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BP Begins to Capture Oil; In the Pressure Cooker: Admiral Works to Stop Leak; Biggest Job Gains in a Decade for May; Oil May Travel Up East Coast
Aired June 04, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Ali, are you OK over there?
ALI VELSHI, HOST: Great.
HARRIS: Are you miked up?
VELSHI: Miked up.
HARRIS: Is it on?
VELSHI: It is on.
HARRIS: I can hear you just in time to say CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Ali Velshi.
VELSHI: Have a great weekend. You've been putting your back into it all week, so you just have a good weekend. I'll take it from here.
I'm Ali Velshi. I'm going to be with you for the next two hours today and every weekday, taking every important topic we cover a step further. I'm going to try and give you a level of detail that will help you put your world into context.
Let's get started right now. Run down for the new show. Here's what I've got for you.
Day 46 of the disaster in the Gulf. Tony, you have a good one. Welcome to my show. At last, some of that oil, that gushing oil, has been sucked up to the surface. Not all of it, though. We're going to tell you exactly what's happening right now.
Plus, we're seeing the biggest -- Tony was being nice. He was giving me a mike that actually works. Mine's not working. Here. We are seeing the biggest job gains in ten years this month. Is that a reason to celebrate? Well, I think so. Christine doesn't. We're going to talk about that in just a moment.
And also, a plane that is cleaner, quieter, and cheaper. NASA wants one, and it's asking for your help. We're going to tell you about that through the course of the show.
But first, let me bring you the top story, and that is what is happening with this oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico right now. The cap, the top hat that they've been talking about, is on. So why are we seeing oil gushing out of that wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico? Josh Levs joins me now to explain exactly what's going on.
Josh, we thought when that -- when that cap went on, the oil would stop.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we thought that some of it would stop. And technically, some of it has. And what we have to wait and see is how much of it.
I want all of you to understand what a big deal today is. We're just about seven weeks into this crisis. We're almost at the seven- week mark. And today is the first day that we can tell you that there actually is something like a cap on top of where all that oil is gushing.
Let's go back to those live pics. I'll tell you what we're seeing. Then I'm going to trace you through the last about 12 hours of what happened.
Basically, the idea here is this. What we want to know now is how well the cap is working. BP said just a few hours ago some oil and gas that would otherwise be moving out into those Gulf waters is now instead working its way up the pathway up to a ship through the cap that they put on last night. So that is the bit of good news.
What we don't know is how much of it. Is it 5 percent of the oil? Is it 80 percent of the oil? BP is saying they're not going to know that for, in their words, one day or more until the levels stabilize.
I want to show you how we got here. So let's do a little bit of a time line now through this next video. Starts at last night. Now I bring you to about 9:30 last night. That's the key moment to know about, because what happened is this new cap, and everyone by the way, has a different name for it. Some people are calling it top hat, top cap. BP this morning is calling it LMRP-6, if you want to memorize that.
Basic idea, they took this cap. They were trying to get it on top. And what you see there is when they were trying to get it on there, it forced the oil out in different directions. Now, that's normal. If you think about a hose being turned on really fast, you stick your hand in front of it. The water is going to spray out in different areas.
So as they were trying to get that cap on at 9:30, you saw the oil suddenly kind of move out in different directions. Took a couple tries. There you go. It got into place.
But even once it's in place it's not designed to be 100 percent. That's not the kind of seal that this is. The way it's designed is to get some of that oil and gas inside moving upwards.
Now, OK. So this is what we'll do. I'll just tell you all quickly and then come back to me at the screen here. I'm going to keep an eye on this live video throughout the entire hour, and I'll let you know any major developments that come.
What they're doing now is they're trying to close these vents in that cap, because right now more oil is pouring out of those vents. Trying to close up the vents so they the oil and gas keeps coming up to the surface to this big ship, which is up there on top. And Ali, that's what we're watching for. How much of that oil is working its way up.
VELSHI: OK. Let me know who develops on that on, Josh. Thank you for looking at that for us.
I want to tell you a bit about the other things that are going on around this spill. There are some dramatic new projections from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. They're talking about this loop current, the way the water could move where the oil spill is. And how it can move -- look at that.
Going from where it is around the Florida -- around Florida up to the East Coast, maybe even coming onshore on parts of the East Coast before spreading out further into the Atlantic. This, of course, depends on how much oil actually gets out there.
Bonnie Schneider is with me. She's going to join me in just a few moments and talk about the loop current and the effect that that could have.
There is a prediction, though, that there are already oil globs on Pensacola Beach and predictions that the oil could hit Destin by noon tomorrow. And President Obama is on his third trip into the Gulf of Mexico. He's there now. We'll check in with that visit later on. He's in New Orleans right now.
Now, British Petroleum, BP, the company at the root of all this, has been meeting with its -- pardon me -- its executives. That stock is off about 40 percent since this began. They have about a $10.5 billion dividend to pay out to stockholders. They're going to make a decision in the next month or so as to whether or not they're going to make that payment. That, of course, is affecting the stock of that company.
By the way, the stock market in general has been suffering today. We'll tell you a little bit about that later.
Now, in the midst of all this mess, CNN's Kyra Phillips has an exclusive look at a day in the life of the national incident commander, Thad Allen. She's going to have a look from a rig right near the gushing oil disaster right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: We've been covering this oil disaster from all angles. Day 46 right now, we really, really are. A CNN exclusive, our own Kyra Phillips, the only journalist who was on a rig near the source of that gushing oil in the Gulf of Mexico. She's been traveling with the man in charge of cutting off the flow of oil, the national incident commander, Thad Allen. She is now back on land. She joins us from New Orleans. But she got a real sense of exactly what goes on every day.
We're all sitting here waiting for updates, looking at cameras. She got a sense of exactly how they are fighting this disaster in the Gulf. Kyra, tell us about what you saw.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, just for a moment if you don't mind, I think the last time you and I talked about an oil rig, if I remember correctly, you were the one that had access to an oil rig.
VELSHI: Right.
PHILLIPS: And it had to do with -- right? We were talking about the economy.
VELSHI: That's right.
PHILLIPS: And the price of oil and how was that -- and you were giving me the one, two, three, about oil rigs and how they work. Correct?
VELSHI: That's right.
PHILLIPS: And so, well, and I remembered a number of things that you had told me about the oil rig and the operation. And I had been thinking about a couple of those things as we were headed toward the rig.
And I'm not sure if -- my guess is you didn't experience this moment, but about ten minutes out, arriving -- landing on that rig, you could smell that oil in the water. It was incredibly strong. It was like a fresh star -- or a fresh tar smell.
VELSHI: Right.
PHILLIPS: And as soon as we came in and landed right there on the rig, we had a very short amount of time because of weather. And you know how that affects operations and obviously flying back and forth when you're going, you know, dozens of miles out into the Gulf of Mexico.
But as soon as we touched down, those Transocean workers came right to us. Hesitant, of course. But I said immediately, "I want to know what's going on. I want to see the operations. I want to hear what you have to say about the criticism to why this isn't working faster."
And immediately, about a half a dozen of those workers and the admiral took me around that rig, Ali, and showed me exactly what was happening, what they were doing to try and stop that oil gusher. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ADMIRAL THAD ALLEN, NATIONAL INCIDENT COMMANDER: The real focus right now is to get that containment cap in place below the Discover Enterprise, continue drilling the two relief wells. The first one is on the DD3 that we're on right now.
PHILLIPS: Let's make that connection. As they're working to get that top hat right now to seal that gusher, how does this relief well -- how is it going to benefit?
ALLEN: The relief well is being drilled right below us. It's going down. It's starting to be angled over, and somewhere between 16,000 and 18,000 feet below the seafloor, it will intersect the well bore. At that point, they will start pumping heavy mud in to drive the oil, the hydro carbons down towards the reservoir to stabilize it so they can put a plug in or do what they call a bottom kill.
After that's done, there should be no pressure below the blowout preventer. That will allow them to actually remove and cap the well, bring the blowout preventer up, and do forensic analysis on it.
PHILLIPS: What is the deal with the water spread that's taking place next to the Enterprise?
ALLEN: You can see an offshore supply vessel over there with water being sprayed out of its stern. As the product is rising up, because we know there's oil coming out of the riser pipe, until we get the containment cap on it right now, they're actually putting water over the surface to reduce the volatile organic compounds that come up off the oil that produce inhalant problems for the workers out there. So this is actually a safety issue to put water over the top of the oil so the fumes basically don't come up.
PHILLIPS: Because when we were flying in, the smell was so strong.
ALLEN: Yes.
PHILLIPS: It's like fresh tar smell.
ALLEN: And one way to reduce that is it's basically spray water to reduce the vapors.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: and this is something, Ali, that we've been talking about, is just the number of threats that are out there now, not only to the workers, working that oil gusher, but we've talked about the fishermen that have been out in the areas. We've been talking about the threat to the marshlands. We could just go down the list of all the parts of this environmental disaster.
So here you have an admiral who's got to lead this entire response and at the same time has to be aware that the attorney general, Eric Holder, is considering weighing some pretty serious charges against BP in the middle of all this.
VELSHI: Let me ask you about this. And there are investigations about what may have happened on that rig, the Deepwater Horizon, what led to this. But one thing you'll notice that stands out to me, whether I'm on a rig or an oil-drilling site on land, is there are remarkable safety precautions taken, which leads you to believe that everybody on that rig is about safety.
So whether or not something went terribly wrong to have caused that rig explosion, when you got -- when you landed, did you get some sense of the fact that everybody is about safety on these things?
PHILLIPS: You know what? That is such a good point. And nobody has asked me that question.
As soon as we touched down, the first thing you have to do is you have to sit and listen to a safety brief. We had -- and out on the rig. You remember this.
VELSHI: Yes.
PHILLIPS; You have to have safety glasses. You have to have a hard hat. You have to wear gloves. You can't wear watches, rings, any kind of jewelry. And the video is very specific about dress, about behavior, about attitude, character, operating equipment.
VELSHI: Yes.
PHILLIPS: I'm sure you've had the same experience when you've gone.
So the one thing that they did stress is, as they move as fast as they can to stop that gusher, at the same time, they've got to put safety first. And that, of course, contributes to this long waiting period.
VELSHI: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Now, coming up in the next hour, Ali, we're going to talk more about our embed with Admiral Thad Allen.
VELSHI: Sure.
PHILLIPS: He's not just dealing with this part of the disaster, which is a huge part, but there are so many other elements that we're going to take you on an inside look to see what he deals with on a regular basis, a daily basis, from morning until late in the night.
VELSHI: Yes. What an amazing story. What an amazing access you have, Kyra. We'll come back to you in a little bit. Kyra Phillips in New Orleans with some remarkable access. You're going to want to stay here to see more of what she has.
OK. Last month, May, saw the biggest gain in job creation in a decade. On the surface, it sounds like we might be on the right track. I thought it was pretty good. Christine Romans has some very good reasons why she doesn't. And she's going to tell you about them right when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: It's the first Friday of June. Every first Friday of the month we get the jobs report for the previous month, the new unemployment rate for the country and the number of jobs that were lost or created in the month of May.
So the unemployment rate is 9.7 percent. It's down from 9.9 percent. Take a look at that number at the top. That's the important one: 431,000 new jobs were created, net jobs. That's jobs created minus jobs lost; 431,000 in the month of May. How can you look at that and not think it's anything but good? Well, I'm going to tell you about that in just a second.
Let me give you a sense of how job losses has gone in the last year or so. A year or so, back in June of 2009, take a look at that. We were down more than 500,000 jobs. Well, actually, this goes all of the way to January of '09. That's when the job losses were at their worst, more than 700,000.
Take a look at last year. Slowly, slowly decreasing, the job loss. Then we pop into this year, and you've seen job growth. Pretty good month in April. And now we've got May. It looks fantastic. What's wrong with that?
Well, let me bring in a couple of people, both of whom share a view that the glass on this one is not half full. In fact, Christine Romans seems to have the view that not only is it not half full -- it may be half full, as I insist it is, but it may be half full of fuel.
Peter Morici is with the University of Maryland, a good friend of our show.
Christine Romans, tell me, first of all, why -- what kind of people are we that we can't look at 431,000 jobs created in a month and not be celebrating? What's wrong with this picture?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are celebrating that there were 431,000 jobs created. And we're celebrating that the unemployment rate went down a couple of notches to 9.7 percent. But how long will those jobs last? They're temporary. They're temporary jobs. So we know that those people are going to find themselves in the same situation the next month or the month after as they were --
VELSHI: They're temporary because these are mostly census jobs?
ROMANS: These are mostly census jobs. And Ali, you and I both like to look at the private sector --
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: -- employment. And you say this every time. You want companies creating jobs.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: You want companies looking out there and seeing that things are getting better and having demand and creating jobs. When we look at March, we saw the private sector employment coming in there. I think 158,000 jobs in the private sector in March. Wow, we were so -- remember how -- how encouraging that was? VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: And then it built in April: 218,000 private sector jobs. This means it's not the government spending taxpayer money to create jobs. It's the private sector.
And then in May, it was 41,000. And the rest of the jobs creation was from the census.
So we want that trend to go in the other direction. We want to see private-sector job growth gaining so that you can have an economy -- an economic recovery that you can see also with the jobs market.
VELSHI: Peter Morici, now that Christine has burst my bubble heading into the weekend, are you --
ROMANS: Didn't burst it; I just pricked it a little bit.
VELSHI: Are you going to be a buzz kill? Are you going to be a party pooper, too?
PETER MORICI, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: I'm afraid so. If you look at government employment, all but 1,000 jobs were temporary census jobs. They're supposed to be at the peak of stimulus spending, pushing those jobs out into the economy. And the best the government could do, net, was 1,000 jobs.
I took apart the GDP report that we got last week. And the real demand in the economy is only growing at about 2 percent a year. In order to create private sector jobs at the magnitude that we need to steadily pull down unemployment, we have to have something ever 3 percent.
Bottom line, the trade deficit, problems with oil, the problems with the regional banks, problems that the Obama people promised to address when they came into the White House, simply have not yet been fixed.
VELSHI: Christine, answer me this. So what that a lot of these jobs are census jobs? They are temporary. But some number of people, 390,000 people, are going to be getting paid some money that they weren't getting paid were. Why are they not going to go out, maybe pay some of their debt down and spend some of that money at stores who are then going to have to hire new people to deal with that? Is this not part of that cycle that starts to build us up again?
VELSHI: So -- so that's 411,000 people compared to 6.8 million who have been out of work for six months or longer. I mean, it sounds like spit on the wing of a mosquito in the overall consumer spending of the economy when you have so many people, millions of them, who are working and living so far below their potential.
Yes, 411,000 is the right direction, but those are -- those are also temporary jobs. Those jobs are going to go away, and those people are going to be looking for other work.
What we need in the interim is we need -- we need private-sector employment.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: We need -- and my question is, and I'm not clear on this, and maybe -- and maybe Peter knows better. But at this stage of a recovery, if we really are a year into a recovery, should -- even though -- even though the labor market's a lagging indicator, shouldn't we have more jobs created.
VELSHI: We do know -- Peter, that's a good question. We do know, Christine --
MORICI: Absolutely.
VELSHI: People who say that, really, history does show that, in the first end of the recovery, you're still seeing a lot of temporary work that then becomes permanent work. Take a stab at this, Peter.
MORICI: Well, it really isn't temporary work associated with a recovery. Remember, we would have had a census every ten years, this 411,000 jobs from the census, whether we were booming or busting.
VELSHI: Yes. That's correct.
MORICI: So you really have to just pull that out. It's a one- time event. You pull that out and all of a sudden you're down to, what, 30,000 jobs for the month?
VELSHI: Yes.
MORICI: And we're going in the wrong direction. It seems as though the recovery is petering out because of the surge of imports from China and the problems we're having in the energy sector.
You know, very telling. Last month, you know what sector subtracted from its employment after growing a couple of months in a row? Retailing.
VELSHI: Yes.
MORICI: On a seasonally-adjusted basis, retail establishments are laying people off because folks are not going to the mall.
VELSHI: Yes. That's a leading indicator as opposed to the lagging indicator that the labor market usually is.
MORICI: Yes.
VELSHI: Spit on the wing of a mosquito. Christine, you are -- you just come up with some fantastic ones. I love it.
ROMANS: Ali, but I will agree with you that big wide chart that you showed with all those bars, when you look over the last year, you're absolutely right. That the -- we're not seeing 700,000 jobs lost every month like we were back in January of 2009. Right?
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: I mean, so you're absolutely right that the trend has been in the right direction. Now the big question now is do you build on some of this momentum or do we keep putting --
VELSHI: Yes. Our problem is you and Peter and I are having this conversation one month from today, then we have some serious issues.
ROMANS: Yes.
VELSHI: If this is an anomaly, we'll take it that way. If it's not, we have a problem.
Peter, I'm going to see you in another hour. Good to see you. Christine, take the rest of the weekend off. After coming up with spit on the wing of a mosquito, I think you deserve a long weekend.
Christine, by the way, she doesn't actually get the rest of the weekend off. You get to see her with me. We are together seven days a week, and I could not be happier about that arrangement. Christine and I host a show called "YOUR $$$$$" Saturdays at 1 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Eastern Time.
All around Florida and all of the way up the East Coast. What am I talking about? Where that oil could go. The oil could end up spreading up the East Coast. Bonnie Schneider has got a map. She's tracking it. I'm going to tell you about this when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. We've been talking about this -- this loop current, something that could take all this oil that has spilled in the Gulf of Mexico not just over to Florida but beyond and maybe even up to the East Coast. Is this really a possibility?
BONNIE SCHNEIDER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, absolutely. The National Center for Atmospheric Research, Ali, did a simulation, not a computer model forecast, but they did six different simulations --
VELSHI: OK.
SCHNEIDER: -- using a dye, like a food coloring dye.
And what they did was, I put this map into ocean you'll see. They said, well, it can't stay in the Gulf forever. Right now, it's kind of circulating in an eddy. But if and when this oil does get in the loop current, it will spread quickly. Now, you have to remember, the loop current --
VELSHI: This looks like it's getting all over the East Coast here.
SCHNEIDER: Right. It's very fast-moving current.
VELSHI: Yes.
SCHNEIDER: And it goes at 100 miles per day once it starts going up the Atlantic.
VELSHI: Wow.
SCHNEIDER: So it's a little slower here in the Gulf and then speeds up. But you're wondering, yes, will it move onshore --
VELSHI: If this is an existing current. If I just put something into the water here, this is what would happen to it, generally speaking?
SCHNEIDER: Generally speaking, this is the path of the current.
VELSHI: Right.
SCHNEIDER: The factor of which the oil would come onshore. There's a bunch of localized factors.
VELSHI: I got it.
SCHNEIDER: Talking about local currents, local winds. And then, remember, we're in hurricane season. If this were to happen in August and we get an hurricane coming into areas of the Atlantic, what we're looking at, really, would be definitely the threat for the oil to come onshore, depending on the track of the storm.
VELSHI: But it could actually not go onshore. It could take this pattern but be away from shore?
SCHNEIDER: It could be, right. And it also can disperse as it goes out over the Atlantic. Remember, across the Atlantic is Europe. The current would have an influencing factor in the mixing of the oil. But this is one scenario we're watching.
VELSHI: Stay there. I want to tell you -- take you to Cape Canaveral where John Zarrella is standing by. Earlier this week we spoke to Elon Musk of SpaceX, and he was telling us that this week, they were hoping to launch their Falcon 9 spacecraft. This might be the successor to the space shuttles.
John is there. I understand we could be trying to launch any second now.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, less than two minutes now, Ali, to the liftoff, we hope. And they certainly hope, Elon Musk and his team of the SpaceX rocket.
This is a profound change in the way everyone does business. This isn't NASA. This is a commercial venture. This is one of the rockets vying to replace the space shuttle to take astronauts up to the space station, to do all of the near-earth orbit stuff: cargo, astronauts, back and forth to the International Space Station. To free up NASA's assets, the limited monies that NASA has, to do the kind of cutting-edge stuff, the deep-space stuff, to take humans to Mars, to an asteroid, perhaps back to the moon.
So this is the gap that will be filled by companies like SpaceX. Maybe not just one, maybe others. There's Orbital Sciences. They're in the mix, as well.
And, Ali, as you know, as your interview with Elon Musk, I talked to him as well, he is truly a visionary and believes very deeply that it is time for NASA to go ahead and turn over the reins of this part of space travel to commercial companies, just like the airplane, is the way Elon Musk put it.
VELSHI: all right. So this could be the successor.
ZARRELLA: -- companies develop.
VELSHI: This could be the successor. It's T minus 35 seconds right now. You can see this on the top right. Listen, even Elon Musk himself said maybe a 70 or 80 percent chance of success.
But they do have a contract with NASA. If this works, they will start carrying cargo. And as Elon said, much more cargo goes up to the international space station than astronauts. This is T minus 18 seconds. When it gets to 10 seconds, I'm going to stop talking and let the folks at Space X take over and let's see if this thing launches. Ten seconds. Let's listen in.
VOICE OF UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two --
VOICE OF UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Terminal count abort is running.
VELSHI: All right. I just heard mission abort there with about two seconds to go. John, did you hear that?
ZARRELLA: Yep, we sure did, Ali. They have aborted the test launch. Of course, we don't know why. We're about four minutes away. We'll have to listen in to what their commentary is saying right now.
VELSHI: And on the screen, something called hold has showed up. You talked about this earlier today, John. When there's a reason to abort at the last minute for various reasons, including the ability to intercept this rocket if were something to go wrong -- remember, I believe the Air Force is involved in this, too, right? Because they have to be able to say if this thing launches and something goes wrong, they have to take it down, can they do so safely. They had to abort because of that earlier in the day.
ZARRELLA: Right, of course, that's exactly right. Rain (ph) safety needs to be able to communicate with the rocket in case something were to go wrong, were to go off course, they would have the ability to be able to self-destruct that rocket. That Rainn Stacy's (ph) job.
They have it on the space shuttle as well. If something goes wrong with the space shuttle, people on board or not, those guys have the responsibility to push the button and destroy the space shuttle as well. So that's what -- we don't know what the shutdown is now. We understand the main engines did shut down. The reason for this -- this delay, don't know.
But clearly, it's not going to go today. Once you have that shut down the main engines --
VELSHI: You know a lot about that stuff. I guess they had a window until 3:00 Eastern time to let this thing go today, and then try again on Saturday.
ZARRELLA: Right.
VELSHI: But this is -- this is the thing that fascinates those of us who are on the outside of this space world. He was counting down. I tossed it over to that guy with ten seconds to go. "Seven, six, five, four, three, two -- mission abort." And they shut it down with two seconds to go.
What must be going on in the hands of people in mission control to stop this thing from possibly making history with two seconds to go?
ZARRELLA: You know, they can also have automatic shutdown systems. You know, the space shuttles -- I've been here when the space shuttle has shut down literally with two seconds left in the count. The main engines were gimbling (ph), getting ready to light and they shut it down. It can happen.
VELSHI: I guess safety is paramount.
ZARRELLA: Checking now to see -- absolutely. And no more so than in a test launch of a first of its kind rocket.
And you know, you think back in history, some rockets like the Atlas Rocket that launches more reliably than just about anything else, Atlas and Deltas out of these very same launch pads -- the first 13 attempts to launch an Atlas rocket, 12 attempts failed. They succeeded on the 13th attempt.
And Elon musk says, look, we expect to have problems, we expect these kinds of delays. But we're going to be able to weather the storm and get through it. That's his position. That's what he believes. That's what all these companies believe.
VELSHI: Elon Musk (ph), by the way, was one of the co-founders of Pay Pal, co-founder of Tesla, the electric car. Guy's 38 years old. Inventor, entrepreneur extraordinaire. But the reason we're talking right now, John.
And the reason why we're on TV looking at this launch of a spaceship, the Falcon 9 rocket that most people have not yet heard about is because what you may see when you see this rocket take off -- maybe it's today, maybe it's tomorrow, maybe it's not -- is a first in history. This may be the prototype for the rocket that takes cargo and possibly astronauts into space.
ZARRELLA: You know, and the reality is that their belief is that they can reduce the cost of putting humans in space by a magnitude -- God knows. But tremendously less costly than what NASA can do.
VELSHI: Yes. ZARRELLA: And your children, your grandchildren, mine, it may very well create the ability for them to very routinely go to space in 20, 30, 40 years. That's the idea.
ZARRELLA: All right. You stay on this, John. We'll stay on it. If they get another chance to do this, we'll come right back to you. But one way or the other, they'll probably get this thing into space whether we're watching it or not.
John Zarrella, Cape Canaveral, watching the attempted launch of the Falcon 9 Space X ship.
Okay, let's get back to oil for a minute. With all the oil spreading, researchers around the world are coming up with possible solutions. One of them - and there are a lot of them. One of them involves a possible membrane filter on the water. I'm going to show it to you and explain it to you after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Day 46 of the oil disaster. Every day, we talk about solutions that could try and solve this problem. We're getting a lot of them.
Here's one that uses a membrane to separate the oil from water. I got to say, this is where the science gets beyond that that I understand. So, we've invited somebody who really does understand this.
Jeff Youngblood is an assistant professor with Purdue University. He's a materials engineering expert. He's going to explain this technology. We've got a video that can help us out. But Jeff, take it away.
JEFF YOUNGBLOOD, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, PURDUE UNIVERSITY: So, what we've done here is we created a filter where the oil sees Teflon, and the water sees polyglenglacoe (ph), which it likes to wet. So, when the water passes through the filter, it goes through. But the oil gets trapped.
So, in the video you see the oil has been dyed red, and as it passes through the filter, it actually conglomerates and comes up through the top. What's going through the is pure water.
VELSHI: So, what's coming out of the bottom is water. Now, how big is this? We're looking over this over a beaker.
YOUNGBLOOD: Yes. So, of course, when we're screening hundreds of different formulations, we try to do things slow and small. But we're working now on trying to get much bigger systems.
The video is kind of misleading. We purposely made it slow so that we could see what's happening. But it should be able to go, just that size a filter goes hundreds of times faster than we depict there.
VELSHI: Jeff, how would you apply this? Would you have to stick that filter as low as you can in the sea in this particular experiment? This particular situation, let's say in the Gulf. I know this isn't being deployed there. But what would you do, stick it low and then pull the filter up? How would you do this?
YOUNGBLOOD: Likely what you would have is basically like a giant straw that would suck in the surface of the sea water. and it would go into the filter and then collect all the oil and push the saltwater back out into the ocean so you can just start skimming off all the oil very quickly, say, on a barge, and just kind of drive around and collect all the oil.
VELSHI: What is the membrane? In -- in simple terms.
YOUNGBLOOD: So in simple terms, what we've done is taken fiberglass and we've coated it with basically --you can think of it as poly-soap. It's part Teflon, part polyglenglacoe (ph). It's actually a coating we developed for soapless cleaning of surfaces like your glass windows, keep fingerprints off and such. But instead, we treated a fiber. And it turns out, just kind of on a lark we did it, and turned out it worked.
VELSHI: OK. You've been experimenting with this. This isn't something that is ready to deploy, for instance, like in this Gulf coast disaster?
YOUNGBLOOD: Not yet. We demonstrated the technique, as you see in the video. A company has licensed overall technology for oil repellant water-loving (ph) materials, (INAUDIBLE) Chemicals out of Cincinnati. And they're going forward with coating so that you can, you know, treat your carport and wash it off with a hose if you have a oil thing. So, hopefully, they will sublicense and somehow work together around get this as a filter technology, maybe within a couple of years.
VELSHI: So, we know it works in theory. We know it works in practice. The issue for purposes of something like the oil spill is scaleability.
YOUNGBLOOD: Scaleability and commercialization, you know. If you can't make money with it -- but they assure me they can. We just have to optimize it and get it out there.
VELSHI: All right. The one good thing that comes out of the oil spill is we get a whole lots of discussions about ideas having to do with oil, then it's a good thing for the world.
Jeff Youngblood, thank you for joining me. Pleasure to have you on the show.
YOUNGBLOOD: Thank you!
VELSHI: Jeff Youngblood is an assistant professor at Purdue University. A materials engineering expert.
We're full of these - we're getting a lot of these great ideas, because you're full of great ideas. Please send them in to me. Use Twitter, use Facebook. Just send us your ideas about how you think we might be able to deal with issues we're facing now or in the future.
In a moment, I'm going to come back with you with the latest developments on the oil spill. If you haven't been following them, there have been a lot of them today.
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VELSHI: Okay. In today's "Crime and Consequence," we're updating a story that broke at this hour yesterday. The long-time suspect in the Natalee Holloway disappearance, Joran van der Sloot, was captured in Chile, but for being a suspect in an different killing entirely. A Peruvian woman's brutal killing.
Here is what we know. After Peru alerted its neighbors and Interpol to be on the lookout for van der Sloot, Chilean police found him in a taxi heading for the Pacific Coast. A couple of taxi drivers apparently told Peruvian police that they had taken him across the border. They are now expelling him in Chile, flying him back to Peru today in a military plane. We expect Peruvian police to take custody in the next two hours.
Now, Chilean police say van der Sloot is talking but he's proclaiming his innocence in the death of Stephanie Florez. The two of them were seen together on video and by eyewitnesses shortly before she was killed in Lima, Peru. I'm sorry, yes -- she was in Lima, Peru, on Sunday.
Now, CNN's Rafael Romo is following all the developments. Twenty- four hours ago, he was talking to me about this right here in the studio. So, imagine my surprise to see that he is already in Lima, Peru, on top of this story where Joran van der Sloot -- I don't know if he's arrived or is expected to arrive very shortly. Rafael?
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR EDITOR FOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS: Ali, that development is expected to happen within the next few hours at this point. He is scheduled to arrive at the town of Arika on the border between Chile and Peru.
He's going to be transferred to Peruvian officials, who are going to bring him here to Lima, where he's going to face charges. And Peruvian officials say they have a very strong case against him with pieces of video, for example, and testimony from employees at the hotel and also at the casino.
And Ali, so much has happened this week. Monday, the victim was reported missing. Tuesday or Wednesday, he fled Peru into Chile. Wednesday, the body was found. Thursday, when you and I were talking yesterday, he was caught in Chile. And today, he's being transferred to Peru to face charges for the murder of Stephanie Florez. So, this case is moving rapidly, and Peruvian officials are saying they are, at the same time, going to move very fast with the charges Ali.
VELSHI: All right. There are also U.S. charges unrelated to this. The--in Alabama, I believe there are some charges now being filed against him with respect to him making some money off of the Natalee Holloway story. ROMO: Exactly. And the real question here is, if he was -- he is not known to have a job, so where was he getting the money to come to places like here and play in poker tournaments. And apparently that extortion case out of Alabama for as much as a quarter of a million dollars may explain what he has been doing, but the problem here is that he's going to face charges here.
If he is convicted, he's going to be in jail for about 35 years. He would not be facing a U.S. court in that time if he's convicted here in Peru. Otherwise, he may possibly be extradited to the United States. So in any case, he's in a lot of trouble, Ali.
VELSHI: One guy gets a whole lot of media attention. It will be interesting to see what happens when he gets to Peru and what he ends up saying. Rafael Romo in Lima, Peru. Thanks for joining us again, Rafael . It was some quick-moving to get you down to Peru that quickly. We'll keep up to speed on this story with you.
All right, speaking about Rafael getting on a plane and going to Peru, planes that are better for the environment, better for noise pollution better for your budget. NASA wants green planes. It's offering millions of dollars to get them. I'm going to tell you who is in the running to provide them when we get back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Every day on this show we give you the "Big I" big ideas that are going to change our world. You must have thought we were doing that when we were talking to that professor from Purdue about the membrane that was going to filter oil from water. But, no our "Big I" today is actually something entirely different.
Green planes. Why would (ph) we want green planes by the way? Let's talk about this. There are 10 million commercial flights worldwide every year. 10 million flights. You know how much fuel uses? 16 billion gallons of jet fuel. 16 billion gallons. Just think about that for a second. The cost of that is about $30 billion. Air travel while it may seem very cheap, tickets can be very cheap these days.
The fact is it is expensive as a mission. What are we looking for? We're looking for planes that do three things. One, carbonless. Doesn't mean the body is carbonless it could be made out of carbon fiber. It means they don't burn fossil fuels, coal, oil, things like that, that that are not renewable. So we cant carbonless planes, we want silent planes.
Why do we want silent planes? Because I'm on at least two or three flights a week and planes are loud. And we want cheaper planes. We want to do all this while not breaking the bank. We want to have planes that cost less to manufacture, cost less to operate, last longer.
Of course we all want these green things, we want all these things to happen. Who wants it? Well, NASA does. So I want to talk to Dr. Fay collier, he is the manager of NASA's Environmentally Responsible Aviation Project. Joining me from Hampton, Virginia. First question to you to, Dr. Collier, why is NASA involved in this business? I thought you guys were about in taking people to space. Why are you worried about commercial planes on earth?
DR. FAY COLLIER, MANAGER, NASA ERA PROJECT : Well, hello ,Ali, how are you doing?
VELSHI: Excellent.
Well, the first a in NASA stands for aeronautics and this is our heritage, we've been working this type of -- doing this type of research for a very long time, going back to 1917.
VELSHI: Now, you are offering an incentive to somebody who comes up for this. What does that mean? Will they get money or will they get the contract?
COLLIER: Well, essentially what we've done is we've written a solicitation to work toward the goals that you mentioned. It's a -- it's a research effort. The total value of the activity's around $36 million, $37 million.
So there will be a contract let to up to four of our -- four companies from our aerospace community. So, we're looking to do that over the next few months and have those folks do this research over the next couple of years.
VELHSI: All right. And you want something viable that could be in the air by 2025. Seems like a long time away, but in the aerospace world it's not really, because any airline today that's ordering planes is ordering for a few years out.
COLLIER: Yes, essentially this effort is -- is working into a five- or six-year program that we have. We want to identify concepts. We want to identify the technology so that we can get started on those right now. Gives us 10 or 15 years, as you said, to mature those technologies to the point where we can get them into the commercial fleet.
VELSHI: That's what I want to ask you next. Let's take a quick break, when you come back, you're going to tell me how this is going to change my life and the life of my viewers, because so much of what you do at NASA does actually affect our lives.
Stay with us, Dr. Fay collier, about how you may be on a greener cheaper, better, lighter, quieter, airplane in 10 or 15 years stay with me.
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Okay. Back with our big 'I'. the idea that NASA wants greener planes, planes that don't use fossil fuels, planes that are self- sufficient, cheaper, lighter, better to operate. I'm here with Dr. Fay collier from Hampton, Virginia, he's the manager of NASA's Environmentally Responsible Aviation Project.
And I get that NASA is involved in this sort of research that doesn't immediately have commercial application. But you're saying this one does. If you're looking for a plane that flies without fossil fuels by the year 2025. That means I could have an airline within the next ten years that's ordering those planes. How's that going to affect my ability to fly, how I fly, the cost of flying, things like that?
COLLIER: Well, the main thing we're focused on here, Ali, is developing technology, maturing technology, and trying to accelerate its introduction into the commercial fleet. So, what you might see is when you're in a aircraft that may result from this research, it would be quieter around the local airports or the local community.
Would see less noise in their backyard. The research also will affect local air quality, so fewer emissions around the airport. And then in addition to that, less -- less fuel burned over the -- over the -- while we execute the mission, there will be less fuel burned en route to your destination.
VELSHI: And we're not necessarily talking about a plane that doesn't use any fuel. You're talking about planes that don't use nonrenewable fuels, carbon fuels, so something is able to run on hydrogen or batteries or something like that, electricity, that could work?
COLLIER: Well, actually, in the midterm we're looking at aircraft designs which will continue to use jet fuel, but we're also in addition looking at alternative fuels, where maybe we're using blends of traditional jet fuel with these alternative fuels that overall you'll be reducing your total carbon footprint. And then in the longer term, perhaps we'll be going to complete low-carbon fuels where --
VELSHI: Yes.
COLLIER:: Where we'll make a huge reduction in the carbon footprint.
VELSHI: We look forward to it. Dr. Fay collier, of NASA's Environmentally Responsible Aviation Project, you'll keep us posted. We'll keep checking into it. Thanks for joining us.
COLLIER: Thanks, Ali.
VELSHI: All right. Birds covered in oil, the immediate tangible effect of the Gulf oil disaster, they're coming into rescue centers at an increasing rate. We're checking in with people who are determined to get them cleaned up and back into the air.
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