From NBCNEWS
Dutch inventor Boyan Slat said he still believed his $360 million plan could work.
The Ocean Cleanup device floating in a lagoon in Alameda, California, in August 2018.The Ocean Cleanup via EPA
Jan. 4, 2019 / 4:24 AM EST
By James Rainey
An ambitious project to clean up a vast tide of ocean pollution has been sidelined. The project’s 2,000-foot-long screen — which was already failing to capture plastic while stationed more than 1,000 miles off the coast of California — broke apart just before New Year’s under the constant wind and waves of the Pacific Ocean.
The young Dutch inventor who conceived the Ocean Cleanup project, and hopes to one day deploy 60 of the devices to skim plastic debris off the surface of the ocean, said Thursday that he would not be deterred by the setback.
Boyan Slat said in a phone interview from his office in Rotterdam, Netherlands, that the screen would be towed about 800 miles to Hawaii. Once there, it will either be repaired or loaded onto a barge to return to its home port of Alameda, California.
“Of course there is slight disappointment, because we hoped to stay out there a bit longer to do more experiments and to….solve the [plastic] retention issue,” Slat said. “But there is no talk whatsoever about discouragement.
“This is an entirely new category of machine that is out there in extremely challenging conditions,” Slat added. “We always took into account that we might have to take it back and forth a few times. So it’s really not a significant departure from the original plan.”
Can this giant cleanup device save the ocean?
June 12, 201802:09
But a critic who has followed Slat’s project since he unveiled it more than five years ago said the failure was predictable and that systems deployed closer to shore stand a greater chance of slowing the deluge of plastics spilling into the world’s oceans.
“I certainly hope they will be able to get it to work, but this is a very difficult environment where equipment breaks, which is why you normally do things closer to shore, where things are easier to repair,” said Miriam Goldstein, director of ocean policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
Oceanographers and environmentalists have been concerned with plastics pollution for years, but the issue gained broader public attention in 2018, with many jurisdictions banning plastic drinking straws, eating utensils and bags. The World Economic Forum has projected that the total of plastic debris in the oceans will outweigh all the world’s fish by 2050, if plastics disposal continues unabated.
Slat first came up with his audacious plan to clean the waste from the oceans as a teenager. Now, at 24, he has raised more than $40 million from tech entrepreneurs and thousands of donors. He oversees a staff of more than 80 engineers, oceanographers and others.
Boyan Slat poses during the unveiling of an Ocean Cleanup prototype in June 2016 in The Hague, Netherlands.Michel Porro / Getty Images file
The crew has designed a pipe-shaped plastic barrier that floats atop the ocean, with a 10-foot-tall screen of impermeable synthetic textile hanging beneath the surface. The device is designed to move with the wind and waves, fast enough that the U-shaped “array” will hold plastic — which can periodically be picked up and shipped away to recycling centers.
With an estimated cost of nearly $6 million per screen, a total of $360 million would be needed to operate 60 of the strainers for three years in the Pacific, the Ocean Cleanup project says.
But for now, Slat and his team need to get their prototype working.
Read the full story here
HT/Neo
Joins a long list of failed marine green/renewables projects that have fallen flat through underestimating the environment. About the only one I can think of is/was Sea Shepherd , where regardless of what you thought of the mission, they knew what they were doing. My personal fav is The Ship of Fools, it doesnt get much better than warmists propaganda generators getting stuck in ice.
Its almost as if they are disconnected from the real world environment ……. oh wait
During my time in Vietnam, I became used to watching the locals take all their trash down to the beach and throw it into the ocean. By the end of the day, the entire shoreline was a stream of trash.
So seems to me if they could be taught, at the very least, to just pile it up and burn it, then a large part of the problem would be solved.
Too simple?
It is another floating band wagon. Climb aboard! Money for all!
It may be the appropriate time to remind everyone of the basic Green Left strategy for redistribution of wealth.
The first rule is, find an issue that does not actually exist, then demand the world spends fortunes trying to resolve that imaginary issue. If at any time an idea is presented that might illuminate, or worse still resolve the fictitious problem, it must be avoided at all cost.
This latest white elephant solution presented by the young Dutch man was always perfect for the Greens. It could never work, which was always their desired outcome. The next step is to demand more money to trap even less of the non existent problem. A perfect option for the Californian political class.
Idiots learn the hard way that 1 cubic meter of water weighs 1 metric ton. If a one meter wave slams at your concoction, it will be in trouble if not designed properly.
The World Economic Forum has projected that the total of plastic debris in the oceans will outweigh all the world’s fish by 2050, if plastics disposal continues unabated:
– The same as with oil spills / Deep Water Horizon: give them bacteria enough plastic and they will master the challenge.
– since plastic is made of HYDROCARBONS.
If we achieve a breakthrough in the LENR area, it will have enough cheap energy to operate the entire army of automated structures at sea and landfill sites, which collect and burn the garbage to achieve at least a positive balance in the short term.
I think that it will be a good thing to have some regulations on pollution. UN stopped emptying spill oil into oceans in 1972. This was after Tor Heyerdahl had observed pollution on his Ra-expedition, and that the problems had increased over 15 years after the Kon-Tiki expedition in 1994.
Now we know that wales swallow great amounts of plastic, and that it probably can get deadly.
“Viewed from space, the Earth looks like a blue marble. Its oceans are, far and away, its defining visual characteristic. They are home to the largest animals that have ever lived: whales. Some whale species favour surface waters, while other dive to extraordinary depths. The deepest diver of all is Cuvier’s Beaked Whale, a species which dives so deeply, in fact, that it is rarely ever seen by humans, except when the occasional individual beaches itself or a corpse is washed ashore.
One of the most recent live strandings of this near-mythical creature occurred in January 2017 on the island of Sotra, close to the city of Bergen, on the southwestern coast of Norway. The whale was still clinging to life when discovered, but it was in very poor health and suffering greatly. After several unsuccessful attempts to coax it back out to sea failed, the difficult decision was made to put the poor creature out of its misery.
The whale’s sad death gave scientists and marine researchers an unprecedented opportunity to try to work out what exactly had happened to this Cuvier’s Beaked Whale. A post-mortem was carried out, and the reason for the whale’s distress soon became horrifyingly apparent. In its stomach were found at least 30 plastic bags. With so much undigestible plastic clogging its digestive tract, the whale had little room left for food. It was slowly, painfully starving to death when it ran aground. It could not have survived.”
https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/nature/2018/0917/994366-the-bergen-whale/
Wrong year for the Kon-Tiki expedition. It was 1954.
As I have been forced to observe recently I can fold 30 bags into my pocket. NO problem at all to a whale sized anus.
I never see any actual photographs of this “vast tide”, only some individual locations/beaches where ocean currents coupled with the wind and the waves concentrates flotsam and jetsam to such an extent that it becomes obvious to the human eye.
And when you turn over these pieces of plastic, or look inside the bottles, you will often see, not a dead Albatross, but lots of small living creatures that have made a home there. Plastic litter may be unsightly to delicate Western eyes, but i suspect the main harm it causes is giving environmentalists and the BBC an attack of the vapors. If it was so bad, you find so many seagulls living on rubbish tips.
If you want the green army to grow, the stories of dead animals is the best way. And it is stories that sell. So just face it. There are some problems.
And I think one of the best ways to meet the plastic problem, is to have international rules of packaging. Perhaps it is possible to have plasic package that dissolves in nature during 4 – 5 years, and that gives less micro-plastic.
As a synthetic organic chemist, I would be more than happy to help design such materials.
Unfortunately it seems much more popular these days to forever spend lots of money on people who know nothing useful at all, but forever just tell us “We’re doomed, I tell you. Dooooomed.”
It is surprising that anyone thought this could actually work.
better start onshore
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=rivers+of+plastic&qpvt=rivers+of+plastic&FORM=VDRE
Yes, it looks terrible. Agree, better start onshore.
How could even 500 if these things make an impact? If all these plastics are originating from a few dozen major rivers, how about clean up ships or devices stationed near the mouth of rivers before it has started to deteriorate?
They don’t they mandate slow release Fe in the plastic so at least the oceans would suck up lots of CO2 by promoting algae growth as the plastics degrade.
The US has tens of thousands of local, state and federal mandated recycle centers and land fills that have become self funded with their services. For decades, grinding up used plastics for reuse in virgin plastics has created many jobs and local tax relief funding. Twice a month I park our recycle bin next to the curb for paper and plastic pick up. I remember our family recycling items during the Korean War. I have seen old films of the US of A recycling during WWII. So, recy isn’t new to us. Maybe the rest of the Asian World needs to wake up and get their act together.
Apparently no competent engineers on his staff. Not my specific area, but I could have predicted the waves and wind in the open ocean would tear the 600 meter long floating plastic pipe apart in the first moderate storm it encountered. Let’s hope that when they finally prove to themselves that this is a failure, they responsibly dispose of the contraption.
There is a massive difference between people formally educated and degree graduated as ‘Engineers’, and people who invent a new, more impressive title.
Formerly janitor, new title is waste engineer or maintenance engineer.
Calling them engineers and paying them as engineers does not mean they are degreed qualified ‘Engineers’.
I follow several people who sail across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They are all very conscious of plastic pollution and other forms of water pollution. There is very little plastic waste on the beaches of the Eastern Pacific north of Central America. Indonesia is covered in it. Some countries have public refuse collection systems and landfills. Those that do not treat the rivers and ocean as their waste receptacles. He would do more good just making one that could filter the effluent from a river in Asia. Maybe I should design a small generating station that burns plastic. This would be a win-win.
Only in a progressive elitist world could people be this foolish.
A) Assume that a young person has a better idea than everybody else, for all eternity.
B) Fund the silly person gobsmacking levels of funds.
C) Apparently fail to research history, competing ideas, etc.
Tourists used to travel to Mexico to watch native fishermen fish with skimmer nets from their boats.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5pw-UhfU748/SpLb6B_z_qI/AAAAAAAAE1Q/j_MEgR_Lkoo/s400/Mexico.jpg
Catch a lot? Lift the net so the catch can move into the net’s cod end.
https://tse4.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.7-5B6WMA1snGZgD33nWnmAHaE4&pid=Api
Gulf of Mexico shrimpers catch shrimp by towing otter nets near the bottom of the Gulf, catching shrimp, bycatch (including turtles and young preferred commercial fish), and bottom obstructions like sunken boats.
Or shrimpers can work nights instead and fish skimmer nets. Outside of using nets far larger than Mexico’s solo butterfly nets, these shrimpers targeted shrimp that rise to the surface at night. Almost eliminating bycatch problems; which means that the shrimpers need not use a thick brine to sort trash bycatch from profitable shrimp.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZwtnlOAnLE4/UgfGofHHlaI/AAAAAAAATJQ/PuD0t1dPOgI/s1600/1w+shrimp+boat.JPG
Just like Mexico’s butterfly net fishermen, commercial shrimper skimmer nets move the caught shrimp to a cod end so shrimping can continue without interruptions.
Depth of the net’s capture zone is adjustable. Making adapting this fishing process to catching plastic easy.
That is, if there is a genuine need to catch that plastic.
Given how governments work, that plastic will be sold to the lowest bidder for disposal. And therein lies the cycle where the same miscreants earning money from “disposing plastic” will happily dump the exact same plastic as long as the governments pay them.
Making everyone involved in this charade:
https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/girl-with-butterfly-net-picture-id103959777?s=612×612
Another comment regarding this foolish project and the funds gathered.
$360,000,000 spent.
1% or even 0.5% reserved as the inventor’s salary.
$360,000,000 multiplied by 0.01 equals $3,600,000.
$360,000,000 multiplied by 0.005 equals $1,800,000
That kid is laughing all of the way to the bank, whether or not his Rube Goldberg invention ever works.
Plus, this kid knows where to go and what to say/do, to get similar amounts in the future.
Not only that but he also got the babe in the yoga pants shown in the picture.
Plastic pieces floating in the ocean are colonised by a large number of marine species.
Is it possible that the amount of marine life would actually decrease if all floating debris was removed from the ocean ?
At least they are wasting their own money.
How did this scam artist somehow get 80 engineers under him for this kind of scheme? Calling him an “inventor” is absurd. It’s not that complicated. It’s a boom with a weighted tail. I literally have a half-dozen of them at work for cleanups.
However, anyone with half a brain can see that this won’t hold up very long. It’s way too big, so much that ocean currents are going to be hitting it like a hurricane. Even in a pond or ditch, they don’t hold up very long (which is why I have so many). There is no way that in open ocean, you are going to capture enough plastic to be anywhere near the expense and effort of cleaning it up
“With an estimated cost of nearly $6 million per screen, a total of $360 million would be needed to operate 60 of the strainers for three years in the Pacific, the Ocean Cleanup project says.”
2000 ft long, 60 of them would be 22.73 miles long. Pacific Ocean surface area of 63.78 million square miles.
So divide the area by the length and we get 2.8 million miles. And we are going to cover that distance in 3 years. Say we only do half the ocean. Fine, that means this thing is going to sail along at ~50 knots 24/7 for three years straight to cover half the pacific ocean. And catch garbage along the way and unload and dispose of it somehow.
Sure, absolutely. I think we ought to give everybody a butterfly net and have them go for a swim. How about that? Is that a good idea? At least as good as this one?
It’s way too soon to write off his efforts. The idea of an inflatable boom and a skimming net makes sense. People want to try something to clean up concentrated patches in the ocean. If your first prototype doesn’t break, how do you know you haven’t over-engineered it?
I don’t understand some of the venom and ridicule being flung at this guy. At least he is trying to do something about the problem.
He has the enthusiasm of youth and shouldn’t be faulted for it. He saw what he perceived to be a problem and instead of wailing and gnashing his teeth, he tried to fix it. There is a question as to the mechanical robustness of his gear, but that’s what R&D is all about. How many times did the Redstone rocket crap out on launch in its various incarnations?
As no tax dollars appear to have been obliterated in support of this effort, I wish him and his supporters “bonne chance”. You never know where his work may lead; it could spawn something useful yet.