Costner puts his money where his mouth is.

If You Spill It, They Will Come: Costner, Cameron, Redford Solve the Gulf Oil Catastrophe?

If this were a movie, it would be too unbelievable. Since it's real life, well…it's even more unbelievable.

Ready for this one? We may have Kevin Costner to thank for solving the Gulf Coast's oil spill crisis. Of course, Mr. Dances With Wolves isn't working alone. James Cameron and Robert Redford are also lending some much needed (albeit curiously qualified) hands to the cause…

Here's the deal: Earlier this month, Costner unveiled an oil-cleaning device to which he has devoted 15 years and $24 million to a mightily impressed and, let's be honest, somewhat flabbergasted, public. Costner came up with the device, which basically filters oil out of water—novel idea, huh?—while filming Waterworld.

(He purchased the technology, first developed by the Department of Energy after the disastrous Exxon Valdez spill.)

This week, since it has no other ideas, BP OK'd preliminary testing on "the Costner solution." The company and the U.S. Coast Guard will test six of the oil separators next week.

"It's not anymore about talk," Costner said this month while unveiling the project his team of scientists have spent the better part of two decades finessing. "It's about doing the walk, and that phrase was probably invented down here."

And lest you think Costner is just the bizarrely-chosen face of this project, think again.
'Waterworld' Solution to Gulf Oil Slick?

"Yes, Kevin is a star, but he took his stardom and wrote all the checks for this project out of his own pocket," business partner and Louisiana attorney John Houghtaling told the Los Angeles Times .

Still confused? You're in good company. Well, company.

"It certainly is an odd thing to see a 'Kevin Costner' and a 'centrifugal oil separator' together in a place like the Gulf of Mexico," Stephen Baldwin, who himself is making a documentary about the oil spill, told the paper.

Yeah, almost as odd as seeing a "Stephen Baldwin" and a "documentary about the oil spill" together in one place. His funding alone boggles the mind .

"But, hey, some of the best ideas sometimes come from the strangest places."

Like, say, the biggest movie of all time?

Cameron has also offered up the use of his underwater vessels should they prove helpful in cleaning up the environmental disaster, while Redford has pitched in to help, too, appearing in a commercial for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is hoping to use the horrific disaster as a wake-up call for the government to get real on finding and using clean energy sources.

 

Man Dave, I hope they are on to something......Something has to happen and FAST!

 

iiinteresting

 

Maybe Costner is really a man-fish and he is sick of all this shit in the water!!!

 

Yea, that's what I like. A Hollywood type putting his money where his mouth is. I can't stand when these Hollywood's get on TV beggin' you for money when they make what I make annually in about 15 minutes. Way to go Costner, Cameron & Redford!

 

America, F^#% Yeah!!!

 

Where's John Wayne when you need him? Costner is going to be the next John Wayne.....FTW

 

I wonder if he also uses that device that changed his urine into water in the movie.

 

um, this is blasphemy..!!

 

Or turns oil into gold.

 

Good for him.

 

I sure hope it works!

 

It looks like it works but I wonder if the capacity is enough to make a difference. They have 26 machines of different sizes. The smallest cleans 5 gallons per minute and the largest 200 gallons per minute (288,000 gallons per day if run 24/7). In comparison, an oil tanker can hold about 170 million gallons. It would take the machine running constant for almost 600 days to fill a tanker. Seems like a drop in the bucket considering the size of the spill. He does seem to be doing something useful though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2heGyZUFP8