About www.barryspanier.com
Follow the money…
Where do the dollars come from?
Where do they go?
OIL comes out of the ground … it costs money to get oil out and sell it for money,
It’s pumped by derricks at a cost to make money,
Someone built that pipeline with money to move OIL,
To the trucks that cost money to move the OIL,
To the Refinery that makes money by producing the raw materials for plastic,
To the Tanker ship that makes money moving the purified OIL,
To the plastics factory that makes money making things out of the OIL,
To the container ship that makes money moving the plastic goods,
To the ports that cost money to transfer the shipments,
To the semi-trucks that cost money to haul the plastic,
To the warehouse that charges money to handle the plastic,
To the delivery truck that charges money to get the plastic to the retail store,
To the money exchange of the household, all outward,
To the garbage… no money, just cost of hauling the garbage… if there is such a thing in the 3rd world places,
To the river where the plastic flows with the river to the sea,
It accumulates in giant masses of trillions of tons of waste.
Where are all those dollars?
Can we get them back in the form of energy or oil?
BALEEN can.
Ships that scour the seas
We are creating Ships to Scour the Sea. STSTS
We are Transforming the gyre plastic into the energy required to continue to scour the sea of plastic.
The Ships are 275 foot catamaran platforms with 80 foot beam.
BALEEN Conveyor tongues eat (filter) the larger size plastics first to slow the natural micronization that is occurring from abrasion and UV degradation. Microplastic is the serious problem, but first we have to get rid of the MACRO plastic. The microplastic can wait and we can stop watching more being created.
The BALEEN conveyor tongue of stainless steel or titanium chain mail can be set down to twenty feet below the surface.
Material is raised and released to a hopper process that begins with draining and ends in micronization to maximize energy release.
The next step is Gasification to convert one ton of matter into one megawatt of power. This runs the ship systems and power train. With battery storage walls or hydrogen fuel cells it can store power for other electric vessels.
The Solid By-product is activated charcoal.
Heat and Syngas are produced by Gasification. Syngas may be filtered for toxins, possibly rad nucleotides.
Every big corporation sponsors this effort. We see the SoS Dupont BALEEN, the SoS Marubeni BALEEN. There was a rush to be able to say they were first to Save the Oceans.
Rebuilding the steel industry. Rebuilding ship building.
Employing thousands.
Crew service is equivalent to military. We know Youth are desperate to be working at something meaningful to humanity and the planet.
In full swing there are 250 ships each costing fifty million dollars or less. Fifty ships scour each known gyre following coordinated GPS guidance.
They also function as laboratory stations, observation posts, and teaching experience. They are in communication with the entire world. It is a feel-good job working three months on, and one month off.
By the time the gross plastic bits are gone, newer versions that filter the micro-plastic will be evolved. The retired ships will become power plants that run on urban waste.
This is a sure thing as a thirty year program.
Help us celebrate my 102nd birthday with the declaration “The Seas are Clean and Humans NOW know not to Fuck them up again.”
Then I will pass in peace.
Barry Spanier 2019
P.S. … the money to do this is peanuts to ten or twenty people on the planet. Maybe one of you knows one of them and can help them to understand BALEEN 2019 and how easy it can be. Not rocket science.
Latitude 38 june 2019
.Barry’s Baleen Will Scour the Sea
By Tim Henry | June 5, 2019 | Berkeley, CA | 3
When we first met him, Barry Spanier exuded passion about all things sailing and the ocean. A Bay Area native, Spanier sailed out the Golden Gate in 1975, went on to cruise the South Pacific, shipwreck, live in the jungle in Tahiti, forge a friendship with Bernard Moitessier, and eventually settle in Maui, where he became one of the most sought-after windsurfing sailmakers. Spanier is currently building the Rosie G — a unique cruiser that he’s been mulling over for decades — at Berkeley Marine Center under the expert eye of master boatbuilder Cree Partridge.
Spanier also has his sights set on one of the most pressing environmental issues of our time: plastics in the ocean. Spanier conceived of a boat called the “Baleen” (also known as Ships that Scour the Sea), named after filter-feeder whales.
Spanier envisions the Baleen as a 275-ft-long catamaran with an 80-ft beam. “Balleen conveyor tongues eat (filter) the larger size plastics first to slow the natural micronization that is occurring from abrasion and UV degradation,” Spanier wrote. “The Baleen conveyor tongue of stainless steel or titanium chain mail can be set down to 20 feet below the surface. Material is raised and released to a hopper process that begins with draining and ends in micronization to maximize energy release.”
© 2019 Barry Spanier
“The ships [would] function as laboratory stations, observation posts and for teaching experience,” Spanier wrote on his website, pondering the positive side effects that building the ‘scourers’ could have. “Rebuilding the steel industry. Rebuilding ship building. Employing thousands. Crew service is equivalent to military. We know youth are desperate to be working at something meaningful to humanity and the planet. In full swing, there are 250 ships, each costing $50 million or less. Fifty ships scour each known gyre following coordinated GPS guidance.”
When we met up with Spanier at BMC back in April, he said, “Baleen is where my big intention is now. We can do this. Shit, Larry Ellison could do it with pocket change.”
Spanier believes that the boats can effectively power themselves with the trash they collect, given advancements in plastic to diesel technology. “Gasification converts one ton of matter into one megawatt of power,” Spanier wrote. “This runs the ship systems and power train. With battery storage walls or hydrogen fuel cells, it can store power for other electric vessels.”
On his website, Spanier mused on the vicious cycle of plastic, money and waste: “Where do the dollars come from? Where do they go? Oil comes out of the ground. It costs money to get oil out and sell it for money. It’s pumped by derricks at a cost to make money. Someone built that pipeline with money to move oil, to the trucks that cost money to move the oil, to the refinery that makes money by producing the raw materials for plastic, to the tanker ship that makes money moving the purified oil, to the plastics factory that makes money making things out of the oil, to the container ship that makes money moving the plastic goods, to the ports that cost money to transfer the shipments, to the semi-trucks that cost money to haul the plastic, to the warehouse that charges money to handle the plastic, to the delivery truck that charges money to get the plastic to the retail store, to the money exchange of the household . . . All outward, to the garbage — no money, just cost of hauling the garbage — if there is such a thing in the third-world places, to the river where the plastic flows with the river to the sea. It accumulates in giant masses of trillions of tons of waste.”
Wind powered solutions
Our Letter
After President Trump‘s first election to the presidency, I wrote several letters and actually had an exchange around two of them, probably not personal but someone in his administration acknowledged my contribution and seemed to appreciate the idea.
Ten years on, it is still a good idea and would do a great deal to stimulate American ship building, it would bring youth to a career in Sailing Merchant Marine, and it would serve as an example to the world of our commitment to prevent pollution and environmental degradation.