BP Oil Spill[Image]

The following story says that the U.S. are rejecting Dutch technology that can clean most of the oil out of the water. The reason: the cleaned water is not pure enough. Perfection is the enemy of the good:

http://www.financialpost.com/m/story.html?id=3203808

Excerpt: "The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn't good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million -- if water isn't at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico."

The science of extracting oil from water is advancing all the time. Check out this little device for cleaning bilge water:

http://forsoilrecovery.com/

That image is strangely beautiful, even though the subject is horrifying.

Scary Stuff.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/oil_in_the_gulf_two...