Grooved Disk Spinner Cleans Up: $1M For Winner of Oil Recovery Challenge 54
Posted
by
timothy
from the suck-it-up-losers dept.
from the suck-it-up-losers dept.
cylonlover writes "Last July, in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the X PRIZE Foundation launched the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE. As with previous X PRIZE competitions, this one was intended to encourage private sector scientific research, by offering a cash prize to whichever team could best meet a given challenge. In this case, teams had to demonstrate a system of their own making, that could recover oil from a sea water surface at the highest Oil Recovery Rate (ORR) above 2,500 US gallons (9,463.5 liters) per minute, with an Oil Recovery Efficiency (ORE) of greater than 70 percent. Today, the winning teams were announced with the US$1 million first prize going to Team Elastec/American Marine for their unique grooved disc skimmer."
Re:A good start (Score:5, Insightful)
As a general rule, I'd say that cleaning up at least part of the spilled oil before breaking it up would always be better. I say that as an environmentalist, not as a scientist (my studies were in a different field), but I would think that leaving less released toxins in the environment would usually be the better choice. :)
They aren't talking about this replacing breaking down the oil, they're talking about it as a way to reduce the amount of oil that needs to be broken down, as well as the amount of chemicals that need to be released in order to break it down.
I'd also say that this invention is worth a hell of a lot more than $1m to the industry.