truth or blarney?

[winterbadger]

Russian scientific submersibles could stop Gulf oil leak, sub skipper says

Russian-owned submersibles would be able to cap the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, the captain of one of the vessels has said.

The skipper was speaking as two of the subs - which can dive to 6,000m - started a campaign of exploration at the bottom of Lake Baikal in Siberia.
...
Standing on a barge that transports the two subs after their submersion, the Mir-2 captain underlined that the subs were probably the only deep-sea vessels in the world capable of stopping the leak.

"Our subs are unique. There are two of them and they can submerge and work simultaneously. Also, they are powerful enough to work with any other additional equipment.

"There are only four vessels in the world that can go down to 6,000m - the Mirs, French Nautile and Japanese Shinkai. The Mirs are known to be the best, and we have a very experienced team of specialists," he said.

But Mr Chernyaev added that such an operation would have a chance of succeeding only if BP or the US government asked the Russian government to join efforts to stop the leak.

...

A BP spokesman told BBC News that the company had not had any formal contact with the Russians.

"We've had over 120,000 people come up with ideas," he said in an e-mail.

"We are looking through all of these to see which are viable. If [the Russians] want to contact us (or may have done so through some other channel), we can evaulate [sic] their idea."

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

The process for this sort of thing, as I understand it, is that somebody with a potential tool/device/method for helping with the cleanup contacts either BP or the Incident Commander (Admiral Allen) to offer the use of their tool/device/method. Since the article says that they'll help only if BP or the US government asked the Russian government to join efforts to stop the leak. I think somebody is blowing smoke. Holland and Mexico, among others, have offered their technology (at cost in the Dutch case, and for free in the Mexican case). There's no need for the Russians to sit around waiting for BP to come to them.

[winterbadger]

Well, and Russia has a habit of announcing amazing breakthroughs in X that will astound the world... but never seem somehow to come to light.

I guess they have amazing cattle, but their horns are too long to allow them to be shipped anywhere else...