Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How do you clean up an oil spill?

Transcript

How do you clean up an oil spill? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
0:03
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
0:08
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
0:16
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Charles W. Chuck Bryant is
0:20
Speaker 1: seated across from me, sorting through papers, taking a last
0:24
Speaker 1: second look at the information. His sponge like brain is
0:28
Speaker 1: absorbing like an an absorbent might soak up oil floating
0:34
Speaker 1: on top of the Gulf of Mexico. Did you plan that?
0:38
Speaker 1: I know I'm getting too good at this. I'm like
0:41
Speaker 1: the Robert Yuruke of podcasting. I'm just an old probe
0:44
Speaker 1: by now. I think it's like the third or fourth
0:46
Speaker 1: time we've said Robert York in the show. Has it
0:48
Speaker 1: ever been recorded before? What? Robert? Robert? Yeah? Okay, recorded
0:54
Speaker 1: and release, my friend. This podcast is going to bum
0:57
Speaker 1: people out, especially if you have any hardness for the environment.
1:01
Speaker 1: Pelicans sand Trump trimpers. This is the local economy we've
1:09
Speaker 1: been We probably should have done this weeks ago, but
1:12
Speaker 1: we took our time getting around to it because Josh
1:14
Speaker 1: was a being all Japanese so oil spills. It's high
1:18
Speaker 1: time we tackled this it's high tide or oil spill
1:21
Speaker 1: clean up? Brother? Yeah. Um, I actually wrote an article
1:25
Speaker 1: about it. Back in two thousand and six there was
1:27
Speaker 1: a spill in San Francisco Bay and UM our boss
1:31
Speaker 1: was like, hey, go write something on this right now.
1:33
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, So I wrote it and um
1:36
Speaker 1: I was happy to see that pretty much nothing's changed
1:40
Speaker 1: since the then in four years, the technology hasn't advanced,
1:44
Speaker 1: and we're actually using some really primitive techniques. No kidding,
1:48
Speaker 1: but check. Let's let's first start by talking about how
1:52
Speaker 1: the Gulf um oil spill started in the first place,
1:56
Speaker 1: right the deep water horizon and oil rig in the
2:00
Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico. Yeah, this is claud Did they call
2:03
Speaker 1: this a spill? I guess they're calling a spill, aren't they. Yeah.
2:05
Speaker 1: I think anytime it's introduced to yeah, water, it's a spill,
2:09
Speaker 1: because I generally even think it has to be water.
2:11
Speaker 1: I think oil gets out of whatever containment system is
2:15
Speaker 1: supposed to be holding it. It's a spill. So my
2:17
Speaker 1: old Plymouth Valiant that I had in Los Angeles all
2:21
Speaker 1: over my driveway, I'll bet I got charged for that
2:23
Speaker 1: by my renter or by my ails. Always oil spots.
2:27
Speaker 1: It's like ten bucks apiece. It's a wear and tear.
2:30
Speaker 1: That's what I said. You know something cool I just
2:33
Speaker 1: thought of too. When you google earth my house, you
2:36
Speaker 1: could see my car, my driveway, my l a house,
2:39
Speaker 1: and the oil spill. Can you really that's crazy? Anyway,
2:44
Speaker 1: you can also google Earth the oil spill in the
2:47
Speaker 1: gulf right now as far as I know, Yeah, all
2:49
Speaker 1: those pictures that are coming out are just awful. Yeah.
2:52
Speaker 1: We sent out UM you know, we have a Facebook page,
2:55
Speaker 1: stuff you should Know page, and we posted and tweeted
2:58
Speaker 1: on our Twitter account to UM a link to this
3:01
Speaker 1: PBS blog that had a live feed video of the
3:05
Speaker 1: oil under the Gulf of Mexico a mile down right.
3:09
Speaker 1: Was the most depressing thing I've ever seen. It's just
3:11
Speaker 1: shooting out plumes of oil and there's a really big discussion. Anyway,
3:15
Speaker 1: the deepwater horizon exploded. The BP was capping a well
3:19
Speaker 1: to come back and drill later because I wanted to
3:21
Speaker 1: go start another drill or another well UM by March
3:26
Speaker 1: and they were running behind. From what I understand, it's
3:28
Speaker 1: starting to emerge that their May year have been something
3:31
Speaker 1: of a rush job and capping this well. Some UM
3:35
Speaker 1: gas built up in the in the well, it exploded
3:39
Speaker 1: in this pipe that went from the rig to the well.
3:42
Speaker 1: Cap UH killed eleven people, and UM sunk the rig,
3:48
Speaker 1: burst the pipe in at least three places, and now
3:51
Speaker 1: we have these plumes that are plumes of oil that
3:54
Speaker 1: are being introduced into the Gulf of Mexico. At first
3:57
Speaker 1: they thought it was what a thousand barrels a day? Right, Well, yeah,
4:00
Speaker 1: thousand barrels a day. VPS numbers aren't quite lining up
4:04
Speaker 1: with the numbers from the experts. No, and the government said, well,
4:08
Speaker 1: we're going to figure this ourselves, but we're going to
4:10
Speaker 1: use a an equation that is specifically recommended to not
4:14
Speaker 1: be used for calculating oil released underwater. Not recommended by
4:18
Speaker 1: oil oil companies, are not recommended by experts. So they
4:21
Speaker 1: came up with five thousand barrels a day. Some experts,
4:25
Speaker 1: like some people who know UM, have said it's probably
4:29
Speaker 1: about four or five times that. So what we're talking
4:32
Speaker 1: about is as much as twenty five thousand barrels, and
4:35
Speaker 1: there's forty two gallons in a barrel, twenty five thousand
4:38
Speaker 1: barrels a day. If that's the case, then as of
4:42
Speaker 1: this podcast, recording the Gulf oil spill, the BP golf
4:47
Speaker 1: oil spill it's going on right now, has released the
4:51
Speaker 1: amount the Exxon Valds dropped eight times over w Yeah,
4:56
Speaker 1: well they just actually on seen in just released like
5:00
Speaker 1: two hours ago. They they're officially calling it the worst
5:03
Speaker 1: oil spill in US history, in US history, But it's
5:05
Speaker 1: not the worst ever, is the Chuckers. No. I don't
5:08
Speaker 1: know if you have different info, but um nine Persian
5:11
Speaker 1: Gulf War, two hundred and forty million gallons off the
5:13
Speaker 1: coast of Saudi Arabia, Is that what you got? Yeah?
5:16
Speaker 1: And right now we've got about eighty eight million. If
5:19
Speaker 1: it's twenty five thousand barrels a day, we've read about
5:22
Speaker 1: eighty eight million. It's two hundred forty million barrels gallons,
5:26
Speaker 1: forty million gallons. That's enormous. I don't think we'll ever
5:30
Speaker 1: top that. Yeah, And the Valdez was eleven million gallons. Yeah.
5:34
Speaker 1: And the second worst spill also took place in the
5:37
Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico, but it was off the coast of Mexico,
5:41
Speaker 1: right right, And that one was I think like a
5:43
Speaker 1: hundred and forty million gallons something like that. I think
5:46
Speaker 1: so a hundred and forty million gallons. It was the
5:49
Speaker 1: Ish talk one talk I know x in in uh
5:56
Speaker 1: Mexican dialect as tech maybe is wach What are you
6:00
Speaker 1: talking about? Something like that like wahaka. You're right, yeah, yeah,
6:05
Speaker 1: there's an accent there. So it's the talk one. Somebody
6:10
Speaker 1: will let us know, won't they. That took place from
6:12
Speaker 1: June of ninety February of ninety. It just kept going
6:17
Speaker 1: and that was a hundred and forty million gallons. Right,
6:19
Speaker 1: I got three more stats. If we're doing stats and
6:22
Speaker 1: people are taking shots, every one hundred every year, one
6:27
Speaker 1: hundred million US gallons of oil spill every year, yeah,
6:32
Speaker 1: is what they say. There's there's stat number one. Um
6:35
Speaker 1: the United States uses seven hundred and ten million gallons
6:39
Speaker 1: of oil per day, and in fact, every twenty two minutes, Josh,
6:45
Speaker 1: the US uses up what was spilled in the Exxon
6:47
Speaker 1: Valdes spill every twenty two minutes. I know, isn't that weird?
6:50
Speaker 1: It's weird, it's disturbing, but that also accounts for why
6:54
Speaker 1: um oil spills are so massive. It's actually kind of
6:57
Speaker 1: wondrous that more oil doesn't spill. Right. Apparently the um
7:03
Speaker 1: U s Coast Guard reported that after the Exxon Valdi's accident,
7:07
Speaker 1: there was a lot of like tightening and restrictions. It
7:09
Speaker 1: was just such a very public accident, and it happened
7:12
Speaker 1: in the US, so it mattered, you know. UM, So
7:15
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there's all this these restrictions on
7:18
Speaker 1: UM tanker design, like you need to have double holes UM,
7:22
Speaker 1: and then other regulations that that made restrictions tighter. And
7:25
Speaker 1: I think UM spillage dropped by like fifty eight percent
7:30
Speaker 1: between and two thousand four. Yeah. You know, Maddie Frederick
7:34
Speaker 1: of coolest stuff on the planet. Have you ever seen
7:37
Speaker 1: his Facebook stuff? No, he's just like you need a
7:40
Speaker 1: Facebook friendom. Personally, he's like the liberal crusader of all times.
7:44
Speaker 1: It's like four times a day he sends out. I
7:46
Speaker 1: bet you didn't know this. He came by the other
7:50
Speaker 1: day and told me about a basically every country in
7:54
Speaker 1: the world that does off short drilling has this process
7:58
Speaker 1: in place that UM, when there's a situation like just happened,
8:02
Speaker 1: an implosion happens, is triggered immediately to implode and seal
8:06
Speaker 1: everything up at the source. And he said, the US
8:09
Speaker 1: is the only country that, huh, recently and like several
8:14
Speaker 1: years ago, said oh, we don't need this because it
8:17
Speaker 1: costs a lot of money. We're the only country that's great.
8:20
Speaker 1: Pretty cool, Well, we're the only country with our minerals
8:23
Speaker 1: Management Service, which apparently had has had a pretty cozy
8:29
Speaker 1: relationship with energy companies, right, m yeah, if you think
8:33
Speaker 1: about that, though, Chuck, this oil spilling the Gulf, coupled
8:36
Speaker 1: with the mine explosion in West Virginia, like those two
8:40
Speaker 1: accidents coming that close together can actually completely change energy
8:46
Speaker 1: policy and it probably will be pretty interesting. Um. All right,
8:51
Speaker 1: So Chuck, let's say that you had just gotten your
8:54
Speaker 1: hair cut. I did. In fact, all right, let's say
8:57
Speaker 1: you said, you know what, I want my hair to
9:00
Speaker 1: go to matter of trust, because it's going to be used,
9:03
Speaker 1: um to clean up this oil spill. Right. Remember, we
9:06
Speaker 1: got a bunch of emails about this, like you guys
9:08
Speaker 1: mentioned this's mentioned this that if you send your hair
9:11
Speaker 1: to the Gulf, like it will be used to clam
9:13
Speaker 1: the oil spill. Uh is that hair being used? Now?
9:16
Speaker 1: That was the initial idea, and hair can be used
9:20
Speaker 1: in fact for smaller spill for smaller spills. But they say, uh,
9:24
Speaker 1: I read in the New York Times today they said
9:26
Speaker 1: that there is not deemed feasible after a technical evaluation. No.
9:30
Speaker 1: BP's like, hey, um, that's a really good idea. But
9:34
Speaker 1: we are actually going to use real sorbins, real stuff, right, um.
9:39
Speaker 1: And like you said, hair can be used, it is
9:41
Speaker 1: used on a much smaller scale. Um. But the people,
9:46
Speaker 1: I guess who have really kind of started this initiative,
9:49
Speaker 1: I think it's a matter of trust out of San Francisco.
9:51
Speaker 1: They said, oh yeah, um, well you asked for it initially,
9:54
Speaker 1: so we're gonna send it to you and it's up
9:56
Speaker 1: to you to figure out what to do with it.
9:57
Speaker 1: And all the hair is being sent to BP and
10:00
Speaker 1: they're rolling it in a big hairball from San Francisco,
10:03
Speaker 1: like the size of a car. Um. So, chuck, why
10:07
Speaker 1: would you use hair or a better A better question
10:10
Speaker 1: is how would you use hair to clean up oil? Well,
10:14
Speaker 1: I guess hair would be a sorbent, right, I think so.
10:16
Speaker 1: So basically, a sorbent is something that acts as a
10:19
Speaker 1: giant sponge two. I mean, it's so primitive sounding, but
10:23
Speaker 1: it literally just soaks up the oil from the water.
10:25
Speaker 1: And it can do this because oil uh sits about
10:30
Speaker 1: It forms a layer on top of water, especially saltwater,
10:33
Speaker 1: about a millimeter thick, isn't that right? Sometimes a little more.
10:37
Speaker 1: It depends, especially at first, Right, So it's thickest in
10:41
Speaker 1: the first couple hours, which is when you really want
10:43
Speaker 1: to get to it. Uh, if you get to it initially,
10:46
Speaker 1: you can contain it by using these buoyant booms and
10:50
Speaker 1: they float on the water and there's a skirt that
10:52
Speaker 1: hangs down into the water and it basically keeps it
10:54
Speaker 1: from spreading. So that's that's what you want to Yeah,
10:58
Speaker 1: and then you come along with some skimmers that may
11:01
Speaker 1: use um centripetal, which is not centrifugal. Centripetal force is
11:07
Speaker 1: when you spin something and it's the force that pulls
11:10
Speaker 1: you to the center. So because oil is is lighter
11:15
Speaker 1: than water, it will be pulled more easily, or the
11:18
Speaker 1: water will be pulled more easily one of the two.
11:20
Speaker 1: But it separates them. You can also just scrape it
11:23
Speaker 1: up and they also have a conveyor belt systems skimmers
11:28
Speaker 1: where like you just basically like it just pulls the
11:31
Speaker 1: oil up right off of the water. Yeah. You know
11:34
Speaker 1: what I didn't find in any of this is if
11:35
Speaker 1: they can because they soak up this oil and put
11:38
Speaker 1: it in a containment tanker. Can they use this oil? Yes?
11:41
Speaker 1: Really you knew this, I did. I actually ran across
11:45
Speaker 1: it in research that there there. Yeah, they they when
11:50
Speaker 1: you soak it up and you use like say hair
11:53
Speaker 1: or some other kind of sorbent, and you can use
11:56
Speaker 1: natural stuff like um, uh, pine bark, yeah, banana fibers. Actually,
12:01
Speaker 1: I don't know if they still use that, but that
12:03
Speaker 1: was one for a while. Right, So there's there are
12:05
Speaker 1: some naturally occurring materials that um will soak up oil
12:09
Speaker 1: more than it soaks up water, right, Um, But you
12:12
Speaker 1: can squeeze it out and there's your oil because really
12:15
Speaker 1: nothing's happened to it hasn't had the chance to mix
12:17
Speaker 1: with water yet, right. You just literally like they have
12:20
Speaker 1: a dude that's got an oily rag and you just
12:22
Speaker 1: squeeze it into a little containers as oil. So that's you.
12:26
Speaker 1: That's your job. Um. You can also burn it, and
12:30
Speaker 1: actually this is the most efficient means of taking care
12:33
Speaker 1: of an oil slick. Yeah, because it sits on top.
12:35
Speaker 1: You can burn it away. But that's clearly not a
12:38
Speaker 1: very good thing to do because when you burn oil
12:40
Speaker 1: creates some pretty noxious fumes for the environment. It does.
12:43
Speaker 1: It's about umcent efficient though. Um. Again, you want to
12:49
Speaker 1: do it away. It's called institute burning. You want to
12:52
Speaker 1: do it when the slick is away from the shore.
12:56
Speaker 1: The shore, yeah, from say coral colonies, that kind of stuff.
13:00
Speaker 1: If it's just out in the deep ocean then and
13:04
Speaker 1: it's it hasn't gotten to be a big problem to
13:07
Speaker 1: where it has traveled towards civilization, then you can just
13:11
Speaker 1: burn it, right. Yeah. The other weird thing I thought
13:14
Speaker 1: that you pointed out not weird, but I found it
13:16
Speaker 1: odd was sometimes if it's far enough out, they'll just
13:19
Speaker 1: leave it alone and oil eventually will evaporate because the
13:22
Speaker 1: sun and the waves and the weather, and they'll just say,
13:25
Speaker 1: let the earth take care of it. Right. The wave action,
13:29
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it's called when sunlight breaks something
13:31
Speaker 1: a photodegradation maybe, um. But you remember when we did
13:35
Speaker 1: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Yeah, we were talking about
13:38
Speaker 1: how like the wave action and the sun breaks down
13:42
Speaker 1: plastic even in the little globules. The same thing happens
13:45
Speaker 1: to um oil because plastic is petroleum based. Right. You
13:50
Speaker 1: can also hasten the breakdown by adding microbes to it, right, yeah,
13:56
Speaker 1: the biological agents. Yeah, yeah, that's when UM like a
13:59
Speaker 1: fertile eyes or phosphorus and nitrogen. You'll spread it all
14:02
Speaker 1: over it and it will actually foster the growth of
14:05
Speaker 1: microorganisms and that will help break it down into fatty acids,
14:10
Speaker 1: right UM C O two I think right, yes, yes, UM.
14:13
Speaker 1: You can actually uh foster the growth of these microbes
14:18
Speaker 1: by adding uh, what'd you say, phosphorus and nitrogen, right,
14:23
Speaker 1: And when you when you do add these things that
14:25
Speaker 1: there's a there's a danger of actually going out to
14:28
Speaker 1: the open ocean and creating an algae bloom, which creates
14:31
Speaker 1: a dead zone, which is not good. So you if
14:34
Speaker 1: you're going to use UM phosphorus and nitrogen to hasten
14:38
Speaker 1: the growth of UM microbes, you want to do it
14:41
Speaker 1: in like a marshal. And that's outside of the title movement. Yeah. Well,
14:45
Speaker 1: there's also dispersions. You probably heard this on the news.
14:48
Speaker 1: A lot um with with a BP accident and UM
14:52
Speaker 1: in tropical areas, they handle they handle it with dispersons,
14:56
Speaker 1: and these are chemicals that break the oil down into
14:59
Speaker 1: UM basically breaks oil slick apart into little oil droplets
15:03
Speaker 1: which can be absorbed into the aquatic system quickly, right,
15:07
Speaker 1: but this is not necessarily the best, now you know. Um,
15:11
Speaker 1: it turns out in two seven, uh, and Israeli study
15:15
Speaker 1: found that the combination of chemical dispersants and UM partially
15:20
Speaker 1: broken down oil is actually more harmful to a coral
15:25
Speaker 1: ecosystem than just crude oil itself. Yeah, and it actually
15:29
Speaker 1: didn't an e p A get on BP and say
15:31
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this disperson you're using, you can't use,
15:34
Speaker 1: go find another one, like now, probably I could see that.
15:37
Speaker 1: I think that happened. I think everybody's taking a shot
15:39
Speaker 1: at BPS. Seriously, they're they're kind of gentle as a
15:42
Speaker 1: lamb right now. But chuck that that study, that Israeli
15:46
Speaker 1: study kind of reveals something that's easy to forget because
15:48
Speaker 1: it's so gross looking. But oil is natural, so naturally
15:51
Speaker 1: occurring substance. Right. One of the big problems with it
15:55
Speaker 1: is when it becomes broken down, Uh, it can be
15:59
Speaker 1: it enters the the food cycle, and this equals the
16:04
Speaker 1: seafood chain, right, which enters our food chain because we
16:08
Speaker 1: eat seafood, which is why the shrimpers are out of
16:11
Speaker 1: business right now. Um, And it also becomes it can
16:16
Speaker 1: adhere to sand pebbles that kind of stuff and through
16:20
Speaker 1: wave action, turns into little tar balls. They're like they're
16:25
Speaker 1: they're solid on the outside, but they're like soft and
16:27
Speaker 1: gooey in the middle, and things like to eat them
16:30
Speaker 1: and choke on them and they sink. They said, though,
16:33
Speaker 1: I mean they said, you said, you're the one that
16:35
Speaker 1: wrote it. You said that they're not as dangerous sometimes
16:38
Speaker 1: to the environment as a flat out oil problem. But
16:43
Speaker 1: it's still not great outously because they're broken up and
16:45
Speaker 1: they're separated rather than you know, this big, huge slick.
16:49
Speaker 1: But you know, if a fish is eating a tar
16:51
Speaker 1: ball and dies and it's not good. Same with like
16:53
Speaker 1: a pelican or a bird. And then the other problem
16:56
Speaker 1: with an oil slick for wildlife is that it gets
17:00
Speaker 1: on it breaks down the water resistance of um mammal
17:06
Speaker 1: fur and birds, aquatic birds which ended up getting gooped
17:10
Speaker 1: up with this stuff, right, so theirs and seattas and
17:14
Speaker 1: pelicans and they get soaked or they poison themselves by
17:17
Speaker 1: trying to lick themselves clean. I can't look at those pictures.
17:21
Speaker 1: This picture, yeah, I notice I didn't print that out.
17:25
Speaker 1: I can't even I just can't even go there. Heartbreaking. Um.
17:29
Speaker 1: There is also the beach clean up. Right, So we
17:32
Speaker 1: talked about marsh clean up. You can you can add
17:35
Speaker 1: nitrogen and phosphorus and bio remediate it, right. Um, but
17:39
Speaker 1: you also have beaches. You've got tar balls on beaches,
17:42
Speaker 1: you have pelicans walking around like why me? You know? Um?
17:47
Speaker 1: And you have to clean up this beach. And apparently
17:49
Speaker 1: on Prince William Sound that was the where the Valdess
17:53
Speaker 1: build in Alaska. Yes. Uh, they said, you know what,
17:56
Speaker 1: we want to make the beach look clean again. So
17:58
Speaker 1: we're gonna use high pressure hoses like spray everything off.
18:02
Speaker 1: That doesn't really do anything. It pushes the oil down
18:04
Speaker 1: and actually screws things up worse, pushes it into the sand. Huh. Yeah, um,
18:09
Speaker 1: but the beach looks clean at least. Uh. And and
18:12
Speaker 1: they've been doing that. Um. They did that in Alaska
18:15
Speaker 1: and I don't know if they had plans to do
18:17
Speaker 1: it and Louisiana or not, but it's gonna be bad
18:21
Speaker 1: either way. Uh. The other thing you pointed out, which
18:23
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting because I had this thought too
18:25
Speaker 1: that all this, just the clean up act itself, would
18:28
Speaker 1: probably be really bad for the wildlife. And you said
18:31
Speaker 1: that they use um sort of like scarecrows and dummies
18:35
Speaker 1: and um balloons to scare off animals that are near
18:38
Speaker 1: these boats that are trying to contain and clean up. Yeah,
18:42
Speaker 1: like get out of here. We're coming through to try
18:44
Speaker 1: and help. Yeah. And again another when you mentioned just
18:47
Speaker 1: leaving it, that that that's a viable option, right. One
18:51
Speaker 1: of the reasons why is because within about twenty four
18:53
Speaker 1: to forty eight hours, most of the volatile organic compounds
18:57
Speaker 1: found in oil, the most toxic stuff, evaporates, So when
19:03
Speaker 1: you have an oil spill, it loses its most toxicity
19:07
Speaker 1: within two days, which is good, it is good. But
19:10
Speaker 1: the problem is with a spill like we have now,
19:13
Speaker 1: any oil that's losing its most toxic aspects are being
19:16
Speaker 1: replaced by new oil constantly. So we were it's a
19:21
Speaker 1: big problem that's going on. I mean, you can just
19:24
Speaker 1: look at the underwater camera feed and tell it's a
19:26
Speaker 1: big problem, but you know, once you have a few
19:29
Speaker 1: more of the facts, it's really big problem. Yeah. I was,
19:32
Speaker 1: actually today is Thursday, May what and I was I've
19:40
Speaker 1: been clicking literally by the minute to see if this
19:43
Speaker 1: top kill the thing is where there're BP's latest effort
19:46
Speaker 1: to stop this five week old underwater geyser is working
19:51
Speaker 1: and initial reports. I mean, this will clearly be known
19:54
Speaker 1: by Tuesday when this comes out. But they're saying, oh,
19:56
Speaker 1: we think it might be working. Um, even though our
20:00
Speaker 1: like shooting mud and cement down in there is sounds
20:02
Speaker 1: sort of weird, it might be working in our big
20:06
Speaker 1: uh big thing that we lowered down on top top. Yeah,
20:10
Speaker 1: that didn't work too good. And the idea to shoot
20:12
Speaker 1: golf balls into it didn't work too good. So um,
20:16
Speaker 1: they don't the junk shot they don't even say work
20:19
Speaker 1: too well, were too good, working good? Yeah? The what
20:23
Speaker 1: the top shot, junk shot, top kill, junk shop, pat
20:26
Speaker 1: top hatop kill, junk shot, big mess. Yeah, that's what
20:30
Speaker 1: it is, buddy. Uh. If you want to know more
20:33
Speaker 1: about cleaning up oil spills, you can read my article
20:37
Speaker 1: um on it. Yes, there's also articles on offshore drilling
20:41
Speaker 1: and oil spills, not just clean up, so um we
20:44
Speaker 1: should probably cover those at some point too. So just
20:46
Speaker 1: type in oil spill drilling offshore. There you go, and
20:52
Speaker 1: the handy search bar how stuff works dot com right right,
20:57
Speaker 1: And since I had said handy search bar, it's seems
21:00
Speaker 1: like that should trigger something. It would normally trigger listener
21:05
Speaker 1: mail Josh, what what what's going on? Well, this week
21:07
Speaker 1: we have a couple of thank you's quickly and then
21:09
Speaker 1: our New York announcements. Uh so everyone knows where to
21:13
Speaker 1: meet up in New York. Um quickly though. I want
21:16
Speaker 1: to thank Steve Clayton dot com. They do custom guitar picks. Brian,
21:23
Speaker 1: there's a fan of the show. He wrote in and said, dude,
21:25
Speaker 1: you're in a band, your old man band cover band,
21:28
Speaker 1: El Cheap. Oh you should do you want some custom
21:31
Speaker 1: guitar picks? You can design it? And I was like,
21:34
Speaker 1: uh yeah, let me think about that for a second. Yes,
21:37
Speaker 1: So I designed my little El Cheap guitar pick and
21:40
Speaker 1: they're pretty cool. It's way cool. And he sent me
21:43
Speaker 1: a huge bag of these things. And so I just
21:45
Speaker 1: wanted to say thank you to Steve Clayton dot com.
21:48
Speaker 1: And they're like big time. They do like the Food
21:50
Speaker 1: Fighters and Tenacious Dah and now El Chebo was on
21:53
Speaker 1: their roster. That's really sweet. Yes, pretty are you on
21:56
Speaker 1: the website? Is your design on the website? Because I
21:58
Speaker 1: saw it and it was very cool. No, it is
22:00
Speaker 1: actually gonna be on the website at some point. So
22:03
Speaker 1: thanks to Brian, and thank you to Jacob Storm Deathridge
22:06
Speaker 1: who they do these cool journals made from old library books,
22:10
Speaker 1: so like they'll take the front and back cover an
22:12
Speaker 1: old library book and bind it with some of the
22:15
Speaker 1: first few pages and then the rest of it is
22:17
Speaker 1: blank journal style. And they sent us some of these
22:20
Speaker 1: that was really nice. And they're at www dot book
22:24
Speaker 1: journals dot com out of Portland, Oregon. Super creative. Yeah,
22:28
Speaker 1: very cool. Thank you to both of those guys, right well,
22:31
Speaker 1: thanks to one for me. Thanks to two from Chuck
22:36
Speaker 1: yes yeah and Chuck right yeah yeah. New York City,
22:41
Speaker 1: look out, New York City. We're coming to New York
22:45
Speaker 1: June seven. We are having a happy hour at the
22:48
Speaker 1: Knitting Factory. Yeah. We'll be wearing nothing but chaps from
22:52
Speaker 1: five thirty to seven thirty. After that we're gonna put
22:54
Speaker 1: on our shirts and everything. And uh. We are having
22:58
Speaker 1: a trivia night, a bar trivia night at the Bell
23:01
Speaker 1: House in Brooklyn on Wednesday, June night. Doors open at
23:06
Speaker 1: six thirty coming rob Elbos. Trivia goes from seven to nine.
23:10
Speaker 1: You can challenge the all star team consisting of me
23:13
Speaker 1: and Josh Joe Randazzo, editor of The Onion newspaper and
23:17
Speaker 1: two or three unannounced mystery celebrity guests that will be
23:22
Speaker 1: on our team, unannounced and uncommitted. So the ideas you
23:26
Speaker 1: come and you challenge us. If you think you're smart,
23:28
Speaker 1: you get a trivia team together for Wednesday night, and
23:31
Speaker 1: we will smack you down in the name of smarts
23:34
Speaker 1: and how stuff works and our egos. Yes, so there's
23:38
Speaker 1: all that, um, and then the the co ED plug.
23:41
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, go ahead and hit that one. Uh well,
23:44
Speaker 1: as you may have heard if you listen to the
23:46
Speaker 1: Guatemala podcast Part Uno and part does UM, we are
23:50
Speaker 1: raising some money, as we do from time to time
23:53
Speaker 1: for noble causes like co ED Cooperative for Education, which
23:57
Speaker 1: provides textbooks and and UH computer centers in a very
24:01
Speaker 1: sustainable manner to UH schools in need in Guatemala, which
24:06
Speaker 1: you could just say schools in Guatemala UM. And you
24:09
Speaker 1: can donate five bucks by typing stuff. When you send
24:14
Speaker 1: a text to two zero to to two, you're gonna
24:18
Speaker 1: get a text back asking you if you're sure. You
24:20
Speaker 1: text back yes, and you just donated five bucks to
24:22
Speaker 1: co IT. If you want to learn more about co
24:25
Speaker 1: ED or you live outside of the United States, you
24:27
Speaker 1: can go onto their website at www dot co ed.
24:31
Speaker 1: You see that's c O E d U see dot org.
24:35
Speaker 1: If you live outside of the U S you can
24:37
Speaker 1: donate there. If you live inside the US, but you
24:39
Speaker 1: need a little more um uh incentive, go look at
24:42
Speaker 1: their website and see the work they do, and I'll
24:44
Speaker 1: bet you still donate the five bucks afterwards. And uh
24:48
Speaker 1: if you want to send us an email, shoot it
24:50
Speaker 1: to stuff Podcasts at how stuff works dot com. For
24:59
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
25:02
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
25:06
Speaker 1: out our blogs on the how stuff works dot com
25:08
Speaker 1: home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
25:13
Speaker 1: twelve camera. It's ready, are you