

Seaswarm: we can clean up the Gulf in a month - IgorPartola
http://hackaday.com/2010/08/29/seaswarm-we-can-clean-up-the-gulf-in-a-month/

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rimantas
Wasn't 2/3 of the spilled oil not on surface but lurking somewhere? In this
case surface robots are not enough, bring on the diving ones :)

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smokinn
They used a lot of dispersant to sink the oil on the surface into the water.
So now it's pretty much impossible to clean up ourselves.

Interestingly though some bacteria have cropped up to help out clean up what's
in the water: [http://www.hindustantimes.com/BP-may-have-to-thank-
bacteria-...](http://www.hindustantimes.com/BP-may-have-to-thank-bacteria-for-
oil-spill-clean-up/Article1-592592.aspx)

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pyre
I love how the dissenting opinion just gets a single-line mention at the end
of the article:

    
    
      > However, another expert claimed that the plumes may have diluted or moved.

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Kliment
Certainly better than no mention. At least this seeds doubt and could trigger
people interested to look further.

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pyre
True, but it also paints it in a bad light. (i.e. "There was this old guy in
the corner that didn't want to believe our new and cool ideas, but we just
ignored him.")

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ttol
This is still very much untested. From the project website
<http://senseable.mit.edu/seaswarm/ss_prototype.html>

"The first Seaswarm prototype was tested in the Charles River in mid-August
2010. The vehicle’s flexible conveyor belt easily adapted to surface waves and
succesfully propelled itself through the water. Stay tuned for future
prototype updates."

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Kliment
No real mention of capacity. Also, why the swarm method rather than scaling it
up? Smells like vapor to me.

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sorbus
Lots of small, easily replaceable robots are cheaper than a few giant robots
(and probably easier to develop; certainly cheaper). Also, when one breaks it
doesn't need to be replaced, whereas with a larger, more expensive one it's
harder to just let it die. Low-cost is key for anything which is entirely
robotic. They also won't disrupt anything by being massive.

As far as capacity goes, "The nanomaterial, patented at MIT, can absorb up to
20 times its weight in oil." [1] I wouldn't call it vaporware, at least not
yet; it's still being tested and developed, so it's a prototype. Too early to
say that nothing will ever come of it. The bit about cleaning it up in a
month, on the other hand, is certainly vapor, or at least exaggeration. Maybe
it would work with a really bit swarm, but that's less likely until they can
prove that it works really well.

[1] <http://senseable.mit.edu/seaswarm/>

~~~
mhb
What? Why not have big ships dragging around huge rolls of the material. Since
they're big, they could have onboard processing to heat it up and remove the
oil.

How do little robots or big robots begin to make sense for this?

~~~
sorbus
Well, little ones are easier to prototype. They also are less likely to get in
the way of anything. Focusing on effectiveness, though, would probably be
better to retrofit a bunch of large ships to drag it around and process the
fabric on-board. If the little ones are effective enough once deployed, that
will probably be the ultimate outcome. But the technology, right now, is
unproven, and so no one is going to invest the millions[1] it would take to
retrofit ships.

The distinction between large robots and large manned ships is important to
note, though; I was thinking that Kliment was referring to large robots, and
therefor didn't even consider manned ships (tunnel vision can be irritating,
sometimes). You're thinking about large, manned ships, with no need to
function autonomously, based on standard ships, and therefor able to be
repaired without as much effort - minimizing the amount of new technology in a
solution makes it less likely to break, outside of the new technology. That is
obviously superior to a swarm of small robots, except for prototyping.

Also, swarms of small robots are considered shiny technology right now.

[1] I don't know how much it would cost. I'm guessing a lot; take the number
with a whole lot of salt.

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noonespecial
I hate to say it (because robots are damn cool) but I see the real ships going
out to clean up both the oil and all the busted seaswarms before its all over
with.

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nodata
I sea two problems with this: 1\. Why not save energy, time and money and
centralise these onto one big ship? 2\. What about the chemical oil
dispersants?

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agentultra
1\. A swarm could probably cover more area?

2\. Chemical oil dispersants aren't effective at _cleaning_ up the oil.
<http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/88/8824cover.html>

~~~
nodata
I meant that the chemical dispersants need to be cleaned up too. Just because
they're not black and gooey doesn't mean we should ignore them. Good PR on
BP's part.

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ScottWhigham
Good marketing in that the computer graphics are compelling. Where's the video
of it actually cleaning up anything though?

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brianbreslin
at the end it looks like a video of a real one.

~~~
ScottWhigham
It's a real unit but it doesn't appear to do doing anything except
swimming/moving through the water though, does it? Maybe I missed it but I
watched the whole thing.

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tyng
Interesting, but it's still in prototype stage, how long is it going to take
before it reaches mass production? Funding is a key issue

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mhb
The technology I use to separate water and other liquids from my kitchen floor
doesn't require a robot.

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brianbreslin
Even if this is a prototype, I feel BP should be held responsible to at least
try it. Commit a few million bucks to manufacturing a few hundred of these and
retrofitting a cargo ship to handle the processing of their nano fabric.

the question would be how does this thing deal w/choppy/unpredictable seas?

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javanix
Why should they be "held responsible" to try untested technology? Better to
spend their resources on things that are known to work (and will work now),
and contribute to a general R&D fund or something like that.

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roc
Requiring mining/drilling companies to contribute _anything_ to clean-up and
response R&D would, apparently, be a huge step forward by itself.

I agree BP shouldn't themselves be obligated to directly support this kind of
testing right now. But if they had been contributing to research groups along
the way, wouldn't we expect those groups would: 1\. very much like to try
their latest on a real problem 'in the wild' 2\. be given latitude by to do
exactly that by BP ?

Granted, no-one should/would _rely_ on technology in testing to do the
cleanup, but it appears the alternative to letting researchers have-at deep-
sea slicks is to do nothing. So why not let researchers have at it?

And wouldn't the net result of all that be pretty much exactly what was
advocated, just with a few layers of indirection?

