Seaswarm: we can clean up the Gulf in a month | Hacker News Reader

Seaswarm: we can clean up the Gulf in a month

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70 pointsIgorPartola26 comments

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 :)

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-...

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.

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

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.")

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."

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

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/

The material itself I find promising, but why not just use that with existing boats? The robot component is not justified. Also, given the size of the bot, 20 times its weight in oil means returning to base every hour or so. I see no reason to limit collection to such small amounts at a time. I'm glad you agree with me that the one month claim is bogus.

I didn't realize that you were talking about using it with existing boats; doing that instead of robots is pretty obviously a better solution, assuming that the material can be produced in large enough quantities, which may or may not be the case.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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?

i was more inferring that they should be required to try all the available options to clean up this mess. in the grand scheme, investing in untested tech is NOT the worst that could happen to bp. leaving viable options on the table is what took them so long to eventually cap the well.

Why should they be "held responsible" to try untested technology?

One thing obvious from the gulf spill, is that recovery technology has not kept pace with deep-water drilling technology. The time-lag involved in development & engineering if left to the free market is a huge externality. We don't want accident recovery to lag further and further behind as oil drilling goes into more extreme and environmentally sensitive environments. (And you know that it will!)

contribute to a general R&D fund or something like that.

They need to do more than they have been.

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