minute, i think it s the other way around, i think they might be saving me. reporter: why do you say that? because they help you to get a sense of appreciation for life, for what you have. reporter: a new appreciation for life and a new sense of responsibility. her latest project, breaking ground on a $15 million boarding school. the raising malawi academy for girls, slated to open in 2012. i never intended to go to malawi and just sort of dumped a bunch of like aid on people and flee the country. it s always been about partnership. reporter: and she s putting her money where her mouth is. every dollar donated to raising malawi.org, madonna will match. match my dollar. match my $100,000. reporter: make that $300,000 and counting. my biggest asset as a human being is, i would say, my
for that to operate. so today the seas are down to about four feet. a little bit of a better test. they re hoping the seas continue to calm down. but for now, that a whale is still being evaluated in terms of its success in skimming and its maneuverability. what we re really looking for on the a whale is, can it do what it s claimed to do? this is new technology that s never been tried before. they re out there for the next 48 hours trying to test its oil-skimming capabilities and its ability to maneuver in tight quarters out there. adds you know, we ve got approximately 3,000 ships fighting oil here off the coast of louisiana. they have to maneuver in tight quarters. and with 1,100-foot ship, that can be a pretty challenging effort. reporter: that fight has not been too sullivan in the past 24 hours.
weather. they re really hoping a hurricane doesn t come here because that would tremendously set back the effort. for now, the biggest hope is really killing that well and then the clean-up can really make much more progress. i m going to ask you one more question. i hope you can hear me over that train that s passing by in new orleans. but the closure of the fishing areas, the new fishing areas that have been closed, is that a huge deal? were fishermen actually going out and fishing those waters? reporter: you know, a lot of fishermen have been working for bp. they re just taking the jobs, moving that boom. i seay saw literally hundreds of boats from the sky working boom off the coast of mississippi, off the coast of louisiana. there s about 550 miles of boom out there. and it s essentially the fishermen who are doing that job. the vast majority of fishermen, i think, are now on bp s
in fact, only 1,100 barrels of oil were skimmed in the gulf during the 24 hours, ending at 6:00 a.m. this morning. that s less than the amount of oil spitting out from the gusher within one hour, using the most conservative estimates. so they really do need some help and hopefully this a whale can provide it. they really sound like they re fighting a losing battle. you ve been on this since the get-go. if this does work, can it really make an impact when you re telling us that all this oil is leaking per hour out there? reporter: you know, it can make an impact. but the fact is, until that gusher is killed, until it s actually clogged up, you re still battling against more and more oil coming out. and the rear admiral of the coast guard told me over the weekend, our biggest enemy here, aside from the oil gushing out, is mother nature, is the
the big i. just before the break, carol costello introduced us to mark supp suppes, who has put together a nuclear reactor at a warehouse in brooklyn. he joins us now live from our studios in new york. and you know, mark, first things first. you design websites for gucci? that s correct. so, you know, where do you cross paths with nuclear fusion? how did you get into this? i ve been an entrepreneur for almost ten years now. and i ve done a lot of web start-ups and a lot of technology. and very comfortable looking at a problem and identifying an opportunity. and so you re sitting around, looking at a problem like how can i put together a nuclear reactor in this warehouse? and solve the energy crisis. i would say it was more like i was between start-ups and i saw this video that busar gave and i was so inspired and it looked like such a winning solution to the energy problem.