A 4,600 Gallon per Minute Oil Skimmer Just Won the $1.4 Million X Challenge

This is awesome.  I am always amazed by people's inventiveness.  I am also amazed by the ability of companies to stifle their people's creativity.  The X-prize is not just for space rockets.  There is the Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE and this is the winner:



Inspiration for the idea came from a badly thrown bucket.

Donnie said he asked Jeff to throw him a five-gallon plastic bucket to help in the recovery effort but luckily Jeff’s aim was off that day and the wind caught the bucket and blew it into the spill on the water. The wind continued to turn the bucket and Wilson noticed that as the bucket turned, oil stuck to the side of it, leading them to their first invention of oil recovery equipment. So it began.

http://www.iprizecleanoceans.org/teams/elastec