What, are you on the payroll running flack for BP? Ivory tower intellectuals are supposed to be able to offer engineering fixes out of thin air? These things take time and money, and the devotion of that to actual fixes has been quite weak. I'm sorry the guy rubbed you the wrong way but he was not selling himself as the guy with answers. Maddow points out that the low tech that we know works at least somewhat - booms and skimmers - is only being weakly applied at best.
At least one promising invention for improved skimming first invented in the 70s has languished on the shelf for about 20 years:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/36395/
Even Kevin Costner and brother's device might have promise but the $24 million they've invested in it, while large by private individual standards, is tiny, tiny compared to the amount spent by govt. to supposedly monitor such things or spent by industry to enrich its executives and shareholders - shareholders now bailing in droves as they signed on for fast profit, not costly amelioration, thank you very much. Is it a lot to ask of industry to back up its claims of safety, oh you bet its safe, with serious funds to actually implement known solutions?
Imagine a fleet of medium sized, or even small sized tankers with many giant versions of Costner's device and aggressive means for skimming? Instead we have BP spreading wholesale amounts of high strength detergent, a proprietary blend - sorry but the composition is a trade secret - that even BP admits has not been well tested.
So what is your contribution to this? Why shouldn't the hole in your face be plugged?