The NAIMOR crowdfunding project on indiegogo might be of particular interest to those of us on the West Coast of Canada where there is much talk about a project to create twin pipelines (Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines) between the provinces of  Alberta and British Columbia to export oil and import natural gas. The oil will be shipped to Asia by tanker and presumably so will the natural gas. In all the discussion about possible environmental disasters, I haven’t seen any substantive mention of remediation efforts or research to improve the technologies associated with environmental cleanups (remediation of water, soil, and/or air). At any rate, all this talk about the pipelines and oil tankers along Canada’s West Coast brought to mind the BP oil spill, aka the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, from the Wikipedia essay (Note: Links have been removed),

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill, the BP oil disaster, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and the Macondo blowout) began on 20 April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect. It claimed eleven lives[5][6][7][8] and is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, an estimated 8% to 31% larger in volume than the previously largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill. Following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a sea-floor oil gusher flowed for 87 days, until it was capped on 15 July 2010.[7][9] The total discharge has been estimated at 4.9 million barrels (210 million US gal; 780,000 m3).[3]

A massive response ensued to protect beaches, wetlands and estuaries from the spreading oil utilizing skimmer ships, floating booms, controlled burns and 1.84 million US gallons (7,000 m3) of Corexit oil dispersant.[10] After several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010.[11] Some reports indicate the well site continues to leak.[12][13] Due to the months-long spill, along with adverse effects from the response and cleanup activities, extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats, fishing and tourism industries, and human health problems have continued through 2013.[14][15] Three years after the spill, tar balls could still be found on the Mississippi coast.[16] In July 2013, the discovery of a 40,000 pound tar mat near East Grand Terre, Louisiana prompted the closure of waters to commercial fishing.[17][18]

While Canada’s Northern Gateway project does not include any plans for ocean oil rigs, there is still the potential for massive spills either from the tankers or the pipelines. For those old enough to remember or those interested in history, this latest project raises the spectre of the Exxon Valdes oil spill, from the Wikipedia essay (Note: Links have been removed),

The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound’s Bligh Reef at 12:04 a.m.[1] local time and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels (41,000 to 119,000 m3) of crude oil[2][3] over the next few days. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters.[4] The Valdez spill was the largest ever in US waters until the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in terms of volume released.[5]  [emphasis mine] However, Prince William Sound’s remote location, accessible only by helicopter, plane, or boat, made government and industry response efforts difficult and severely taxed existing plans for response. The region is a habitat for salmon, sea otters, seals and seabirds. The oil, originally extracted at the Prudhoe Bay oil field, eventually covered 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of coastline,[6] and 11,000 square miles (28,000 km2) of ocean.[7] Exxon’s CEO, Lawrence Rawl, shaped the company’s response.[8]

Some of that ‘difficult to reach’ coastline and habitat was Canadian (province of British Columbia). Astonishingly, given the 20 year gap between the Exxon Valdes spill and the Deepwater Horizon spill, the technology for remediation and cleanup had not changed much, although it seems that the measures* used to stop the oil spill were even older, from my June 4, 2010 posting,

I found a couple more comments relating to the BP oil spill  in the Gulf. Pasco Phronesis offers this May 30, 2010 blog post, Cleaning With Old Technology, where the blogger, Dave Bruggeman, asks why there haven’t been any substantive improvements to the technology used for clean up,

The relatively ineffective measures have changed little since the last major Gulf of Mexico spill, the Ixtoc spill in 1979. While BP has solicited for other solutions to the problem (Ixtoc was eventually sealed with cement and relief wells after nine months), they appear to have been slow to use them.

It is a bit puzzling to me why extraction technology has improved but cleanup technology has not.

An excellent question.

I commented a while back (here) about another piece of nano reporting from* Andrew Schneider. Since then, Dexter Johnson at Nanoclast has offered some additional thoughts (independent of reading Andrew Maynard’s 2020 Science post) about the Schneider report regarding ‘nanodispersants’ in the Gulf. From Dexter’s post,

Now as to the efficacy or dangers of the dispersant, I have to concur that it [nanodispersant] has not been tested. But it seems that the studies on the 118 oil-controlling products that have been approved for use by the EPA are lacking in some details as well. These chemicals were approved so long ago in some cases that the EPA has not been able to verify the accuracy of their toxicity data, and so far BP has dropped over a million gallons of this stuff into the Gulf.

Point well taken.

In looking at this website: gatewayfacts.ca, it seems the proponents for the Enbridge Northern Gateway project have supplied some additional information. Here’s what they’ve supplied regarding the project’s spill response (from the Gateway Facts environmental-responsibility/marine-protection page),

A spill response capacity 3x better than required

Emergency response equipment, crews and training staff will be stationed at key points and communities along the marine routes.

I did find a bit more on the website’s What if? page,

Marine response in action

Our spill response capacity will be more than 3x the current Canadian regulation. In addition, tanker escort tugs will carry emergency response and firefighting equipment to be able to respond immediately.

I don’t feel that any real concerns have been addressed by this minimalist approach to communication. Here are some of my questions,

• What does 3x the current Canadian regulation mean in practical terms and how does this compare with the best safety regulations from an international perspective? Will there be efforts at continuous improvement?
• Are there going to be any audits by outside parties of the company’s emergency response during the life of the project?
• How will those audits be conducted? i.e., Will there be notice or are inspectors likely to spring the occasional surprise inspection?
• What technologies are the proponents planning to use for the cleanup?
• Is there any research being conducted on new remediation and cleanup technologies?
• How much money is being devoted to this research and where is it being conducted (university labs, company labs, which countries)?

In light of concerns about environmental remediation technologies, it’s heartening to see this project on indiegogo which according to a Dec. 27, 2013 news item on Nanowerk focuses on an improved approach to remediation for water contaminated by oil,,

Environmental oil spill disasters such as BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico have enormous environmental consequences, leading to the killing of marine creatures and contamination of natural water streams, storm water systems or even drinking water supplies. Emergency management organizations must be ready to confront such turbulences with effective and eco-friendly solutions to minimize the short term or long term issues.

There are many ineffective and costly conventional technologies for the remedy of oil spills like using of dispersants, oil skimmers, sand barrier berms, oil containment booms, by controlled burning of surface oil, bioremediation and natural degradation.

NAIMOR® – NAnostructure Innovative Material for Oil Recovery – is a three dimensional, nanostructure carbon material that can be produced in different shapes, dimensions. It is highly hydrophobic and can absorb a quantity of oil around 150 times its weight. Light, strong, and flexible, the material can be reused many times without losing its absorption capacity.

I’m not familiar with the researcher who’s making this proposal so I can’t comment on the legitimacy of the project but this does look promising (I have heard of other similar research using carbon-based materials), from the Naimor campaign on indiegogo,

Ivano Aglietto, an Italian engineer with a PhD in Environmental Engineering has devoted his profession for the production of most advanced and innovative nanostructure carbon materials and the industrial development of their proper use in applications for the environmental remediation.

His first invention was RECAM® (REactive Carbon Material), a revolutionary solution for oil spill recovery which had shown extraordinary results but with limitations of usage.

RECAM® is inert, non toxic, regenerable, reusable, eco friendly material and can absorb oil 90 times its weight. It is ferromagnetic in nature and can be recovered from water using magnetic field. The hydrocarbons absorbed can be burnt inorder to reuse the material and no toxic gases are released because of its inert and non-flammable nature. Their is also possibility of extracting the absorbed oil by squeezing the material or by vacuum filtration. Oil recovered does not contain any water because of the hydrophobic behaviour of RECAM®. Recovered oil can be reused as resource and the RECAM® for recovering oil. RECAM® is used for oil spill remediation and successfully passed the Artemia test.

RECAM® is being replaced with his new innovative nanostructure material, NAIMOR®.

…

NAIMOR® (NAnostructure Innovative Material for Oil Recovery) is a nanostructure material that can be produced in different shapes and dimensions with an incredible efficiency for oil recovery.

Main Characteristics and Properties

Can absorb quantity of oil 150 times its weight.
Inert, made of pure carbon, environmental friendly and no chemicals involved.
Highly hydrophobic and the absorbed oil does not contain any water.
Regenerable and can be used several times without producing any wastes.
It is a three dimensional nanostructure and can be produced in different shapes, dimensions [carpets, booms, sheets’.
Capable of recovering gallons of oil depending on the shape and dimensions of the carpet.

This indiegogo campaign is almost the antithesis of the gatewayfacts.ca website offering a wealth of information and detail including a discussion about the weaknesses associated with the various cleanup technologies that represent the ‘state of the art’. Here’s an image from the Naimor campaign page,

I believe this is a pelican somewhere on the Gulf of Mexico coastline where it was affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. As for Aglietto’s project, you can find the NAIMOR website here.

* Changed ‘measure’ to ‘measures’ and ‘form’ to ‘from’ May 6, 2014.