A New Savior in the Gulf Oil Spill? Kevin Costner?

The situation in the Gulf of Mexico seems to get worse by the day, doesn't it?  They've tried capping the spill once and it failed.  Hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil has spilled, and continues to spill out into the waters threatening animal and plant life as well as the economy of those who live and work in the Gulf.

But, there may be new hope and it is from a rather unlikely source.  Kevin Costner.

Yes, you read that right.  Bull Durham, Robin Hood, Dances with Wolves.  That Kevin Costner.

No can deny that the situation in the Gulf is severe and something needs to be done ASAP before things get any worse.  And, yes, they can get worse.

British Petroleum (BP) recently enlisted the help of movie star Kevin Costner who, along with his older brother, Dan, a scientist invented a vacuum-like machine that works using a high-powered centrifuge to suck up polluted water then separate it into oil and heavier water.  Mr. Costner has spent 15 years and approximately $26 million of his personal fortune developing this machine with his brother.

In the mid 1990's, Mr. Costner founded the Costner Industries Nevada Corporation to fund eco-friendly research by his brother and a team of scientists.  The firm invented the water cleaning device as well as a non-chemical battery.

Currently, there are 26 machines in Louisiana waiting to be deployed to do their jobs in the Gulf waters.  Each machine can clean between 5 and 200 gallons of water per minute depending upon the size of the machine.  Theoretically, this means the machines could clean up the oil as fast as it is polluting the waters.  The water that is filtered out of the machines comes out 97% clean.

For more information on this ray of hope for the Gulf, you can read the independent.co.uk article.

I truly hope Mr. Costner's machines do the trick in the Gulf.  He certainly has spent a great deal of time and money on this invention.  Something needs to be done and right now, this solution does seem to add a bit of hope to an otherwise dark situation.