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MIT Unveils Oil-Skimming Robot Swarm Prototype
destinyland writes "Today MIT reveals a swarm of autonomous floating robots that can digest an oil spill. The 16-foot robots drag a nanowire mesh that acts like a conveyor belt to soak up surface oil 'like paper towels soak up water,' absorbing 20 times its weight and then harmlessly 'digesting' the oil by burning it off. Powered by 21.5 square feet of solar panels, the 'Seaswarm' robots run on the power of a lightbulb, and with just 100 watts 'could potentially clean continuously for weeks' without human intervention, MIT announced. The swarm uses GPS data and communicates wirelessly to move as a coordinated group to 'corral, absorb and process' oil spills, and MIT researchers estimate that a fleet of 5,000 could clean up a gulf-sized spill within one month."
Why bother? According to BP the oil is gone and everything is hunkey dorey.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
No, it's 33 barrels a day to arrive at the 5,000 robots can clean up 5,000,000 barrels in one month. Do the math. It's not hard - unless you're an MIT "scientist".
Otherwise, each robot would have to collect 1,000 barrels at one time. That would represent a layer 45 feet high on their 16'x7' fabric. Do you really believe that a 1/8 hp electric motor could tow that much?
Their math sucks. Their thinking does too,