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Illinois Team Wins Prize for Innovative Oil Spill Cleanup Technology

Last week, the X PRIZE Foundation and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt announced winners of the $1.4 million Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE. Launched in July 2010 in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the competition inspired entrepreneurs, engineers, and scientists worldwide to develop innovative, rapidly deployable, and highly efficient methods of cleaning up oil spills from the ocean surface. 

More than 350 teams competed from around the world. Submissions were evaluated by a panel of judges, including Hung Nguyen, Emergency Oil Spill Response Coordinator at the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement; Dave Westerholm, Director of the Office of Response and Restoration at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); and several respected former U.S. Coast Guardsmen.  The 10 top-ranked proposals – including five submitted by teams in the United States – were subjected to rigorous field testing at Ohmsett, the National Oil Spill Response Research & Renewable Energy Test Facility, a Department of Interior facility that boasts the largest outdoor saltwater wave/tow facility in North America.

Elastec/American Marine – an Illinois-based manufacturer of oil spill and environmental equipment that uses local talent for nearly all its fabrication – won first place, recovering oil at a rate more than three times the best previously recorded in controlled conditions. This significant advance, which involved grooved, high-surface-area spinning discs that grab large amounts of oil while leaving water behind, is all the more exciting given the potential for the novel mechanical solution to have a real impact on the industry. The judges were impressed by teams’ attention to real-world application, ease of deployment and decontamination, and consistency of performance in varied conditions. (Here is an engaging video of how the team developed its solution.) In addition, the competition’s supporting partner, Shell, has committed to bringing oil experts and other industry leaders in to help move the winning technology to market and promote its use.

We congratulate the winners and all of the finalist teams on their efforts to achieve the important goals of this competition.

And while the prize itself was privately funded, kudos to the Department of Interior and NOAA for bringing their technical expertise to bear in the judging.  By strengthening the prize and its impact, these agencies advanced important shared goals, stimulating the development of new tools that can be brought to bear in future oil spills and generating a treasure trove of data by testing novel technologies under controlled conditions. 

This is just the latest milestone in the Administration’s ongoing work to increase the use of competitions and prizes to spur innovation and solve tough problems as called for by President Obama in his Strategy for American Innovation.

Tom Kalil is Deputy Director for Policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Robynn Sturm Steffen is Senior Advisor to the Deputy Director

A Taste of the Gulf at the White House

Today, hundreds of restaurants all across the country are celebrating “America’s Night Out for Gulf Seafood” by serving shrimp, oysters, crawfish and other Gulf Coast delicacies. Since the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, consumption of Gulf seafood has dropped, which is why we at the White House are so happy to play our part in reminding Americans that Gulf seafood is not only safe – but delicious. (In case you missed it, check out President Obama enjoying some seafood himself at a crawfish boil in Louisiana back in June and a video of the New Orleans Saints cooking up a gulf seafood storm in the White House kitchen.)

Gulf seafood has a special place in my heart – and not just because it’s truly some of the best seafood in the world. In September, I traveled to Louisiana to learn about the work done to ensure the safety of the region’s seafood. Since day one, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have been working with other Federal agencies and state officials to closely monitor seafood in the Gulf and ensure that the seafood that makes it to your grocery store or restaurant is safe to eat. I also gathered local chefs and chefs from around the country to cook seafood for a block party for the residents of St. Bernard Parish who returned after Katrina.  At that party, I had the honor of surprising one resident who walked into her new home for the first time since the disaster, greeted by the smell of homemade seafood jambalaya.

I’m excited to use the power of food once again to honor not only the Gulf, but some very special guests.  Tonight, the White House is hosting a holiday reception for the volunteers who worked so hard over the Thanksgiving break to put up our beautiful  decorations.  And at this event, we’ll be serving our guests a seafood bar highlighting Gulf shrimp and Florida stone crabs. All together, we’ve shipped in about 2,000 lbs of shrimp and crabs from the Gulf for our 2010 holiday parties.

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Criticizing the Inspectors

The federal employees responsible for conducting inspections on offshore rigs, platforms and other facilities associated with offshore drilling have been subjected to waves of criticism over the past several months.  Some of that criticism has been fair, as when it focused on the selfish and corrupt acts of a few inspectors; but much of it has been misguided and unfair because it has been based on flawed assumptions and incomplete or inaccurate facts.  

Regrettably, this second type of criticism has recently found its way to mainstream media outlets whose coverage has previously generally been reasonable and balanced.  In an editorial dated October 28, the New Orleans Time-Picayune made the sweeping assertions that "government inspectors know little or nothing about crucial rig operations," that "inspectors likely were unable to identify problems because they did not understand how some important drilling processes worked," and that this was a farcical case of "the hens not even knowing how to recognize an egg."

These statements substituted rhetoric for factual accuracy and provided an extremely misleading picture of the roles of offshore drilling inspectors and more generally of the process by which our agency monitors and regulates offshore drilling. The coverage suggested that the inspectors are ignorant about rigs, derelict in their duties, and failed to perform their jobs. That is both wrong and unfair.

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