Cleaning up oil spills

Getting to the bottom of the barrel

Ever wonder about oil tankers and how the get out all that crude oil at delivery? I did. I did a little research and found out about a thing called a Belt Skimmer. You know that old thread mop that you have? Or perhaps that you've seen people use at your favorite fast food restaurant, airport terminal or other such place that has a lot of floor to cover? Would you believe that the same principle is applied to the mopping up of crude oils from barrels, containers and oil tankers? With a few improvements of course.

The basic idea is that of the string mop. The fluid is absorbed into the threads and then it gets wrung out some place else. The difference between a conventional string mop and this big brother is both the size and the wringing mechanism. The mop can be up to 50 feet long and is a loop. At the bottom of the loop, the mop picks up the liquid, in this case oil. It is transported to the wringing mechanisme by just pulling it up and then it's wrung out over a container using electric powered 'squeegy' rollers. Then it returns to the place of the oil and starts over again. Would you believe that up to 50 gallons of oil can be salvaged per hour this way?

What about floating oil spills?

Allright, we've seen how the belt skimmer can be used to mop up oil from the bottom of a barrel. However, if the mop becomes waterlogged it can't contain any oil, so how can we make sure when we're mopping up oil from a body of water, that we're not mopping up the body of water?

Again the solution is simple and elegant. We affix the end of the mop to a place above the water allowing the mop to drag on, rather than in the water. Of course, this can't be done on very choppy water, but if you 'stake out' a bit of ocean for instance, by putting a sort of bottomless boat over the top of it, the water inside the stakeout will be calm enough to mop up the oil. This is a rather laborious task but it can be done and every bit of oil salvaged from a spill means at least two things: A bit less beach spoiled, and less danger of marine wildlife and birds getting hurt.

Oil companies are starting to understand that unless they want to lose the support of the public, they better clean up their act. Just as they are starting to understand that their industry is going to disappear in the next 50 years or so, and if they wish to survive as a company, they'd better diversify. The other option is to plan for the dissolution of the company, personally I'd prefer that option. In my opinion any company that has outlived it's use should be declared obsolete and cease to exist. This is certainly true for the oil industry.

After all: if you can build a multibillion dollar multinational company once, you can do it again. This time, take what you've learned about customer satisfaction, the environment and social responsibility and start over. Make a company that is committed to doing good, rather than just 'don't be evil'. The world is wating for strong entrepreneurs that want to make the world work again.

A challenge to the industry

When the big oilspill in the gulf of Mexico happenen people donated human hair to help with the mop up. Somehow word had gotten out that human hair could absorb more oil than any other type of material and, well, people cared so they donated their hair for the mop up.

I'm not sure if the hair thing was effective or not, but it does show that the public does care. So here's my challenge to the oil-spill cleaning industry, listen up ambarenvironmental: find a material that is even more effective at mopping up oil. It truly is a win win win win situation.

• People won't be feeling the need to turn in their hair
• The public will approve
• The oil spill will be cleaned quicker
• You'll gain more oil from the mopping

With nanotechnology, biomimicry and combining all kinds of knowledge with the simple yet elegant mop design, we can make sure we are ready for when then next spill hits and we can prevent a lot of the disastrous consequences of our carelessness. And make a profit to boot.

The sustainability of the vacuum elevator

The idea is simple enough

Years ago, in my local bank, I've already seen an elevator of the vacuum type. It wasn't a freight or people elevator, but rather it was meant to send pieces of paper from one place in the bank to the next. The medium was air. It was a contraption with see through plastic tubing and ingenious little egg-shaped containers that had rubber around the sides. The teller would put the paper (usually cheques or money) inside the little container, open a little door in the tubing, shove the thing in and press a button. Air then streamed into the tubing and pushed the little nestegg along the tubing. Possibly a vacuum was created along the other side of the tubing as well, i'm not clear on that.

With the technological advancement in computing, money became more and more obsolete, at least in it's paper and coin shape. Nowadays payments at my local bank can be done from anywhere with my smartphone and/ or computer and there's no need for a tubing system at the bank as for the most part, there's no more paper being shuffled around. I was surprised therefore, to see that in the US this system is still largely in place in drive through teller banking. A lot more of money transactions in the US are appearantly still in cash.

Anyway, the idea of shuttling little eggshapes with content in them though vacuumpowered tubing is in a nutshell the idea behind residential vacuum elevators. The residential elevator manufacturers make an inhome elevator a possibility for anyone who needs it. No longer the bulky seats that are hoisted up a flight of stairs, instead an elegant vertical tubing system that hardly takes up any inhome space at all.

Less materials, less dependence on fuels

The first way in which the vacuum elevators beat the classic staircase chair hoisting system as well as the traditional elevator for in home use is the use of lighter materials, less materials. Less bulk means less dependence upon materials that have to be produced and transported. This is of benefit for the environment but it also adds to the possibilities of putting an elevator in the home. The expensive alternatives are hard to install, difficult to realize and simply take up a lot of space, most notably the motor-house takes up a lot of space in the basement. (if you have a basement, if not, the installation of an elevator used to be nigh impossible.) But there's more: the actual shaft of the elevator, the counterweight mechanism, everything takes up space.

The alternative, a chair being hoisted alongside the staircase usually makes the staircase itself difficult to navigate for people actually taking the stairs. There's an unsightly aspect to it as well, a heavy chain pulling the chair upwards. And then there is the comfort, or rather the discomfort of the passenger to consider. If you're in a wheelchair, in order to go up the stairs you have to get yourself out of the wheelchair, into the seat, buckle up and frankly a ride in one of these is rather scary! Then upstairs you would need either another wheelchair or someone needs to bring you your wheelchair from down below. All in all a difficult and wearing process during which you lose you independence. Many people who live with the fact that they are in a wheelchair fiercely seek independence for as much as possible. Not to mention the cost of a nurse or other professional to get you from one floor to the next in your own home.

Much better than is the comfort of a vacuum elevator, which comes in different sizes, large enough to accomodate up to 4 people and certainly large enough to hold a wheelchair. It doesn't require any more space in the home than the actualy shape of the elevator (which is by nature round) and it's a see-through tubing that is both esthetically pleasing and space saving. In it you zoom up to the next floor (up to 4 floors) in comfort and style.

5 questions about the future of cars

Foreign cars

The American car industry has missed the whole point of last few decennia. Instead of going with the trend and building ever smaller cars. Cars that perform well but are smaller simply because not that much space is needed in general when you're just driving to work or the grocery store. The new type of car is smaller, more economical in terms of how they use their space ánd get's great mileage.

Instead of building what most customers want: something that will get them safely from A to Z and back without guzzling too much gasoline. Even if the customers appear to want the bigger cars, this is only so because there simply aren't that many small cars available to them. They aren't used to them being out on the street and even if they are there, they seems somewhat out of place with the big models. It takes a real man to choose a small car.

Not only is the performance of the smaller car great in terms of mileage, withimport performance parts their speed of acceleration just to name an item can be improved on dramatically.

Small is the new big

The same developments we've seen in personal computers is starting to happen for cars. Instead of the gazz guzzing machines of yesteryear, people are now more likely to invest in an electric car and thus save at least half on fuel, more if you couple it to your own solar panel units.

Any child can see that it takes more energy to more a huge object than it does to move a small object (assuming that both have a similar weight/size ratio) So if you have a huge car, like the Hummer or some of the other rather backward American type cars, you're burning more fuel. If there's only one of you in a Dodge Ram, you're using up more than your fair share (if there is such a thing as a fair share) of the earths powersupply.

Things could move rather fast if we allow technology to develop unhampered by vested interest from the oil company's. Telephone has seen a similar speedy development where we started with Alexandre Graham Bell, making those bulky plastic phones all the way down to the first mobile phones with which you couldn't call for hours, simply because your arm would get too tired. All the way to todays smartphone, that basically is a unit larger than the first 4 types of computers, with more memory and more possibilities than it's predecessors from 1980.

It's time to start rethinking the concept of large cars and discover the joys of thinking out of the box with cars.It's time to start being curious about the why of things.

Why four wheels?

Why four (or more) seats, if there's only one of you?

Why a new car every year or two?

Why fossil fuels if you can go electric?

Why doesn't my employer offer me an electric lease car?

Worries about performance?

Your motor won't have to move so much steel and glass if your vehicle becomes smaller. This means quite simply put that you save a bundle on fuel that way. If it only has to carry one person, why not go for a one person car? Time for the industry to sit up and pay attention: we want personalized vehicles.

We also want the option of personalizing the driving experience by putting inimport performance parts to enhance the speed and acceleration of the car. That way instead of having a shady, unecological alternative, you have a vehicle that makes hardly any noise, uses hardly any electricity (non if you hook it up to some solar panels).

Imported car parts for improved performance

Fuel injection and more

When your car starts to stutter when you start the engine up, consider tweaking it by ordering and installing a new improved model of fuel injection. The technology in these products hasn't stopped the day you bought the car and it's likely that the best there was available at the time of production of your vehicle wasn't the top of the line to begin with. Everyone knows that the cars that roll of the line are a compromise between performance and price and when you're a discerning customer who doesn't have the money to purchase the high class cars out there that don't make consessions to affordability, this means you're getting mediocre parts to begin with. However that's not where you need to stay!

Getting top of the line import performance parts is a way to improve the performance of your car and because you do all the work yourself it's a cheap and easy way to upgrade your car to a really high performance vehicle.

Tinkering is for classic cars

Let's face it: these days if you're really a tinkerer, not a full fledged auto mechanic, there's no fun in working on a car less than 20 years old. Ever since on board computers have taken over the honest mechanics "I'll listen to the sound of your engine and tell you where the problem is" is an anomaly. Most people can't tell the difference anymore and the onboard computer has warning signs for anything that is about to go wrong before it actually spirals out of control.

In Africa and south America, where we ship our "wrecks", they keep cars on the road for ever with a piece of chewing gum and a pair of nylons if need be and people work together as a team on figuring out what is wrong with the car and how to fix it. It seems as though there they still understand the need for reconstructive maintainance. Making sure it runs is priority number one. This is why so many of the vehicles you see out there have long since outlived their natural shelf-life and are reconstructed to accommodate far more than the normal payload for any automobile that's on the road today. You can see schoolbusses that we've declared unfit for travel on the road there, painted up in glorious gaudy colors and giving off a thick black smoke whenever they accelerate and they are filled to the brim with people and luggage, stuff they are taking to the market.

Imported parts for import cars

Yes, you can use all kinds of parts with all kinds of cars. It often takes a lot of tweaking and customizing, but in theory you can use parts from an old american car and use it in a Japanese or European vehicle. The warranty on those expires the moment you take it for a drive as they aren't used to each other and the computerized systems used these days speak many different languages, so in a modern car you are more likely to make it work if you're a computerfreak than you are if you're an automechanic.

So my advise is simple: buy import performance parts for imported cars athttp://www.velocityfactor.net/. Installation should be easy with the manuals that come with the product and you'll be driving around in no time flat.

Why pay for gasoline when it's ever more expensive: the alternative is here!

Why bring your paycheck to the pump?

Sit down some day and think about all the money you've been spending on fuel! Your old family car, the one that get's maybe 25 miles to the gallon on a good day has served you well over these years but it has also guzzled up a major portion of your income. Not to mention that fuel cost is on the rise still! Time to put a stop to it and leave the oilbaron's servitude and consider the alternative. Time to get rid of that old junker, sell my car for cash and invest in an electric car. Because electric cars are the way of the future and you might need to get one today to keep up with the wave of the future.

Fuel cost is a major portion of your family budget, on a par with the cost of renting a home or paying a mortgage. I've heard stories a few years back that the complete income of one of the partners in a marriage went to cover fuel alone. Insane amounts of gasoline are needed to keep people on the road and incredible amounts of money go into the open jaws of the oil industry. It really doesn't matter if these are Texas oil barons we're feeding or Middle Eastern Oil Sheiks. Truth is we're getting the short end of the stick no matter what.

Democratization of energy

There's a revolution going on and we're all part of it. We're democratizing our energy consumption and taking the production of energy into our own hands. Too much of our money has gone to gasoline, electric companies and other sources of energy when the sun is beaming down on us constantly. Solar panels are showing up all over the place and people are getting off the grid and onto smartgrids: sharing energy in coöperative efforts with their neighbors. Solar panels, wind turbines: people are taking their own energy production back from big companies.

I see at least two reasons for this trend:

1. Of course there's the rising cost of energy. It's quite simply becoming relatively cheap to produce your own, because the electric companies, gascompanies and assorted others are overcharging customers left and right to make more money for their shareholders.
2. Underperformance of electric companies. Power outages are becoming more frequent and it appears that the current net needs some big revisions (meaning more rise of cost). It also doesn't seem very efficient to make energy in one place and transport it longdistance, when form most places there's ample local energy in wind and sun.

Going off the grid is going to be the trend, with technology improving in leaps and bounds and startup cost getting lower by the month.

Hook up your car to your solar panels

It's time to act. To grab the bull by the horns and take your energy consumption and production back into your own hands. You can save money every day on your car by selling your old gasoline consuming vehicle to places like original cash for cars and put the money towards solar panels and an electric car. Today's electric cars have enough range for average, every day use (just think about how much you normally drive in a day).

Even without solar panels and essentially free solar energy, the electric car runs at half the cost that your classic gasguzzler does. If you save up the money you would normally spend on gas and put it towards a nice family vacation you can finally make that trip to Hawaiï you've always dreamt about.

Getting stinky old clunkers off the road. Good idea? Or sinister plot?

Yes we can!

A car is a means of getting from A to B in a relatively comfortable fashion and preferably quickly. Now I don't think there's an aware person in the world who doesn't know that cars also consume non-renewable, polluting resources, at least the cars we used to build. The old cars were built like a tank, weighed a ton and if you listened real hard you could hear a slurping sound in the back, that was your gasoline being consumed. There's a new car out that has that same slurp in it, the Hummer, but let's not go there. In an effort to become less dependent upon fossil fuels, the US government, like it's European counterparts offered cash for clunkers, really old vehicles that were the most polluting of all. I'm not sure how the roads looked after that in the US, but here in Europe it was a very satisfactory run programme, removing some of the worlds worst polluters from our cities and in doing so, making a contribution to a more sustainable future. So can I sell my car for cash? I think you'd better!

Licenced and bonded

Of course, in America there was the original cash for cars programme, licenced and bonded offering top dollar for your used car, trying to get you to sell it for cash to people who really want your old car, instead of trading it in to your used car dealer who according to the cash for cars people, have very little interest in your clunker. Either way, the US government offered cash for clunkers in an effort to clean up the environment and then of course there was the highly contested FOX news piece that Glenn Beck did. I included the video here.

Makes you wonder...

His position is that the government website related to the cash for clunkers program has a warning online that effectively allows your government access to all your computer files. Now, what is the deal here? According to Glenn Beck the text he warns people about is a privacy act from 1974. He never produces the text online, but instead provides the supposed text on a big screen.

In the same program, almost in the same sentence he scares people by warning them to not go to the supposed link on this website, not to check this out. He frightens people into believing that the government has cookies and has evil intent to pry into your personal belongings, your personal files and can even tapping into your phonecalls.

Now I can't help but wonder: Why in the world would the American government be in the least interested in your vacationpictures, your private conversations with your daughter who is away at college or your dare I say it? “Secret erotic images” squirreled away in some corner of your computer. Does that make sense?

Original Cash for cars will not run out of money!

The government programme as I understand it was very succesful, in fact it went offline in a few days because the funds allotted to it were all gone. Thankfully the American people weren't scared enough to fall for this rather obvious attempt at making the government look like, what did he call it “evil tzars” instead of celebrating the succesful programme that took over 22.000 gasguzzlers off the road in favor of more economic vehicles and less polution. The fact that their website was taken off the air later doesn't mean the privacy act Glenn Beck and Fox contended was on there was actually on there. It meant that the program had succesfully taken so many cars off the road that the programme ran out of money. Something that is not likely to happen at the original Cash for Cars. Their programme is not likely to run out of money because it is how they make their money! So don't hesitate to bring in that old clunker you've got littering your driveway. Or maybe, don't even bother bringing it in! They'll pick it up right outside your door. Now that's service for ya!

Green is hot! Environmentally friendly, sustainable grocery bags

Going Green

Companies are doing it all over the world, because Green is hot! Thank goodness we the concerned consumers have finally gotten through to major corporations! Green and environement friendly is beginning to spread! More then ever we are learning that the choices we make affect our environment and we are learning to make responsible choices, choosing things that last over things that are fast.

I was at a trade show last night which consisted solely of fashion made responsibly. Fashion with a story attached. Fabrics of today don't destroy our environment, but are made of renewable sources: bamboo, hemp, soy and even fast growing trees. Every article in the show had a unique story to it. There is so much to tell about just the fabrics. Organic cotton, now just 5% of the worlds cotton production is made without pesticides. Regular old cotton uses about a kilo of pesticides to produce 3 ounces of cotton. Ridiculous amounts right, but that's what the lady there told us. Even if half of that is true it's still an enormous amount of pressure to put on our environment. At the end of the show she handed us all a cotton tote bag with some natural soaps and detergents, a lipbalm and some coupons in them.

Environment friendly little green bag

In Holland recently George Baker had a hit with a tune called “Little Green Bag”. Not high culture, it was just a little ditty, but the fact that he had a huge hit with it means that he's got his fingers right on the pulse of contemporary society. Green it hot and green tote bags are not just for hippies anymore. Now everyone can make a green, environment friendly choice. Green is fashionable, ecofriendly is in.

Now, shifting our societies from “use-em-up and throw-em-out” to completely “cradle to cradle, let's throw out our garbage-bins alltogether cause we don't need them anymore” is a daunting task which has been set in motion by the forces of concerned consumers. Now it is time to jump on the bandwagon and make sure your customers see you as green, environment friendly and with concern and care for our planet. One of the ways you can do this is by buying bulk tote bags. Tote bags have a high visibility as they get used and reused, over and over untill completely torn and tattered. And having your logo imprinted on one of these tote bags is now easier than ever! If you click the link above you can see many examples of what is possible for promotional purposes .

Trade shows, non profits, big or small everyone goes friendly to the environment

The best part about buying bulk tote bags like these at Holden bags is that it's really simple and fast. Their website is absolutely clear and they have a great customer support service which means that you have a real person to speak about your order with on the telephone within minutes and most of their tote bags are in stock so they can have the product ready to ship to you in three days! Think of a great promotional activity today and implement it this week. Show the world you have a heart for the environment.

The service is awesome and proof that environement friendly doesn't have to mean slow and oldfashioned. Plus you don't have to order thousands of bags to get a decent price-quote. Orders can be as low as 100 pieces and you can be assured of the same type of service that the big guys get and for many products you can get a price quote within 15 minutes! Holden bags has been in bussiness since 1975 and growing ever since. They show the same care wether you're huge, like Coca Cola or the Humane Society or just a small shop like the one giving the trade show I was at yesterday.