E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSCan naturally occurring microbes help clean up the oil spill? Some experts say yes.
Scientists say microbes, some of the smallest living things on Earth, can gobble up some of the oil, much like the pint-sized yellow chompers who swallow dots in the Pac-Man video game.
"You take natural oil-eating microbes in the water and give them fertilizer to make them multiply and degrade the oil faster. Oil is a natural product. It's inherently biodegradable,'' Terry Hazen, microbial ecologist in the Earth Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California, tells the Miamia Herald.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist on Thursday visited a Sarasota company that sells microbes that eat oil. BP says it's open to using them. And the federal government is contacting its pre-approved list of companies to see how quickly they can ramp up production.
Leave a Comment:
Isn't that how Godzilla got started ?
Toxic pollution ?
Look out Tokyo !!
I hope this works and doesn't back fire.
My concern is creating long lasting dead zones in the ocean where there is no oxygen present and fish die if they enter them. These currently exist and "bloom" due to certain types of phytoplankton spawning and consuming, I believe it is, hydrocarbons present in the ocean.
There is still a huge amount of research being conducted to understand more about these dead zones, but a huge bloom of dead zone would be just as bad if not worse than the oil.
If I am mistaken about the cause of the dead zones, I apologize for my ineptitude. I hope they do their research though.
Aten, the phytoplankton bloom causing the annual dead zone in the Gulf is largely created by nitrogen fertilizers washing down the Mississipi basin. It's a very real phenomenon, an existing drag on fishing in the region, and one that's getting worse as the years go on and we exercise poor conservation practices.
So we're putting an enormous additional stress on an already stressed environment. I don't know if the microbes in question consume oxygen out of the water, but they'll certainly consume it as they die and decay. A valid concern. When we try to solve problems with technology there's always the risk of unintended consequences.
sweet. a month ago I thought about these little buggers, I seem to recall seeing something about these from the valdez days. As I vaguely recall, they eat crude oil and excrete some fatty substance that fish can eat.
I believe they are loose in Kieth O and Howard Finklemans brains, would someone please tell them this is BP's spill not POTUS. Don't believe the whistle blower, I do the same type of work and notice he said nothing specific about the drawings and what his problem was with them.
When you say whistle blower, are you talking about the guy who sued the MMS to stop work on the Atlas (i think that is what is called) rig? Because I think he said his problem with the drawings was that there weren't any. When he tried to get the engineers to make them, they refused. Since you do that type of work, are those drawings pretty common? Everything I have read makes it sound like they are an industry standard.
Aside from that, he cited other concerns as well. Plus what I read said he is not even suing for any money, so it sounds like he is very concerned that an even worse spill could happen if the other rig goes forward because it is a much larger rig. Maybe I have read the wrong stuff. Maybe he just wants his 15 minutes, but with all the other stuff I have recently read about BP's practices, I am inclined to differ to him.
If you are talking about some other whistle blower, then I will have to look into that.
Atlantis Rig. Also Some concerns with Thunderhorse rig.
Aten, The drawings you need to operate have be the final redlined (revised) P&ID (process and instrumentation drawings), the rule is if its not shown on these drawings it doesn't exist. These drawing match the DCS that runs the platform(unit). You can't commission or start-up the unit without them..period. This is an industry HAZOP requirement..period. These drawings are the basis for design that generate the hundreds of fabrication drawings and actual 3d model views of the installation etc., without them you can't build..I smell a rat.