# Costners cleaning machine **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 28, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/costners-cleaning-machine/544816 "2010-06-28T18:05:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/costners-cleaning-machine/544816/1 "2010-06-28T18:05:01Z")
[http://foreign.peacefmonline.com/business/201006/52204.php](http://foreign.peacefmonline.com/business/201006/52204.php) Kevin Costner’s brother has spent a lot of time developing a centrifuge machine to clean oil out of water. BP bought 32 of them. But, does anybody know if they really work? He tried to sell them to a couple other countries and they rejected them. I know BP can say they were trying if they ponied up for them. Can anybody get past the hype and tell us they really do the job? ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/costners-cleaning-machine/544816/2 "2010-06-28T18:19:56Z")
They work but it is less then a drop in the bucket. BP would need hundreds of thousands of those things. They just bought them to get Kevin to shut up and to look good for the news agencies ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/costners-cleaning-machine/544816/3 "2010-06-28T18:29:20Z")
I dunno, the article says it filters 128,000 barrels of water a day. Wikipedia cites a report that says most of the oil is within 30cm of the surface and is 15,000 square kilometers (I just pulled the midrange of the area estimates of the oil slick). Someone should check my math, but I get that one device should be able to filter one three-hundred thousandths of the spill a day. Of course, the math probably gets worse as the spill progresses, but even if the spill stops today, that seems pretty small. I suspect just burning the stuff is more efficent. Seems like a PR move to me. And that’s technology thats had 20 million dollars and several decades of work put into it, which makes me pretty skeptical of all the other people claiming that there mothers brother has an awesome idea to filter out the oil and why oh why won’t the gov’t/BP listen. ---
**Author:** ![Chipacabra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@Chipacabra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chipacabra)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/costners-cleaning-machine/544816/4 "2010-06-28T19:19:24Z")
Yeah, it works but not nearly in the quantities required. Still, it doesn’t hurt anything either, and it’s not like there’s a better plan being taken instead yet. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/costners-cleaning-machine/544816/5 "2010-06-29T11:57:26Z")
It seems to me they could do some good if deployed in a targeted manner. Obviously they won’t clean up even a small fraction of the oil, but they might be able to prevent some of it from coming ashore. ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/costners-cleaning-machine/544816/6 "2010-06-29T14:08:02Z")
It’s a centrifugal oil/water separator. They work, but for low volume applications. They’ve been around for decades and weren’t invented by Costner. I agree that it’s just a PR move by BP. As to how it works, picture a 6" diameter pipe that’s 2’ long, standing on end. The pipe is spinning very fast. You pump the oil/water mix into the bottom of the pipe and it comes out the top. As the mix goes up the pipe, it starts to spin along with the pipe. The water is heavier than the oil, so it’s flung out to the inner pipe wall. What you have coming out at the top is a ring of water flowing along the pipe wall, and a ring of oil in the middle of the pipe. Say the water ring is 2" thick and the oil ring is 1" thick, based on the mixture you put in. You then stick a 2" diameter stationary pipe into the top center of the spinning pipe. The stationary pipe wall is right at the oil/water ring interface, so the oil goes inside the inner pipe and the water comes out between the two pipes. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/costners-cleaning-machine/544816/7 "2010-06-29T14:31:59Z")
4 million barrels a day is a substantial amount of oil to process. Had this been deployed in a contained area early in the event it would have been much more effective. The idea is to contain the oil and then vacuum it up, not run around the entire planet looking for little tar balls floating around. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/costners-cleaning-machine/544816/8 "2010-06-29T15:20:14Z")
> [@yoyodyne](#): > > As to how it works, picture a 6" diameter pipe that’s 2’ long, standing on end. The pipe is spinning very fast. You pump the oil/water mix into the bottom of the pipe and it comes out the top. For anyone who can’t visualize it, I came across an [LA Times](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/06/gulf-oil-spill-costner-solution-has-green-light-but-no-green.html) blog entry a couple weeks ago that has an instructive illustration. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/costners-cleaning-machine/544816/9 "2010-06-29T15:44:30Z")
> [@ChrisBooth12](#): > > They work but it is less then a drop in the bucket. BP would need hundreds of thousands of those things. They have to work better than shop vacs, which is what the president of Plaquemines Parish bought to clean up the marshes: > [@](#): > > - “There’s no sense of urgency. Wilkinson Canal was lined with skim boats and other boats, not being utilized. Meanwhile, the Parish Strike Force is out there sucking up barrels of oil using a new air pressure shop vac. The vacuum sits on top of a 55 gallon drum and runs on air instead of electricity for safer use. This morning alone it filled up a 55 gallon drum in a matter of minutes." \* ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/costners-cleaning-machine/544816/10 "2010-06-29T15:51:47Z")
If it was a PR move (and it mainly was), it’s probably the first reasonably competent PR move BP has made since the spill started.