social media could better inform his relatively small cell phone conundrum, imagine what it could do for the big-picture questions we really want to get right — the questions government answers on behalf of us all.
“We have this disconnect where, as a private citizen, I can ask for my friends’ opinions on something on Twitter or Facebook,” Dash said. “But yet, someone can be making decisions that affect all of us” — a government official, that is — “but not have that ability.”
Six months after the earthquake that devastated Haiti on 12th January 2010, this report describes the evolution of MSF’s work during what is the organisation’s largest ever rapid emergency response. It attempts to explain the scope of the medical and material aid provided to Haiti by MSF since the catastrophe, but also to set out the considerable challenges and dilemmas faced by the organisation. It acknowledges that whilst the overall relief effort has kept many people alive, it is still not easing some of their greatest suffering.
FINDING REGARDING PUBLIC SAFETY INFORMATION
Pursuant to Section 7(d) of the National Construction Safety Team Act, I hereby find that the disclosure of the information described below, received by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”), in connection with its investigation of the technical causes of the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers and World Trade Center Building 7 on September 11,2001, might jeopardize public safety. Therefore, NIST shall not release the following information:
1. All input and results files of the ANSYS 16-story collapse initiation model with detailed connection models that were used to analyze the structural response to thermal loads, break element source code, ANSYS script files for the break elements, custom executable ANSYS file, and all Excel spreadsheets and other supporting calculations used to develop floor connection failure modes and capacities.
2. All input files with connection material properties and all results files of the LS-DYNA 47-story global collapse model that were used to simulate sequential structural failures leading to collapse, and all Excel spreadsheets and other supporting calculations used to develop floor connection failure modes and capacities.
~
Patrick Gallagher Director National Institute of Standards and Technology
Dated: JUL 09 2009
Link to article (ship of junkfood to feed poor, helping them become more susceptible to illness?) Photo Credit: Marie Hippenmeyer, Nestle
AlterNet / ByMichele Simon
Nestle Stoops to New Low, Launches Barge to Peddle Junk Food on the Amazon River to Brazil's Poor
Has Big Food already run out of customers in cities and other locales that are more readily accessible by land?
July 8, 2010 |
Last month Nestlé announced that it, the world's largest food company, would soon start delivering its products to the far reaches of Brazil. But not in the usual way, through a distributor, which in turn delivers products for sale in actual stores. Rather, the plan is to sell to customers directly from its own ship. Full article here
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Comment: Although more related to malnutrition and not general eating habits of the poor, Project Peanut Butter's Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTFs) are of worthy mention. They work with USAID, Doctors Without Borders, The Clinton Foundation, UNICEF, Save the Children, and Concern Worldwide (all listed here). However, it is surprising how much of a somewhat low profile they have when they are associated with such a major global need. In 2009, the Earth Intelligence Network identified the connection-need between Project Peanut Butter and the Malnutrition Surveillance Project (plus the Moringa Tree leaves to be used in food aid) and contacted UNICEF and those associated with the Malnutrition Surveillance Project team but did not receive any clear feedback about these ideas. Another inquiry was sent to UNICEF today.
The ‘warrior monk'
Ralph Peters
