Five Brainstorms for Mopping Up BP Oil Spill

(May 11) -- If BP's top priority in dealing with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is stopping the flow of crude into the water, then collecting the oil and removing it is running a close second.

That's because even if one of the increasingly experimental ideas posited by the oil company's engineers manages to plug the leak, there's still an 80-mile-long, 40-mile-wide slick to contend with.

Ringing in at $350 million (about four days' worth of BP profits, figures Raw Story), the mop-up to date has employed oil-skimming watercraft; chemical dispersants, which act like souped-up dish soap as they break the oil into smaller particles; and controlled fires to burn sections of the slick away -- all of which have met with limited success.

As BP continues its cleanup efforts, various sources around the Web have begun offering their own ideas on how best to tackle such an extensive quantity of floating oil. Some of suggestions are solidly low-tech -- and in fact have seen real-world testing -- while others are so futuristic they're still just hypothetical.

After surveying these alternative, innovative and, some might say, outlandish solutions, AOL News presents five of the most compelling.

1. Hair

Yes, you read that right: hair, as in the stuff that grows on your head -- or on your pooch, for that matter. Locks of all sorts are being collected as potential oil-fighting material by hair salons, companies like Petco and charitable groups including Matter of Trust and Excess Access.

The idea of using hair to soak up oil reportedly came from Alabama hairstylist Phil McCory, who noticed how hard it was for volunteers to clean oil out of otter fur during the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Rather than simply being scattering on the slick, the hair is woven into mats or "flat, square dreadlocks," which are then rolled up and stuffed into containment booms made from old nylons, Matter of Trust explains.

2. Peat Moss

Also known as "sphagnum," this green, fibrous material renowned for its liquid-retaining ability grows naturally in bogs, but has long been industrialized and mass-produced for landscapers the world over.

In a bit of good news for the gulf spill fighters, a three-man Norwegian company recently developed a particularly absorbent crop of peat moss, according to Science Daily. Not only that, they've actually tested it in the field, after an oil tanker ran aground off the Norwegian coast last year. "The [geological conservation] area was heavily contaminated, and particular care needed to be taken," Science Daily writes. "Gravel and stones were mixed with the peat moss and were laid back in their original position, to good effect."

In addition, the company has developed "3-meter long 'sausages' that can encircle and isolate portions of oil spills," Buildaroo reports.

3. 'Frozen Smoke,' aka NASA Aerogel

Discovery News directs readers' attention to an out-of-this-world substance called aerogel, originally fabricated in 1931 by American chemist Steven Kistler. NASA, which was quick to seize on the possibilities of the Styrofoam-like material, describes it as "99.8% air, 1,000 times less dense than glass" and highly absorbent: "When a particle hits the aerogel, it buries itself in the material, creating a carrot-shaped track up to 200 times its own length," making it the perfect tool for space probes when collecting high-velocity comet dust for analysis.

How does such a substance translate into oil cleanup? Discovery observes:

By modifying the different polymers that keep aerogel from collapsing in on itself, scientists can program which liquids or particles the material picks up.

An aerogel sponge could clean up oil covering rocks and birds like a kitchen sponge, [or even] ... [stop] oil from reaching the shore in the first place.

However, while Aerogel has been mass produced to the point that it is now used in tennis rackets and home insulation, it has yet to find commercial application as an oil absorbent.

4. 'Micro Carbon Octopus' and Nanowire

The website Before It's News reports on the potential oil-soaking properties of a new "micro carbon octopus" patented just last month by the University of Florida Research Foundation.

The reference to the eight-legged cephalopod actually describes the structure of tiny, microscopic carbon filaments that have been engineered to have a hollow portion capable of picking up oil particles much more effectively than current carbon products.

Similarly, the field of nanotechnology (which AOL News has covered with a degree of skepticism) appears to hold the promise of nanowire membranes that can be "switched" between two different states to collect or shed oil.

As Nanowerk pointed out in 2008, new technology coming out of MIT could offer what is essentially a "'paper towel' that absorbs only the oil but not the water," and at 20 times the base material's weight.

5. Bioremediation

Although much of the oil slick remains in deep waters, parts have already encroached upon the shores of Louisiana and other Gulf Coast states, presenting cleanup crews with an even more delicate challenge: mopping up the mess around human activity and animal life.

But what if all they had to do was fly over the coast in a few crop dusters and fertilize the naturally occurring oil-eating microbes there? That's the idea floated by ecoblog Inhabitat, which has dubbed the idea "bioremediation."

As helpful as it would be to have microbes "chowing down" on the oil at five times their natural rate of digestion, however, Inhabitat notes the potential for some highly undesirable side effects:

It is possible that after the microorganisms devour the massive oil spill they could introduce the heavy metals present in the spill into the food chain. Larger organisms eat them and on up the ladder until it reaches humans. So though bioremediation may be lessening the initial impact of oil spills on the surrounding waters it could be introducing that very oil spill into our diets.

In any case, whichever tools BP decides to use in capping and cleaning up the oil leak in the gulf -- whether they be cutting-edge concepts or tried-and-true ones -- it should put them to work quickly: At the current rate of 210,000 gallons of oil every day, the spill is on pace to "eclipse the Exxon Valdez by Father's Day," reports the Dominion Post.