by Wayne D. King
One of the biggest challenges faced by green products is the common misperception that by creating a sustainable product you must, by necessity, leave something out that really makes it work. We call it the methyl-ethyl-bad-stuff argument - well we use a different word than stuff but not in a family environment.
Not so with Maximum Oil Pickup. In fact, we'd wager that MOP, and its compliment of deployment products, is the most effective, environmentally sound, invention to date for rapidly mitigating oil spills of any size from the Exxon Valdez to your garage.
From a sustainability perspective one of the things that makes it even more intriguing is that it is a cradle to cradle green product. Created by recycling an otherwise unrecycled fiber product created in the process of creating another fiber product, and other celluose based fibers in a plant operated by electricity generated by MOP's own hydoplant, the production of the Mop sorbent (the name for the oil spill cleanup product) is all created with green technology and green energy.
Certified in 2008 by the EPA for oil spill cleanup on both land and water, MOP is one of the few products capable of providing mitigation in both environments.
About the SorbentMOP comes in two different styles, one for use on land and the other on water. The MOP sorbent is treated with a secret patented process involving biodegradable materials that make the sorbent Oleophyllic (oil loving/absorbant) and hydrophobic (water hating/repelling). The moment that the sorbent is spread on the oil spill on land or water, it sucks up the oil and repels the water. This means that as the sorbent is cleaned up only oil is captured with it.
Using any one of several different processes, the oil can then be extracted for reuse from the sorbent and the sorbent can be burned as fuel. Extraction yields 95% of the usable oil. MOP environmental (the company name) is currently designing a carbon negative biomass energy system which will be able to burn the used sorbent. One 20lb bag of MOP will capture as much as 600 lbs of oil.
Just what does this mean for the company's that deploy the MOP system? To begin with it means that they can stress the sustainable nature of the oil recovery process. They can also recover the oil and use or sell it. For a recovery company, this means they add an entirely new profit center to their operations. They charge for the recovery and mitigation and then they are able to sell the recovered product. Its the best of all possible worlds.
For shippers, drillers, refineries and others in the oil drilling, moving or refininjg business, they have a mitigation system that offers rapid deployment, exceedingly effective cleanup, oil consumption for small amounts of oil missed in any cleanup and recovery of the product. Again, the best of all possible worlds.
Rapid Response Capabilities and Delivery Systems
Since development of the sorbent is only part of the solution, the folks at MOP Environmental have been working on a whole host of delivery systems for the sorbent, including: booms, pillows, loose material bag and the fabled MOP Canon. The MOP canon looks a little like the offspring of a vacuum cleaner and an artillery gun, but operates like an air canon, shooting the loose dry sorbent out as a speed of 150 MPH and spreading it evenly over a distance of 50 feet.
According to President Charles Diamond, "In a series of tests designed to evaluate the speed of deployment, the company found that one MOP canon could apply enough MOP to neutralize the harmful effects of an oil spill at a rate of at least 1,000 bbl/hr. “That’s a conservative estimate, and it can be as high as 1,500 bbl in one hour’s time,” Diamond confirms.
According to Diamond 10 MOP canons, placed on fast-moving boats, could completely neutralize an Exxon Valdez-sized spill in about 24 hours,” Diamond says.
Different deployment scenarios exist depending on the weather conditions. “We can spray MOP on top of a spill if the weather is cooperative,” says Diamond. "Where more difficult weather patterns exist, we have a deployment method that allows us to bring our product in underneath the spill, essentially bubbling it into the spill.”
Pickup onshore can be performed with shovels, heavy equipment and hand implements. Offshore pickup can be performed with skimmers dragged behind a boat. MOP sorbent also contains a fine grit additive that immediately restores traction and safe footing on hard, slippery surfaces.
Product Cost, Storage and other Factors.
Already competitive on a volume basis, the level of product efficiency and the ability to reuse the spent sorbent for fuel result in a significant reduction in remediation costs, according to Diamond. “There are savings both in the low cost of the product itself, and in the operation. Because MOP has a much higher pickup ratio than alternatives like clay, MOP uses one-tenth as much space for storage and is much easier to handle. Imagine one worker carrying two 20-lbm bags of MOP versus two workers unloading a ½-ton pickup truck loaded with 25 to 40 bags of clay for the same oil spill.”
MOP is also lightweight and has a unit cost that is less than one-third the cost of clay. “Arguably the most important feature of MOP is the option of 95% oil recovery for as little as USD 0.25 per gallon and subsequent elimination of hazmat disposal cost. What was formerly on the expense side of the ledge is transferred to the bottom line as profit instead. "according to Diamond.
MOP Environmental Solutions has several expansion plans in the works for MOP this year. The company plans to begin oil recovery and reclamation operations in the Caspian Sea region, and hopes to attract more domestic attention through a series of high-speed, full-scale deployment and recovery demonstrations in its Bath, New Hampshire facility.
Diamond is optimistic that the MOP technology’s holistic approach to oil remediation will be a positive draw for any operator facing the potential for oil spills in any process. “This technology could be seen as taking a very negative environmental event, an oil spill, and turning it into a positive.
In the first place, you’re intercepting a material [the cellulose-based starting material from a fiber-manufacturing process] that normally would not have a recycling path,” he continues. “You give it a recycling path by converting it to MOP, and then apply it in the field to solve an environmental problem without creating any additional waste streams and minimal by-products. Essentially, you’re taking a problem material and using it to solve a bigger problem.”
For more information about MOP and other remediation technologies, visit http://www.ecoscienceusa.com/.
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Wayne D. King is a businessman, social entrepreneur and former politician. In the course of his life he has been a mountain guide, a teacher, a State Representative and State Senator in NH, The Democratic Nominee for Governor of NH (1994), a publisher (Heart of New Hampshire Magazine); President of Moosewood Communications, and VP, elevated to CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions, Inc., a public company in the environmental remediation business. He also convened a small group of Social Entrepreneurs calling themselves the Electronic Community Project. Since 1997 when they first went to Nigeria for the Ford Foundation they have been working in West Africa with NGOs and businesses to enhance their connectivity, communications and to empower communities and people. PH: 603-515-6001 email: waynedking9278@gmail.com
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