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Using Microwaves To Cook Ballast Stowaways
Smivs writes "US researchers say they have developed an effective way to kill unwanted plants and animals that hitch a ride in the ballast waters of cargo vessels. Tests showed that a continuous microwave system was able to remove all marine life within the water tanks. The UN lists 'invasive species' dispersed by ballast water discharges as one of the four main threats to the world's marine ecosystems. For example European zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) have infested more than 40% of the US's inland waterways. Between 1989 and 2000, up to $1B is estimated to have been spent on controlling the spread of the alien invader."
Even if this works, in many cases invasive species are already well entrenched and the damage is done. The example cited of the zebra mussels, for instance, has created a huge problem for some inland fisheries in the US. The problem has been known for years but nobody has really tried to do much about it until now.
Microwaves confuse the molecules and these molecules of nutrition then misbehave and cause disorders such as cancer, diabetes and hair loss. This would be detrimental to anything that ate the food that was microwaved.
A better solution, I propose, is to simply put some spent nuclear fuel into the ballast tank to kill off any invasive species before dumping the ballast water.
Posing as AC b/c I work for an environmental consulting firm...and my boss would fire me if he knew I was this "green".
I thought this was a method to take care of STOWAWAYS. you know, like people trying to sneak into the country.
My first thought was, "Wow, that sounds effective."
My second was, "But that is kinda harsh."
My thirs, "Cooooooool."
Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel. -
If you've seen pictures of the Fail Boat around the internet, you might be interested to know the story behind it (link is to printer version). In short, the whole ordeal happened as a result of the requirement that they dump ballast water before entering US waters. The story on Wired covers the accident as well as the salvage operation and is an excellent read.
It appears that this is a dangerous enough process that it was worth eliminating it. That, or they're just trying to cut down on travel time by not having to stop - but that's just the cynic in me talking.
Culture is more than commerce
Could Burlington Northern, for example, use this to solve their hobo problem?
I'm just asking.
#DeleteChrome
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
To anyone concerned about frying the microbes, Wired had a very readable story on what can happen sometimes when the ballast is handled the conventional way:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-03/ff_seacowboys?currentPage=all
*spoiler* essentially current cargo ships headed to the U.S. have to flush their ballast in international waters and refill with local seawater. The Cougar Ace somehow managed to screw up this step and went askew (see pic). There were many quite grave consequences.
Granted, it's not standard operating protocol to end up with losses like this just too keep out invasive species, but it does illustrate some of the challenges and extent of trouble people go to to comply with this kind of ecological directive. Plus it was a damn well-written story I enjoyed reading.
People started finding Chinese Mitten crabs in the Hudson River and Chesapeake Bay and balast discharge was mentioned:
http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/35888.html
I read articles that make them sound like "rats of the sea" but they do eat them in China so maybe they are good eating (trying to be hopeful).
"The fact they will climb over dams, go on shore into people's swimming pools, burrow into banks, we sure as hell don't need them here," Gabrielson said. "I really believe there's not a damn thing in the world we can do about it."
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070615/NEWS/706150327
Another way that has been suggested is to bubble pure nitrogen through the ballast water.
It purges the water of oxygen, killing any marine life. It also has the benefit of stopping corrosion.
It does have the downside of making the ships hull an instant death (asphyxiation) hazard.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Not true. They can also be microwaved.
And in answer to the followup question - delicious!
[For you youngsters: s/ballast/mother/g;]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Talk to anyone who does wreck diving in the Great Lakes. The water used to be really crappy - in fact, in areas it was about as opaque as a glass of lemonade. Or mud. Now it's a LOT clearer.
What we SHOULD be doing is laying removable mesh "beds" for zebra mussels to breed on outside every sewer discharge. Once a good colony is going, remove a portion of the bed each week and grind the mussels up for fertilizer or glue or fish food or whatever.
Henry Ford had the right idea - let people dump anything they want in the river, provided their water intake is downstream of it. After all, if you expect people downstream from you to drink it, you should be prepared to as well ... the zebra mussels are doing a lot of the work that we should be doing, but aren't.