Bio-Weapons That Eat Ammunition and Fuel

1gor writes: "This article in The Observer mentions Pentagon's plans to use genetically modified bugs that 'eat' the enemy's fuel and ammunition supplies without harming humans (they also want to to pacify the enemy by spraying Valium). Imagine an escaped virus destroying the Earth's oil reserves and its whole industrial potential? Curiously, the military may implement the environmentalists' ultimate dream!"

Comments

jesus

[Anonymous Coward]

this is what is commonly known as a "bad idea"

Re:jesus

[jdriller]

This has already been going on for years now. Several companies now do this for toxic waste/Superfund/oil spill sites. There are LOTS of strains of bacteria and fungi that are 'customized' for different wastes; usually engineered from strains already surviving on the existing waste. Has not seemed to get out of hand though this was an initial concern (and could conceivably happen).

Wrong.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

That requires that someone have a good idea every once in awhile. With nothing to compare it to, it's simply an idea.

This may work

[spineboy]

Succesful use of genengineered bugs have been used "in the field" with oil spills. Naturally while the USA will have this initially, as time goes on others will get it. The USA will just have to stay 1 step ahead in order to continue to use this stuff.

"Sarge, I gotta immunize my ammo first before I hit the front lines."

As in biology, there may be infection, immunization, reinfection with altered strain, re-immunization and so-forth. Might be kinda fun

Funny...

[Anonymous Coward]

They had this virus that eats oil for a long time, originially they wanted to use it to clean up oil spills, but they were afraid it would get into the oil supply back then too. So it did not get used.

Now that it is the in national interests(AKA: someone can make serious dough) it can be used by the military. I wonder what the chances of it being used if there is another major oil spill if the military has it. God knows that the US military bases are among the worst polluters in the world.

Re:Funny...

[Pxtl]

The US nuclear weapons industry had scandalous waste processing procedures. The messes produced by that industry villified nuclear technology as a whole, permanently damaging the very careful and clean power industry.

The US and other countries are destroying themselves converting to combustion power systems to avoid nuclear power because of the stigma generated by the US nuclear weapons industry - tanks of waste were buried with lower standards then a tank at a gas station. Suburbs were built over atomic waste sites. There was a company in mexico that was given tons of radioactive waste to recycle into building materials - hundreds of radioactive dinner tables ended up all over the place. Consistently, these always come from the weapons industry, not the power industry.

Maybe that's not the US military, but it is a product of the US war machine. You can't disconnect them completely.

Kevin J Anderson wrote this

[knodi]

"A supertanker has crashed off the shores of San Francisco, producing the largest oil spill in history. Desperate to avert an ecological--and public relations--disaster, a multinational oil company releases an untested virus designed to break up the spill. A virus that spreads like wildfire on the wind, destroying anything made of petroleum-destroying gasoline in automobile tanks, plastic, nylon, the very fabric of modern civilization itself."

-Summary of Ill Wind, by Kevin J Anderson.
One of my favorite post apocalyptic science fiction novels. Awesome read. Coolest part is that most guns can now fire exactly once, if they were already loaded, because the lubricant inside has turned to glue.

Re:Kevin J Anderson wrote this

[Lynx0]

Sounds like me someone doesn't really know a virus from a bacteria. A virus does not have a metabolism, hence it can not 'break up' an oil spill.
I like science fiction, but not if the authors leave the science part out of it, and replace it with 'words that sound cool'.

Re:Kevin J Anderson wrote this

[jonbrewer]

-Summary of Ill Wind, by Kevin J Anderson

Neil Stephenson's "Zodiac" also deals with such critters meant to clean up pollution. It's a damn good read.

Re:Kevin J Anderson wrote this

[cryptochrome]

People have attempted to use genetically engineered bugs to clean up oil spills before. What they found is that these GE bugs don't perform any better than the naturally occurring organisms already there. In fact, they seem to do worse, probably because a bacterial monoculture is less capable than the complex natural polyculture.

All you need to get bugs to eat an oil spill is fertilizer and time. That's pretty much it.

Re:Kevin J Anderson wrote this

[gorilla]

Kevin J Anderson is a hack writer, who whores himself out to write books for Star Trek, X Files, even the Scientologists.

Weapon?

[KH]

According to the article,

The development of these 'non-lethal' weapons angers campaigners who claim that they would breach international treaties on biological and chemical weapons.

Is a chemical that tranquilize enemy still a weapon? Or, the bug that does not harm humans still a weapon? Is there a definition of weapon? These things are not only non-lethal, but not harmful in the sense that they don't even cause pain (well, for the case of the bug, it might cause a head-ache). I find this an interesting question. Does anything used by military against enemy become a weapon?

Re:Weapon?

[RedWizzard]

Is a chemical that tranquilize enemy still a weapon?

How about this definition: if you can use it on some random member of the public without getting arrested then it's not a weapon.

Re:Weapon?

[eatdave13]

And just what is your problem with New Zelanders?

Re:Weapon?

[overunderunderdone]

Is a chemical that tranquilize enemy still a weapon?

Yes, at least for the purposes of international law. The Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the use of Riot Control agents on the battlefield. (Article 1 clause 5). Though they can be used on rioting prisoners in a POW camp.

Wipe out the fuel reserves?

[Daath]

I wonder how long it would take to come up with a viable alternate energy resource? Maybe it's a catastrophe like that that would force us to discover the ultimate energy source? :)
Dare we try? I think not! ;)

They would be dumb

[Tri0de]

to at least not research it. All research is good, all knowledge and information is good; the application may be bad, but I have major contempt for people who say "we shouldn't look into this at all". Personally, once the internal combustion engine is a thing of the past the earth will be a much better place.
And still can't decide which is the bigger mindfuck of a pacifier, broadcast TV or this Valium spray.

Re:They would be dumb

[Paul Komarek]

"All research is good, all knowledge is good"

As a person in the research business, I'm not so sure that all reasearch and knowledge is good. Defining "research" is hard, and some people have "crossed the line" -- think of Nazi science research on people in prison camps. Clearly that was not good.

As for knowledge, is it ethical to use knowledge gained from those prison camp experiments? Almost everyone says no. This suggests that the statement "all knowledge is good" is not true; my off-the-cuff opinion is that it is an oversimplication with important exceptions.

Maybe we could say that Wisdom is good, and with wisdom, knowledge is good. But that depends on defining wisdom, and we'd probably end up with a tautology when we did that (wisdom == whatever it takes to make knowledge good). These aren't just semantic problems. There are records which suggest our species (I'm making an assumption here ;-) has tried to nail down ideas like knowledge and truth for several millenia. It seems likely "we" have struggled with it for longer than we have records. This isn't simple stuff, and it's not taught in science, math, or computer courses.

-Paul Komarek

Re:They would be dumb

[TGK]

Nazi research on the Jews, specificly research pretaining to the effects of low presures and temperatures on the human body was the foundation of our space program (and our ability to develop the a space suit).

Japanese research into the effects of various viruses/bacterium on the human body in unit 731 (frequently considred a great deal more vicious than the Nazi research) yeilded results which the US would keep secret until the 1980s for use in our own biowarfare programs. (Hypotheticly ending in 1972).

This is to say nothing of more engineering related research done by the Nazis such as balistic rocketry (space program), jet engines, and hydrogen based power plants for submarines (precurser to the modern fuel cell? I'm not sure on that one).

Re:They would be dumb

[cureless]

I somewhat disagree.

I would think that it's our obligation to use that knowledge. Not because we agree with how it was obtained, but because those people shouldn't have died in vain. It is, however, our duty to make sure research is done the right way. But if we learn something from "mistakes" it doesn't mean that knowledge is bad.

I see more controversial the research in military weapons or tactics, which definately are going to be used for war/destruction.

Take the knowledge that we might have "wrongfully" gained and start doing good stuff, solve cancer or something.

cl

Re:They would be dumb

[Paul Komarek]

Well, here's my take on the Nazi research.

Possibly unfortunately, the human subjects of Nazi research didn't necessarily die because of the research. At any rate, my believe is that you can't die well or die in vain. One can only live well or throw one's life away. Those people violated by Nazi "research" atrocities are still harmed, regardless of what we do with the knowledge gained.

Since those people are still harmed, one might argue that we might as well do something with the knowledge gained. My belief is that using that knowledge *rewards* the researcher and the research. The research gets a citation, which is a big deal in scientifc work. The researcher is simulatneously cited. But that isn't the end of things.

As a researcher, there is nothing I want more than to make a difference with my work. I face spectacularly bad odds, as most all research is crap. Even good research is 100% evolution, not revolution (the set of revolutionary research has zero measure, but please don't take me too literally on this =-). Thus the highest reward I can be given is evidence that someone is using my work. From this I concluded that using the Nazi research not only produces citations for the research and the researcher, but it encourages the researcher, those that facilitated the research, and those that envy the researher's success to continue their methods of research.

I don't feel I'm stretching anything to make this argument. Many people fake research, hoping to get some good press (even if necessarily short-lived). People kill themselves because of failed research (plenty of examples of this). There are businesses, and even economies, built on scientific research (not to mention huge military budgets). My conclusion is that there are people who would repeat the Nazi research if they thought they could see their name in lights. Any lights. Think of the miserable researcher Dr. Seed.

In summary, I think that some researchers can be compared to children when it comes to attention. Suppose a child discovers that the only way to get his or her parents' attention is to misbehave. No matter how negative the attention he or she receives, that attention is better than none at all. As an afterthought, I don't know why I'm making that last statement specific to children and some researchers, since it's probably true for all humans who can't get the attention they need.

-Paul Komarek

valium .. too expensive

[jest3r]

Valium is pretty expensive to produce let alone spray over large areas ..

I would suggest dropping massive amounts of Cannabis sativa seeds .. they are easily and cheaply produced .. since it is a weed it spreads very quickly - grows well in tropical climates .. and has muliple uses ..

In fact there is a very real possibility that this approach could turn the enemy into a bunch of friendly peaceful pot smoking farmers ..

Re:valium .. too expensive

[Sentry21]

In fact there is a very real possibility that this approach could turn the enemy into a bunch of friendly peaceful pot smoking farmers ..

The world has enough Canadians, try something new for a change.

--Dan

Re:valium .. too expensive

[0x20]

Right. I'm sure the first instinct of soldiers witnessing the enemy drop tons of some kind of seed on their heads is "Hey! Let's cultivate these things, wait a couple of years for them to yield, harvest all the leaves and buds, dry them up, crumble them into a rolled-up paper tube, and start smoking! Wonder what'll happen?"

If you invented some kind of transdermal cannabis gel, that might work. But half the soldiers would just become (more) paranoid and wary, and the other half would storm our camps looking for Doritos.

Re:valium .. too expensive

[streetlawyer]

Yes, there is every chance that the enemy could become at least as peace-loving as the notoriously Quaker-like Jamaican Yardies.

Re:valium .. too expensive

[shomon2]

I would also find this useless.

You'd get very wierd effects spraying valium. Firstly, middle aged housewives from all over the world would join up en masse to the enemy country where the spray was going to happen. Second, why spray when you can sell it in local markets, encourage it's illegal growth etc? A drugged up army and an addicted country is an easy thing to get, whatever your motive.And I think this is already being done, by many countries in many different kinds of war around the world.

The hard part is building the nation back once you've addicted them all to the "ecological" sprays you might have used.

Ecology is like security: it's long term, continuous: a path, not a door - and in these cases, it's going to be too late: peace is much more ecological.

The Andromeda Strain

[cybrpnk2]

This is, of course, how Michael Crichton's original bestseller The Andromeda Strain ended when it was written almost a quarter century ago. As this review so aptly notes, TAS is still ahead of its time. Perhaps it's worth a quick (re)read?

Re:The Andromeda Strain

[Reziac]

The movie looks dated now, but in its day it was a damned exciting ride. (And yes, I saw it first-run :)

Re:The Andromeda Strain

[cybrpnk2]

I read it as a teen when it first came out as a "beach book" on a trip to Clearwater, FL, and it HAD to be interesting to divert my attention away from all those bikinis ... I'd never seen so many of 'em in my life.

Environmentalist's dream?

[(void*)]

How so? All this means is that people to switch to electricity and nuclear power.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[G-funk]

Nuclear power is an environmentalist's dream. they're just too busy protesting about the word nuclear they don't see it.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[saveth]

If you'll recall, the majority of the world's automobiles run on gasoline.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[Gaccm]

You are right that nuclear plants release very few pollutants, but their are two major problems with them. First, most of the plants don't extract all usable aspects from the uranium (not all, Eruope has a few plants that refine the used uranium and then extract more power from them), this causes us to be stuck with lots of used uranium rods.
The 2nd major problem is that if a plant ever blew up, everything in the local enviornment would die.
Solar power is so popular because it has no moving parts so it can last a long time, harnesses a power source that is basicly infinite, and (except for the manufactoring of cells) has no affect on the enviorment.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[red5]

And what about all the nuclear we can't get rid of?
Did I miss somthing or isn't this the main flaw in nuclear power?

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[JordanH]

• Nuclear power is an environmentalist's dream. they're just too busy protesting about the word nuclear they don't see it.

People are funny about the term nuclear. MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) was first called NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), but the name was changed because they were afraid that people would think they would get hard radiation from it. They didn't want to give that misimpression. X-Rays are pretty hard radiation, but MRIs are pretty innocuous, by comparison.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[Paul Komarek]

I think the main flaw in nuclear power is the lack of discipline in power plant construction and operation. Coming from a state with a lousy history of both (Washington), I can say first hand that the principle problem with nuclear power is the involvement of weak humans.

-Paul Komarek

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[Paul Komarek]

"People are funny about the term nuclear."

People are even funnier about the term "nuculer". ;-)

-Paul Komarek

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[cadallin451]

Your first point is an issue of implementation, and therefore isn't really valid against nuclear power in general. Your second point is just absurd "if a plant ever blew up," there are so many reasons that wouldn't happen its ridiculous to even think about it. Of course it could happen, but its also possible that your car's gas tank could spontaneously explode, but you don't spend too much time worrying about that, do you? There's way too much radiation paranoia in the US, its just not that big a threat. The real issue is heat pollution, but that's an engineering problem that simply requires adequate water reservoirs and cooling.

Solar is not a viable solution for power, we just don't possess technology to obtain anywhere near the efficiency required. When someone designs a solar cell that is actually capable of converting a significant percentage of the sunlight that hits it to electricity, then there will be an alternative. Solar power isn't infinite eitherer, there is a very definite finite number of joules that fall on the earth at any given time, that amount would be sufficient to sustain our power needs if we had some way to convert enough of it, but we don't.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[unitron]

Considering that the insulation on many, if not most, electrical wires is made out of something made out of petroleum, anything that put the petroleum business out of business would put technology out of business.

Petroleum is used to make so many things other than fuel that it's almost a sin to burn it, at least until we can grow more the way we can with trees. Not that I'm expecting that any time soon.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[debrain]

Nuclear radiation or spent rods? The prior isn't an relative issue since coal plants release exponential magnitudes more radioactive material than nuclear power plants. The latter is a strange issue; the "spent" rods are actually have more potential energy than the new, or pure uranium rods.

There are many atomic derivatives of uranium fission, not the least of which is plutonium. It is very possible, indeed much easier, to reach critical mass with spent rods than pure uranium rods. (technically, all you have to do is smash them together). You can put a pure uranium rod into a pool, and nothing happens, but if you put spent rods in the pool it glows blue/green (ala Cocoon, the movie) for a day or so. (YMMV)

The point would be that there is a harvestable energy source in "spent" rods, that can be remanufactured. Thermodynamics of course comes into play, and there are stil residuals, but nevertheless, the waste from one nuclear chamber is potential fuel for another. There are marginal returns in many cases, nevertheless the eventual breakdown leads to non-radioactive materials.

I only know this because I worked at a nuclear power plant; this is what I soaked up. ;)

Cheers

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[Gaccm]

i said "no affect on the enviornment" because 1) in all urban areas wires are in place and panels are installed on roofs. and 2) in nature the only places panels are installed are in deserts because of the high amount of light there, so there is no very large impact by installation.
Also, its not about having 1 giant streak, its about massive decentralization in places were it wouldn't have a large affect.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[Gaccm]

"if a plant ever blew up" yeah, the chances of that are insanely small, about the changes of a plane hitting the wtc. My point is that it is possible. A solar panel can't blow up, that is why it is better as an "enviornmentalist's dream" (see topic) than nuclear.

As for efficiency, you're right, we don't have very efficient solar panels yet, but nuclear power hasn't given us electrocity too cheap to meter as was advertised. But, it's not like the world will switch over to solar overnight. As the technology gets progressively better, more and more people will start to use it.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[timster]

Allow me to repair your ignorance. It is actually NOT possible.
A nuclear explosion requires a certain (high) concentration of fuel, as well as a certain ratio of volume to surface area - or it doesn't happen. This is why making a nuclear bomb is actually very difficult. In a fission reactor, the material isn't concentrated enough, and it isn't unstable enough. Further, the material isn't in one large chunk - it's separated into rods. And further, there's no mechanism for imploding the reaction material to reach critical mass. So no, actually, despite what you read in old sci-fi, it's not physically possible for a fission reactor to explode. Take the rods out, overheat the thing, whatever. The ABSOLUTE worst is that it gets really hot and melts - which is very bad, but very rare, much rarer than a coal or gas explosion (so the overall risk is lower).

The only major nuclear disaster in history is Chernobyl, which was not a nuclear reaction but a chemical reaction; the graphite coolant caught fire. The graphite reactor was a bad design, and all reactors today are water-cooled. Further, Chernobyl had no containment building to speak of, and was run by idiots.

People speak of Three Mile Island as if it was some kind of disaster, but it didn't hurt anybody or anything. The worst that happened from TMI was the destruction of the reactor itself (which is a bit of a disaster alone, since those things cost billions).

A complete meltdown is a disaster, but not the end of the world. It would be nothing like the destruction wreaked by even a small nuclear weapon.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[red5]

The point would be that there is a harvestable energy source in "spent" rods, that can be remanufactured. Thermodynamics of course comes into play, and there are stil residuals, but nevertheless, the waste from one nuclear chamber is potential fuel for another. There are marginal returns in many cases, nevertheless the eventual breakdown leads to non-radioactive materials.

So don't they do it. Is it REALLY more economical to store the bloody things for 10,000 years?

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[red5]

People are afraid of nuclear power because they think of things like Hiroshima. And because the media tells them that radiation is bad for them. Neither is particularly true. Generally nuclear power plants won't explode. They wear out and systems fail. Things have to be repaired or replaced. And generally levels of radiation in nuclear power plants are far lower than in the general environment.

No I think that has more to do with Chernobyl than Hiroshima and it's not the media that tells me radiation is bad for us it's just about every study I've ever seen on the subject.

As for nuclear waste... well, the oft quoted remark is that "there is no such thing as nuclear waste, just stuff we haven't found a use for yet."

Yah, or a safe place to keep it in as well.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[Technician]

there is a very definite finite number of joules that fall on the earth at any given time
I wonder how long will it be before we have to decide if to plant corn or solar in the field this year? How much will that change the cost of food?

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[delcielo]

I would humbly submit that if petroleum products disappear, so will nuclear power plants. You need all kinds of lubricants for the turbines and generators, plastics for wiring insulation and a million other things, etc.

It's kind of ironic that a nuclear power plant can't be built and run without petroleum products.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[mikerich]

The only major nuclear disaster in history is Chernobyl, which was not a nuclear reaction but a chemical reaction; the graphite coolant caught fire. The graphite reactor was a bad design, and all reactors today are water-cooled. Further, Chernobyl had no containment building to speak of, and was run by idiots.

Close enough for half a cigar. The cause of the explosion was hydrogen. The RMBK reactor is almost unique in that it uses a graphite moderator and a water coolant (which also acts as a moderator).

When the control rods were removed, there were more neutrons in the reactor, more power was produced. Steam formed in the water system, steam absorbs fewer neutrons than water, the reaction increased.

Eventually a coolant pipe failed, steam was sprayed on to a mixture of red hot graphite, hit uranium and hot zirconium - all of these produce hydrogen (and in the case of graphite, carbon monoxide). There was a hydrogen explosion that blew the core apart and started the graphite fire which pumped the volatile radionucleides into the atmosphere.

As for being idiots. Hmmm a tricky one. Certainly the experiment was badly designed, and they definitely did the wrong thing. But the experiments needed to be done.

The Soviet plants relied on diesel generators to provide electrical power to the pumps in the event of a powergrid failure (nuclear power plants rely on off-site power for driving their pumps), however no one knew how long it would take to start the diesels. So they did the experiment.

And there are a number of reactors that are not water-cooled. Whilst the US PWR is clearly the most common design in the World, there is a substantial generation from gas-cooled reactors. Mainly in the UK, which has the Magnox and Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGR).

Magnox was designed to provide plutonium for the British Bomb (it allows on-line refuelling which ensures that the plutonium has a low percentage of Pu240) and is now being phased out. The AGRs are the mainstay of British power production, but have turned out to be economic disasters. Britain was moving to the PWR when the entire programme was cancelled because of its spiralling costs. One station was completed at Sizewell on the East Coast.

And finally, those people who are talking about reprocessing as being clean. Sorry, the British have more experience of this than anyone else, and it is a nightmare. Environmentally, you are left with huge amounts of high-level waste that needs to be stored, low-level waste is produced in enormous quantities (most of which has gone down the pipe into the Irish Sea). You produce plutonium that no one wants (MOX fuel will age reactors faster than uranium fuel) and the recycled uranium is far more expensive than fresh fuel.

If it wasn't for (Uranium) Jack Cunningham MP, a senior minister in the 1997 Labour government (who happens to have the Sellafield reprocessing plant in his constituency), Britain would probably have closed down its reprocessing operations. Now after a scandal involving faked quality control at the MOX plant, we can't sell fuel to Japanese power plants which was the justification for THORP and MOX in the first place.

Sellafield is a scandal which is poisoning the whole nuclear industry. British Nuclear Fuels Limited (inspiration for IIF in 'Edge of Darkness'*) would dearly love to sell its Westinghouse reactors around the World, but no one trusts it. Well apart from the US DoE who is employing it to clean up Hanford in Washington State.

Oh and Tony Blair, who wants to privatise the profitable bits and leave the taxpayer to clean up BNFL's mess.

Best wishes,
Mike.

* What do you mean you haven't seen it - go get it now! Trust me, it is one of the best TV programmes ever made.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[TGK]

sorry... yes... feet

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[angel'o'sphere]

What about Three Miles Island, Harrisburg?
Close to a Core Melt, depending how you define a core melt.

Your analysis about how a melt down would happen and what it causes is unfortunatly wrong.

A melt down is absolutely comparable, if not far worse, to a smal nuclear war head.

The difference is this: a war head is designed to fission as much of its uranium/plutonium as possible(same is true if it is a H-Bomb). For that a very strong case out of metal is build. If it is a H-Bomb a neutron reflecting material is worked in. The goal is to keep the bomb from "exploding" as long as possible. The bomb is ignitioned far over ground, lets say 1000 meters (~3000 feet). The detonation causes heat radiation and of course neutron and gamma radiation. The shockwaves in the atmosphere flatten everything. Goal of course is to minimice "fall out", radioactive material deposited over the land.

What happends in a core melting: the amount of fissionable material is just to smal to cause a uncontrolled chain reaction. Your claim a uncontrolled chain reaction can not happen, thus a reactor core can not explode is wrong. The previous author was perfectly right: just put enough fission able uranium into one point and it explodes just like a fission bomb. However it won't transform much of its fission material into energy as it is falling apart through the explosion because it lacks the "bomb case". If your reactor is constructed in a way that it allowes a core melting, you need great luck that the melted material can not concentrate enough fission material at one point in the "magma" to cause a uncontrolled chain reaction. As long as you have magma, melted uranium mixed with melted metals and stone from the reactor floor, it is likely that it burns down to the ground water. Now you get a steam explosion. That will erupt straight through your miler into the atmosphere. In a worst case scenario you have a hughe amount of fission waste products and fission able material distributed over the environment. The area coverd depends on weather conditions. If you have light wind you get an about 3 miles wide and 100 to 200 miles long stripe of area where waste is deployed.

The core melting lacks the direct destruction a A-bomb had. No shock wave, no heat flash, no gamma flash.

Looking at the area wich now can't be used to farm, not to talk to live in, a core melt is far more desasterous than a nuclear war head.

Ever heared the term "critical mass"? Thats the amount of uranium or plutonium you need to build a self made nuclear war head.

Just take two cubes of Uranium, both just below the "critical mass". Then put them together.
A nuclear fission explosion, compareable to Hiroschima or Nagasaki will happen. As I said above: a missing bomb hull, lasting for some 1000s of a second, keeping the fission material long enough together, is all what is preventing it to be a real A bomb. Nevertheless such a thing would destroy a huge area, something like 1km x 1km and deposte all its fission material as waste over an much much bigger area.

Todays modern reactors are build in a way that melt downs are (nearly) impossible. If a chain reaction is started neutrons get produced. For each fission of a uranium atom about 2 neutrons get free. Those are used to break up one or two further atoms. As you see the number of neutrons is doubeling each step and thus the potential fission of atoms doubles each step also. Thats a uncontrollable chain reaction, wich happens in a fission bomb. Usualy the neutrons are to fast. A uranium atom would just deflect the neutron. Like if you use a ping pong ball for bowling.
A reactor uses a gas or fluid to slow down neutrons, thats called moderating. When they are slow enough they can hit an atom and break it up. Security from a core melt you basicly get by designing the reactor in a way that the fluid or gas is breaking out of the reactor if it is to hot. So a reactor core going wild(uncontrolled) would heat up its moderation medium, that goes out of the reactor via pipes desigend to open if overheat occures. As the moderation medium gets lost by that, the chain reaction would stop.

Chernobyl used graphit as moderation medium ... and when the reactor overheated it started a fire.

angel'o'sphere

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[hey!]

These kinds of debates aren't very englightening, because everyone heads for the extreme example right away.

Are you going to bend under terrorism and stand against all attempts to build important structures, because those might get attacked?

This argument only makes sense if the cost and nature of an attack on every kind of important structure is the same. It's different if somebody plows a 747 into a coal plant than if they plow it into a nuclear plant; just as its' different if they crash into an abandoned warehouse or the WTC.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't build nukes, but we should consider the ability to defend them against probable attacks and to reduce the effects of such an attack. If we can neither defend them nor reduce the effect, then we shouldn't build them until we know how. This is from somebody who advocates the building of nuclear plants with more advanced designs than we have today.

Re:Environmentalist's dream?

[angel'o'sphere]

Your explanaition is mainly right, but mine also.


So the temperature rises and the core distorts, the materials that support the fuel rods melt. Still no nuclear reactions happening but heat

After the moderator is gone, right, there is no fission any longer.

transfer is even worse now. TMI reached the point where core geometry was changed as a result of the accident. With no moderator you won't achieve criticality
It can get critical without moderation, thats the hughe problem, see below.
and the geometry of a puddle of fuel is definately NOT that to easily create a critical reaction.

This only depends on the total amount of fissionable material in the rods. The fissionable material will allways be ABOVE critical mass. It is just not concentrated on one point but spread over a large set of rods. If you would not start with an amount higher than the critical mass a self running or self sustaining fission process would be impossible. However you could generate neutrons externaly and beam them onto the fission pellets ... but thats not done currently.

The melted material is a mixture as you said. But it containes more than the critical mass of uranium. It is thinned out by the other metals and melted concrete and such, so it is unlikely that it can concentrate and explode.

But it could. Thats the point.


One last note: just pushing two pieces of uranium together to make a critica mass won't necessarily make an explosion although the neutron burst would probably be ugly, if rather short. It takes more than that to make things go BOOM.
Unfortunatly this is wrong. The BOOM would be rather smal in relation to a designed nuke. But it would be enough to destroy a some hundret yards area. As I explained the two pieces would not stick together long enough to fission much of it, thats what you mean I guess.

I mainly wanted to point out that a melted core likely will burn its way through the building down into earth and will hit ground water sooner or later. If such a thing would happen the fall out would be far worse than a strike by a smal nuke. However there would not be much direct destruction as there is no real explosion but steam eruption.

angel'o'sphere

"Ultimate dream"?

[monkey typewriter]

Curiously, the military may implement the environmentalists' ultimate dream!

Sorry, what? Did you just pull that out of your arse? Which environmentalists are campaigning for the abolition of oil (as opposed to the unnecessary combustion of oil)?

Clearly oil serves a great many needs, fueling your car being just one of those needs. To claim without basis that a group of people dream of the worlds oil stocks becoming unusable is to reveal your own bias against this group.

Re:"Ultimate dream"?

[zeno_2]

Well, what happens when those big tankers sink, they release all that oil. Id imagine it would be an enviormentalists dream to have a bacteria or whatever to get rid of all that oil from the ocean's waters. That would be my guess..

Re:"Ultimate dream"?

[SEE]

Each year, more petroleum seeps up from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico into the world's oceans than in every human-caused oil spill in history combined.

There are entire ecosystems near these oil seeps whose primary source of energy is not solar photosynthesis, but breaking down petroleum and natural gas.

Yes, petroleum spills by people cause temporary and localized deaths of organisms and disruption of ecosystems, but they just aren't that big a deal in the overall scheme of things.

Re:"Ultimate dream"?

[Sentry21]

Fuelling a car with oil (gasoline actually, unless your engine is in pretty bad shape) is a horrid, stupid idea that everyone *should* be opposed to. Lubrication of a vehicle not powered by gasoline would be a problem, but you'd just have to re-lube with synthetics.

The world's oil stocks being unusable wouldn't be a utopia instantly, but it would force people to stop destroying the environment for a profit. Chunks of ice the size of cities are falling off Antarctica more and more frequently, and I'm a huge fan of Vancouver, Montreal, and Amsterdam, just to name a few. Maybe an ecological revolution, planned or not, would be a good thing.

--Dan

Re:"Ultimate dream"?

[at_18]

Each year, more petroleum seeps up from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico into the world's oceans than in every human-caused oil spill in history combined.

There are entire ecosystems near these oil seeps whose primary source of energy is not solar photosynthesis, but breaking down petroleum and natural gas.

Great, this is really interesting. Do you have some URLs for that?

Re:"Ultimate dream"?

[nathanm]

Do you have some URLs for that?

That's just basic geology.

As time and pressure decay organisms buried under the ocean, raw petroleum is produced. Since it's less dense than the water saturating the surrounding crust, it slowly rises. About 1% gets trapped in the right conditions, i.e. under an impervious layer, where it can be drilled for. The other 99% seeps up into the ocean.

Re:"Ultimate dream"?

[SEE]

Sure. Here's a story about one of the ecosystems.

Re:"Ultimate dream"?

[SEE]

The Department of Energy defines petroleum as: "A generic term applied to oil and oil products in all forms, such as crude oil, lease condensate, unfinished oils, petroleum products, natural gas plant liquids, and nonhydrocarbon compounds blended into finished petroleum products."

And, of course, that something isn't "that big a deal in the overall scheme of things" doesn't mean it isn't worth trying to prevent. It does mean that there are other things more important to try to prevent, and if a choice has to be made (and a choice always has to be made at some point, because that's how the real world works), we should handle the more important things first.

Re:"Ultimate dream"?

[SEE]

You are correct, I did not make a logical argument. I merely presented several facts. (Admittedly, one is not universally accepted.)

Instead, my unexpressed logical conclusion (and I should have expressed it) is that a "superbug" that destroyed the Earth's geological petroleum would not be an environmentalists' dream because its benefits would be limited to reducing short-term, localized ecological damage, while it would cause irreperable harm to the seabed ecosystems.

More stupid editorializing

[coyote-san]

Once again Timothy couldn't let something by without stupid editorializing.

Very few environmentalists want us to drop off a petroleum-based economy precipitously. It will take a few years for the excess 5 billion people to die off as the population returns to what's supportable in a pre-mechanical society, and they won't go quietly. You'll find few trees and few wild animals outside of the remote Canada and Siberia.

What we want is wise use, not no use. E.g., it's better to have 30% of the car fleet using hybrid gas/electric motors with 80 MPG, not 30% of the fleet monster SUVs with <15 MPG while the idealistic zero emissions cars are <1% of the fleet because few people are willing to buy cars that can never go more than a few hundred miles.

Re:More stupid editorializing

[minusthink]

It wasn't timothy you dolt.
It was 1gor, the person who sent the story in.

Re:More stupid editorializing

[Kidbro]

Once again Timothy couldn't let something by without stupid editorializing.

Except, of course, for the fact that Timothy didn't edit it.
The slashdot editors are making enough mistakes for you to not have to make some up for them.

Can anyone ever see the big picture?

[RestiffBard]

ok. worse case scenario this stuff becomes uncontainable and renders all the world's oil resources useless. Great idea. wrong. I can't say how wrong and awful and catastrophic this would be. I'm as big an environmentalist as the next guy but, this is just ludicrous. oh no problem we'll jsut switch to renewable or nuclear resources. wrong. its not that easy. if you think it is you live in a dream land. I have no problem with nuclear but, there is one or two little problems with the idea of just switching over. Commerce would end for one. for two, in case you weren't aware of this but there are no nuclear engineers anymore. nuclear science has taken a significant hit in recent years. there are very few people studying to be nuclear scientists/engineers. so if all the gas was gone there would be no one to just switch us over. I can't say enough how bad an idea it would be for something like this to happen and get loose. In some utopian fantasy it might be a great thing for the earth but for those of us who live here it would be a disaster of biblical proportions. I won't even get into the social unrest you would have to deal with. Oh and if you're thinking Wind power? well the best windmills come from Europe. How would you get them here without diesel engined ships? Put them on nuclear carriers? how do you get them to the dock? horsecart? how do you get them to North Dakota? mushers? big picture folks thats all I'm saying.

Re:Can anyone ever see the big picture?

[MoneyT]

On the other hand, we've never cared before about things getting out of hand. Remember War Games? A no win situation with nuclear weapons. Same thing with this bugger. We develop and launch, then what happens when the other side catches one of em? They reverse engineer, duplicate/clone them, and then release them on us? Weapons are double edged swords (and double edged swords are weapons) they cut both ways.

Re:Can anyone ever see the big picture?

[Wolfier]

Chance that these bugs become uncontrollable would almost be zero - remember, that we're GENETICALLY ENGINEERING a bug. It means, we can potentially make any "mod" to these bugs.

If I were to implement this, I would control the life span of these bugs, and make them sterile before deploying. See, nowadays you have to have MEASURABLE effect on paper before putting a new weapon in use. In this case, it all boil down to controlled reproduction and aging of these bugs.

Re:Can anyone ever see the big picture?

[jonbrewer]

How would you get them here without diesel engined ships?

This is Slashdot, so I'll throw techcnology at your arguement.

One of the nice things about diesel engines is that they'll combust many things besides diesel fuel. vegetable oil, for one. Google biodiesel for more information. I plan to road trip this summer with biodiesel in my TDi Golf IV.

Re:Can anyone ever see the big picture?

[dimator]

Dude, how old are you? This sounds like it was written by a 12 year old. You say the same thing about 15 times.

I don't think anyone thought it was a *good* idea to destroy all the Earth's oil reserves.

Re:Can anyone ever see the big picture?

[canadian_right]

Geneticaly modified bacteria are already being used to clean up oil spills. The bacteria need light to work their magic so the current strains can't decimate oil in tanks and underground.

Try google with "oil spill bacteria" for more info.

Re:Can anyone ever see the big picture?

[Sentry21]

for two, in case you weren't aware of this but there are no nuclear engineers anymore. nuclear science has taken a significant hit in recent years. there are very few people studying to be nuclear scientists/engineers

Uhh, maybe in your neck of the woods, but the rest of the world has made significant advancements, and you can find (for example) Canadian nuclear reactors across central Canada, in several European and Asian countries, and we're building a few in China. But I have to wonder who's building them, since all the nuclear engineers and scientists traded in their diplomas for taxi cabs...

Your US==Alles worldview saddens and disenheartens me. Please learn before you speak. Sad thing is, this is far from the first time I've heard these silly statements from people on slashdot. Sadder still, it's far from the first time they've been modded up.

If all the world's oil reserves were totalled... Well, we could always use the bioengineered fuels harvested from genetically engineered grains. Maybe they're not perfect yet, but they work. That would get us through in the short term, for sure.

And maybe, just maybe, people would have to go *gasp* outside. I think this is exactly what the world needs. Walk to work, take your time, cycle. People have become so concerned with getting to where they need to be so they can go somewhere else. I think having to walk at least to/from the Skytrain station would maybe make people think about enjoying life, rather than rushing through it. Sure, it wouldn't be all peaches and cream, but it would sure be better than what we have now.

Before FedEx, nothing needed to be shipped overnight anyway. Now, businesses can't live without it. The world needs to relax. Food for thought.

--Dan

Re:Can anyone ever see the big picture?

[RestiffBard]

old enough to know better. the reason I stated my opinion a multiple of times was that when I wrote my comment the few that were already present were hailing the idea and going on about how great it would be to destroy earth's oil reserves. I was commenting towards them. as for my writing style. I think faster than I write. often i try to answer questions before they're asked. if i forgot to repeat something in a different way some one would just have gotten me in a different way. see the posts about peanut oil. i didn't think to answer peanut oil cause I didn't know about it. also the person that submitted the article commented on how good it would be to destory earths oil reserves.

Larry Niven did this in Ringworld first!

[farrellj]

The Puppetters released a "Superconductor plague" which destroyed civilization on Ringworld. Of course, a plague that ate all the oil in the world *would* solve the oil, global warming and smog problems we have ...

ttyl
Farrell

No petroleum, no trees. Think about it.

[texchanchan]

Sounds like the fringe environmentalist's dream--turn loose bugs to eat up all the petroleum and return us to the halcyon days of ... Leaving aside the question of whether past cultures had enough good points to want to live in them, what is the immediate result of the petroleum disappearing?

• Reintroduction of coal power on a tremendous scale. This means getting any coal there is by any means necessary--strip mining, drafting you for pick-axe work, whatever.
  
  
• Refitting strategic vehicles (trucks for food) with wood-burning internal combustion engines, which doesn't sound possible but was done Europe during World War II
  
  
• Immediate and near-total deforestation as the present-day population resorts to past-era technologies to keep warm and cook their food
  

Why not?

[no_choice]

Imagine an escaped virus destroying the Earth's oil reserves and its whole industrial potential?

Such a bug, were it possible to develop, would be a boon to mankind and the West in particular. Destroying the earth's oil wouldn't destroy our industrial potential, just force us to switch to the many other available energy sources a few decades sooner than we otherwise might (since the oil supply will be used up eventually in any case).

Obviously the transition would be wrenching, but the benefits would be great. Global warming and air pollution would be greatly reduced, and, equally critically, the vast revenues that currently accrue to countries that are net exporters of oil would end. Since most of these revenues go to countries that are strategic competitors of the west and supporters of terrorism (Iraq, Saudi Arabia), ending them would be a good thing for us.

Re:Why not?

[unitron]

"Destroying the earth's oil wouldn't destroy our industrial potential..."

Do you have any idea how many things are made from petroleum? Insulation for wires, the clear part of CDs and DVDs, the lens for the lasers that read them, anything plastic in general, various medicines, and the list goes on and on. Perhaps some of that stuff can be made from coal instead, but how do we know that any complex hydrocarbons would be safe from these "bugs"?

SF Novel There First: Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater

[Nova Express]

Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis had a novel with this premise published all the way back in 1971: Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater. I have no idea how good it is, because I haven't read it, but copies are available online for the curious in the usual places.

At worst it will just wipe out our OIL...

[dpbsmith]

...when the first atomic bombs were tested, there was a serious question as to whether they could ignite a self-sustaining reaction in the earth's atmosphere, destroying it. The scientists literally took a calculated risk--their calculations showed the probability was low, so they went ahead. But they didn't know the answer for sure, until they went ahead and exploded a bomb, and the atmosphere didn't ignite.

One of the early hydrogen-bomb tests, Bravo in 1954, turned out to have a yield 2-1/2 times higher than expected. Observers watched the fireball grow and grow. Some of them thought it wasn't going to stop and thought that perhaps the atmosphere had been ignited after all. But it hadn't; it didn't destroy the world ( it just contaminated the Marshall Islands and poisoned some Japanese fisherman).

Re:At worst it will just wipe out our OIL...

[dpbsmith]

The concerns about igniting the atmosphere are mentioned in just about every history of the atomic bomb. Here's one link, which as it's to LANL is presumably authoritative:

http://www.lanl.gov/worldview/welcome/history/02 _b erkeley-summer.html

"When Teller raised the possibility that an atomic bomb might ignite the atmosphere, however, he kindled a worry that was not entirely extinguished until the Trinity test, even though Bethe showed, theoretically, that it couldn't happen."

The Bravo shot having a yield two or three times greater than expected is also well-known, e.g.

http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/roadmap/achre/chap12_ 3. html

"The Bravo shot was detonated on Bikini at 6:45 a.m. on March 1, 1954. Its yield was substantially greater than expected"

but I'm afraid I can't find a source for the quotation I read once, in which some scientists watching the blast thought momentarily that it might never stop.

Re:re the 'Fuel eating virus'

[zeno_2]

Hmm.. whats to be ashamed about readi1ng a Clive Cussler novel? They aren't the most in depth novels out there, but they are still a good read. I had saw him at first and thought that the books didn't sound that good, but he came out with Atlantis Found and I like stuff about atlantis, so I bought it. After that, I went thru his books at a rate of about a book in 3-4 days at most and then got another book.. quite addicting I guess you could say.

Wonderful idea.

[alizard]

How long would it take before the opposition would culture the genetically engineered bacteria , possibly eliminate whatever governs its reproductive control, and send it back to us? Research into this kind of bacteria isn't exactly as dangerous as working on Ebola, for instance...

Let's use gasoline as an example. Dump some into a oil refinery tank farm and watch the infection chain spread via tanker into our service stations and from there, to our autos. What shape is our economy in when large chunks of our petroleum distribution chain has to be sterilized before reuse?

Worse, the most probable enemies of the industrialized world are in the best position to absorb this kind of infrastructure attack, i.e. the US is funding a type of attack that endangers us more than the opposition.

Old News and Correction

[cybermage]

Check out this article from 1977. Bacteria, with a little help, will eat oil/blacktop.

Bacteria is now used to clean up oil spills.

Now for the correction. The Observer article simply says 'bugs'. Given the above info, they almost certainly mean bacteria, not a virus, as the story submitter assumes.

Get yer microbes here! URL

[Anonymous Coward]

And you can get yours here!

PHase III PDM-7 Microbial Cultures. Visa and MasterCard accepted. Call for pricing.

"PDM-7 Microbial Cultures contain a blend of live, synergetic, all natural ATCC (American Type Culture Collection) Class I Bacteria. These bacteria were specifically chosen for their accelerated ability to metabolize Petroleum Based Products, Greases, Fats, Food Particles, Hair, Cellulose, and Detergents, converting them into carbon dioxide and water."

Don't rub them on your head.

Or here!

Or here!

Or here!

Re:Get yer microbes here! URL

[jonbrewer]

PHase III PDM-7 Microbial Cultures [phaseiii.com]. Visa and MasterCard accepted. Call for pricing

Good stuff! I think I'm going to try some of their biological paint remover. I absolutely hate methelyne chloride (Zip Strip) and I have quite a bit of paint removal to do.

Robots... meet your nemesis!

[MavEtJu]

And I was afraid we would be wiped out by robots which were made a little bit too smart for us to cope with.

That will teach me for being too pessemistic.

Re:Hmmm,

[rtaylor]

Of course it will. The airplane will fall apart long before they manage to use it in the manner they want.

Fuck the new weapons!

[Nathdot]

These new weapons just keep sounding scarier and scarier.

I'm not saying let's eliminate war altogether in favor of peace (that's just not realistic) but what about doing something like this:

Have a global convention (we'll see if Geneva is booked) where we 're-initalize warfare'. Something like "So do we all agree that from now on we'll only use bow-and-arrows?. Is that okay with everyone?"

I'm sure that'd work.

:)

Re:Fuck the new weapons!

[thelaw]

you wrote: 'Have a global convention (we'll see if Geneva is booked) where we 're-initalize warfare'. Something like "So do we all agree that from now on we'll only use bow-and-arrows?. Is that okay with everyone?"'

sounds good. you first. :)

jon

Re:Fuck the new weapons!

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

And then they build a wooden plank with a nail in it so big, that they destroy the entire world!

Tim

Nothing new under the Sun

[overshoot]

I recall an article in Analog back in the '60s that discussed the troubles that oil-eating bugs caused the military. It's not so much that they consume all of the fuel as that they denature it, cause acidic buildup leading to corrosion, and clog pumps and filters.

The US lost a fair number of aircraft to this kind of bacterial mischief back then before they learned to put antibacterials in the fuel. I'd hardly be surprised to find that the bioengineers have found ways to make bugs that like the antibacterials.

Re:And in other news...

[rtaylor]

/me gets the feeling this will be modded offtopic ;-) though it was meant to be funny

Too bad that the content of the message is moderated and not what the poster had intended to write ;)

the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[joshuaos]

I can hardly imagine the deprivation of a resource our people have used for scarcely a few centuries to be that catastrophic an event. Yes, we're very dependent on it, yes there would be lots of havoc and whatnot, but we'd get over it pretty quick. Nuclear is far from the only alternative available to us (btw, a buddy of mine is a nuclear engineer, and he would argue I'm sure with your statement, "there are no nuclear engineers anymore"). Not only are there some very sound agricultural power possibilities (hemp burns almost as hot as coal, not to mention the fact that the first deisel engine ran on peanut oil, so I'm sure the combustion motor will survive the end of the oil.

Although I'm sure I'll get flamed for this. There have been quite a few proposed solutions to problems like the power problem that may not have gotten quite the attention they deserved due to reasons quite different from their viability. Some of these have included Viktor Schauberger (web resources on him aren't nearly as good as the print books available, check amazon.com), and although a bit cliche, Nicola Tesla.

Anyway, empires have crashed before, sudden catastrophic change has much historical president. I'm not worried about the power going out. We'll survive.

Cheers, Joshua

Re:the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[RestiffBard]

ok hyperbole. there are nuclear engineers. but there are not as many now as there once were. Many colleges are thinking of shutting down their nuclear sciences departments.

I was unaware of the peanut oil connection but how fast can you grow a peanut?

as for the admirable chareteristics of hemp I agree. Will your car run peanut oil now? will the furnace in your home burn hemp? Certainly many would survive. But also many would suffer greatly. Thats just not a chance I'm willing to take. Thats all I'm saying.

And thanks for the info on peanut oil. I really had no idea. if I could I'd mod you a fascinating. :)

Re:the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[Jerf]

We would "get over it" by returning to pre-industrial levels of living, up to and including pre-industrial levels of food output, food storage, and food distribution. In other words, a world previously capable of supporting 6+ billion can suddenly only support a couple hundred million. (And the sweeping plagues and lack of primitive-type distribution mechanisms may leave only tens of millions around the world. My local farmers could never support this area.)

We wouldn't have time to switch. Food would cease to flow in a matter of days after such a catastrophe.

At the most basic level, civilization is a method of distributing food and water, and removing waste. Disrupt those flows, and it's all over. No time to switch, no second chances, just riots in the street and massive plagues.

Yes, we're very dependent on it...

No, we're not just sorta "dependent" on it. We are " totally f*ing dependent on it for food, water, medical suppilies, shelter, everything, our very lives ". (Uncensor that mentally for my real point.) There's a difference!

I don't think you adequately grasp the scales being dealt with here, and how thoroughly everything you touch is dependent on our petroleum culture. (And how much work and knowlege it will take to get us off of that culture.)

Re:the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[TGK]

To reply to a bunch of people. There's a lot of angles to this.

First off you don't allow this to get out of hand. A genetic defect could be built into such a bacterium (a virus isn't much good for eating oil)... say... an intolerance to a specific protein. Lace your oil with the protean save your supply. Either that or allow only X number of generations... I'm not sure how that works but I'm sure there's a way. This limits the amount of oil/whatever destroyed.

Option 2 of course is design a bacterium that only eats diesel fuel or gasoline. That saves the crude oil.

As for the qestion of how fast can you grow a peanut? 5 Months. In comparison to the several million years for oil to form that seems like a good deal.

Admittedly the destruction of the world oil reserves would suck tremendously. It would cause a period of inflation and other economic shock heretofor unheard of. But industrial civilization would survive.

The idea of producing a bacterium that eats ammunition is infnitely more entertaining anyhow. Especialy one that could convert things like high powered military exposives into something significanly less stable :-)

Re:the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[Swaffs]

I think you're being very narrow-minded. A few centuries is a long time. Look how the world has changed. Yes it is physically possible to live without petroleum, but we wouldn't exactly make the switch smoothly. We are hugely dependant upon our own technological advances.

Just imagine that all the oil and gas in the world disappeared right now. How will you heat your house tonight? If that's not an issue, how will you eat tomorrow? You'll probably have enough food on hand for a couple days, and maybe if you get to the store quickly you can grab some more. But, that will soon run out, and then what? No new food will be getting to the stores, because it all comes on trucks, and they sure as hell won't be able to convert them all to peanut oil, and find enough peanut oil quickly enough (keeping in mind any petroleum powered machinery won't work) to supply our entire civilization.

Certain people, mainly farmers, would still have the skills and resources to feed themselves. I haven't the foggiest idea how to turn a cow or a pig into food. I'm sure that "scarcely a few centuries" ago, this was common knowledge. Even if I did know how, I live in a city, my 60x40' yard won't feed an animal, even if I could acquire one.

Sure, there are other possible sources of fuel, but to think we could convert to them, even within a couple years, is doubtful. Totally losing petroleum would result in most of our population dying off. There's no way we could support our current population with the technology and machinery we have now, and there's no way we could convert it to some other fuel fast enough. It would set us back 100 years, and completely change our entire world.

Re:the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[Gumber]

Oh please.

The only way we will get over it pretty quick will be if we die off in large numbers, which we may well do because we won't be able to bring food to market, or even grow enough food since we are dependant on chemical intensive agriculture that is based on petrochemicals.

The rapid and complete depletion of our oil resources would lead to huge disruptions that I would expect would greatly cripple our ability to create and deploy replacement. In the US these days, Oil is principally a transportaion fuel, but that would probly be enough.

Re:the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[jonbrewer]

In other words, a world previously capable of supporting 6+ billion can suddenly only support a couple hundred million. (And the sweeping plagues and lack of primitive-type distribution mechanisms may leave only tens of millions around the world. My local farmers could never support this area.)

Your lack of knowledge of the world outside "your local area" is disturbing.

I have lived in places in the past five years that sustain large populations using horses and ploughs to plant, and sickles and baskets to harvest. Horses and carts transport the food.

I have lived in places where electrified trains (powered by coal fired power plants) provide 80% of the transportation of goods from country to city. And on New Year's Eve 1999 I knew I'd have transportation the next day no matter what, as there were coal fired steam engines standing by in major cities in the event of grid failure.

Most of the population of this world is not directly dependant on gasoline! I would be surprised that if in the event of the disappearance of all natural oil reserves the world lost more than a few hundreds of million people in the time it would take to switch to alternate fuel sources.

Get out of your American fucking backyard and realize that the rest of the world will not stop when there's no more gas for their Ford Excursion, lawnmower, powerboat, and RV generator.

Re:the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[jonbrewer]

The countries you cite are unfortunate examples for your arguement, as they would be little affected by the disappearance of petrolium:

Nigeria: Petrol money goes to western companies (such as Shell/BP/ExxonMobile/etc) and to a minor amount the (unspeakably corrupt) Nigerian government. The well-paid workers are imported. A few tens of thousands out of 130 million workers are directly employed by the petrol industry. Less than 10% of Nigerians have anything to do with industry, and over 70% of workers are directly involved with agriculture. (and not the type of agriculture that depends heavily on gas powered tractors!)

Russia: Money from petrol quickly exits the country via channels such as the Bank of New York and BCCI. (past examples. I could care less who they're using now. probably CitiBank!) Transportation of goods is largely by train, of which 40,000 km is electrified, powered by coal, hydro-electric, and nuclear power. People would lose jobs, factories would shut down, but none of the 145 million people in Russia would starve if petrol disappeared suddenly.

Saudi Arabia: With a workforce of 7 million out of 23 million inhabitants, and a very small percentage of those workers involved in Oil, the Saudis wouldn't lose too many jobs. The 5 million foreign workers employed by the Saudis just might. I would expect some serious trouble in Saudi Arabia, as their electricity is 100% oil fired. And I wouldn't expect them to be eating too well without petrol, as they import a substantial amount of food. But of all places in the world, Saudi Arabia is the most dependant on oil.

Germany: As in Russia, electrified trains for transportation, coal and nuclear power. Heavily mechanized agriculture would come to a standstill for about ten minutes until the Germans started dumping corn and soybean oil into their tractor's diesel engines. If you think anyone in Germany would starve, you haven't been to Germany!

So that about sums that up. Final points: Coal travels by train everywhere I've ever been. Even in the USA. All facts obtained from the CIA World Factbook. Kill your automobile. Thank you.

Re:the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[Jerf]

"Me too."

The interconnectedness of the civilized, technological world is truly staggering. As near as I can see, even many who pay lip service to this concept (including many Eastern-influenced philosophers and religions) are only touching the edges of the issue... I don't claim to understand it myself but I think I can safely claim that at least I have a grasp on the level of my ignorance...

Removing the petroleum products at this point in history would be like going up to the original poster and insisting that he now consume only as much food as he did when he was one month old in the womb. (I think the proportions are about right on that too, if you work the math; call it two months in the womb for a healthy safety margin.) You don't shrink back down to the size of a one-month-old child, you just die. Human civilization is a bit more granular, so not every human would necessarily die, but the shock would be similar in scale. (On a high enough abstraction level, the result of suddenly depriving the world of all petroleum products would indeed somewhat resemble what a doctor would call "shock" in a human body.)

Re:the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[abolith]

Something that everyone seems to be missing is that it's not the fuel, we could change that in a matter of years, hopfully before ALL the oil was destroyed. but the PLASTICS that oil creates people. look around at the shit you have by your computer. how much is plastic?? most things are plastic now and this is done mostly by oil.

Re:the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[Jerf]

Yes, but ask yourself, why don't they now? When you've fully answered that question, you'll understand why that's a last ditch effort to patch a working system together, rather then something we can just switch to without any particular hassle. (The interconnectedness of this stuff is amazing. You can't "just" switch to something that costs multiple times more then gas without horrible effects on the economy, which will directly translate to people starving if things get bad enough.)

Re:the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[jonbrewer]

You're absolutely right that coal travels by train! Do you know what fuels the trains? DIESEL! And where do we get our diesel? My automobile barely uses in a year a fraction of what one of those trains uses in five minutes to move your precious coal!

You must not have read my post. In Russia and Germany, trains are electrified. There's no diesel involved! The power is generated by coal, hydro, and nuclear facilities, which powers the trains.

In the States, yes, diesel engines haul coal to power plants. But even then, diesel engines, invented to run on peanut oil, run just fine (and very efficiently) on any sort of vegetable oil. It's sold in the US as "B20" diesel, or biodiesel. No engine adaptation, no changes whatsoever. It's a perfect substitute. (see biodiesel.org)

Re:the picture is a lot bigger than that.

[joshuaos]

but the PLASTICS that oil creates

Yeah, and if petrolium were the ONLY thing that you could make plastics from, this might worry me, but this is FAR from the case. Infact, the most abundant plant-based source of cellulose on the planet (the raw material for plastics) is the stalk of the hemp plant.

Cheers, Joshua

Sci-Fi equivalents

[shoppa]

The closest I can think of in science fiction is in Larry Niven's Ringworld series (a branch off of the known space stories) where a type of fungus/mold eats a certain kind of superconductor. It's been too many years, though - was the fungus a bioweapon, or just a natural occurence?

Re:Sci-Fi equivalents

[MoneyT]

People laugh at S.F. but more often than not, the best S.F. & F writers consider the deeper implications of developing technology long before everyone else does. Asimov did lots of stuff with the ethics of robotics and such long before AI was really implimentable.

Re: "bad idea"

[Profe55or Booty]

right. and they probably have things that can keep nuclear tests from affecting the areas around the tests.

the government gets way too much of our trust.

Timothy, you are a schmuck + useful links

[sam_handelman]

Imagine an escaped virus destroying the Earth's oil reserves and its whole industrial potential? Curiously, the military may implement the environmentalists' ultimate dream!

Let me clue you in on what it is that the fuel eaten by these bacteria (not viruses) eventually breaks down into - water and carbon dioxide. This is a more controlled form of a process better known as FIRE.

Flame of yet another kind: Timothy, you are an idiot. Even as a joke that was a grade A stupid thing to say. It reflects poorly on you as an editor and as a human being. If you don't know the difference between a virus and a bacterium shut your cornhole.

We, Environmentalists, object to gasoline being burned (turned into Carbon Dioxide) faster than it is deposited in peat marshes and such. I don't want to rehash the global warming argument here, so don't y'all even start.

The fact that the gasoline, while burned, does useful work, instead of, say, fueling the growth of a manmade organism, does not bother anyone.

You can find out more about Hydrocarbon Utilizing Microbes (HUMs) here. The document is fully accessible to a non-scientist. The people at Brooks Air Force base, who are/would be (?) developing these fuel eating microbes for offensive use have already made use of them in a peaceful context. Again, the press release is non technical. Personally, I find this to be admirable work - they're using them to clean up petrochemical contamination of soil and groundwater, which is an underappreciated ecological problem. I'm not terribly worried about these organisms going out of control and eating the world's petrochemical reserves. They exist in nature already in various forms and have not done that.

The New Scientist has an older article about the fuel eating bugs, or, more specifically, about the circumstances surrounding the release of documents discussing the bugs; I think this may have come up on slashdot before but I searched just now and didn't find it. The sunshine project also has an article about there efforts to get the documents released.

There is no alternative to oil.

[xtal]

The unfortunate problem is that there is no current alternative to oil. If you look at the raw number of BTUs being consumed, there is nothing that will even come close. This is going to be a big issue for people to deal with. The alternative to oil currently isn't clean. It's coal. There's lots, and lots, and LOTS of coal. Coal, unfortunately, is nasty stuff, containing trace elements of just about everything.

Take a look around sometime, and just try an imagine the sheer volume of oil and the amount of energy it represents. The processing of energy drives our entire civilization, and in it's current form, that means the processing of oil.

The only other (currently) possible alternatives are nuclear technologies, be they fission, hot, or cold fusion. This is possibly the saviour of the planet, but the environmentalists are hell-bent to stop nuclear research and testing at all costs. Solar, wind, and wave power can make contributions but the infrastructure and maintenance required make these unrealistic alternatives.

Thermodynamics is harsh stuff.

Re:There is no alternative to oil.

[TGK]

Ok... can someone PLEASE explain this to me. I've wondered about this for some time.

The tides and thus the waves are caused by gravitational fluxes in the Earth Moon system. By harnesing wave power we take energy out of the ocean. Energy is dumped into the ocean by gravitational tides. Thus there is no danger of stoping the waves. This I get.

But we know that "energy can neither be created nor destroyed." Consequently the energy has got to be coming from SOMEWHERE. Where? Is the moon slowing? How does this play out?

More to the point.... how about Geothermal energy? I guess I just have a hard time reconsiling these energy sources (which seem to depend on gravity to feed them) with what we know about matter/energy.

Re:There is no alternative to oil.

[Sloppy]

Consequently the energy has got to be coming from SOMEWHERE. Where? Is the moon slowing?

Yes. You're indirectly converting moon's energy into electricity. More directly, you're converting the tide's kinetic energy into electricity, and in doing that, you're pulling the moon back a little.

The energy was originally put into the system (from our point of view), when somebody(*) put the moon far away from the earth, creating a gravitional potential.

More to the point.... how about Geothermal energy?

Geothermal energy comes from exploiting a heat differential. (It's basically the same principle as the steam engine, except that somebody already heated the water for you.) When you have gas in one place that is higher pressure or hotter than another place, the gas wants to move to the cooler/lesspressured place. So you make a push it push a turbine as it gets there.

The energy was originally put into the system (from out point of view) when somebody(*) heated the earth up.

(*)It was me. You're welcome.

Re:There is no alternative to oil.

[no_choice]

The unfortunate problem is that there is no current alternative to oil...Solar, wind, and wave power can make contributions but the infrastructure and maintenance required make these unrealistic alternatives.

Solar, wind, etc. are MORE EXPENSIVE than burning oil for energy, at least when you don't take the hidden environmental and social costs into account (as our current social structure doesn't). This does not mean that those alternative forms of energy are "UNREALISTIC," just that in order to start using them on a large scale we would need to make a social adjustment.

Yes, there would be consequences from making such an adjustment. We might need to drive smaller cars or use public transportation more; pay more for electricity and for goods that take a lot of energy to manufacture, etc.

But there will also be consequences from continuing to rely on oil. Doing so sends tens of billions of dollars every year to our deadliest enemies (Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya) who use the money to finance terrorism and develop weapons of mass destruction. If these weapons should one day be used against us, they could cost the world tens or hundreds of TRILLIONS of dollars worth of damages, and tens of millions of lost lives. The chances of this actually happening are substantial, and are substantially enhanced by our providing our enemies with tens of billions of dollars each year.

The environmental risks are also significant. There is at least a significant possibility that our continued use of oil would contribute significantly to changing the global climate in ways that could be catastrophic.

As I said in my original post, making the transition would be wrenching in the short term, but highly beneficial in the long term. The question is, would it be worth it? Since I don't care so much about driving an SUV, and I do care about avoiding arming our enemies and seeing our coastal cities flooded, for me, the answer is obvious.

Re:Why not? Here's one reason

[Reziac]

I majored in chemistry, way back in the dark ages before most Slashdotters were born... One of my professors was very involved in petrochemical research, specifically wrt development of new medicines. His big fear was that by using up oil reserves as an energy resource, we were also using up the future of drug research.

Timothy didn't write those words

[Tony Shepps]

They are part of the italicized text, and so, part of the original submitter's comments.

Re:Timothy didn't write those words

[jonbrewer]

They are part of the italicized text, and so, part of the original submitter's comments.

The editors can and do, however, edit submitter's comments, and could have used better judgement in posting such an inflamatory statement.

Re:Timothy didn't write those words

[RickHunter]

Yeah, but its much more fun to blame the editors for not altering the submitter's words to be carefully inoffensive to everyone and contain no trace of bias or individuality whatsoever.

Of course, this would result in awfully boring (or totally absent) story postings, but that's not an issue. Much more important that people not be allowed to have Opinions or Views On Things that have not been approved at the glorious shrine of political correctness! As we all know, unrestrained thought is Dangerous!

Re:Timothy didn't write those words

[greenrd]

The complaint was not that saying that was dangerous, but that it was God-awfully stupid to say that. Can you tell the difference?

You appear to have blindly missed the point in pursuit of a knee-jerk bashing "political correctness".

Sometimes people make statements which are very politically incorrect but which are astute - such as, for example, Bill Maher's statement that the September 11 terrorists were "not cowards", because they died for their cause. (He was merely criticising politicians who used the word "cowardly" to describe the Sep 11 attacks - but not in any way condoning terrorism.) By contrast, it is b>fatuous to suggest that burning up all the world's oil supplies in an instant, thus releasing massive quantities of CO2, is the ultimate dream of the typical environmentalist - let alone Environmentalism as a movement.

Re:Timothy didn't write those words

[Debillitatus]

Why don't you submit it again?

Bugs already eat diesel!

[Easy2RememberNick]

Nearly all military vehicles, with the exception of aircraft, use diesel as fuel, but kerosene is not that different anyway. Anyone who is around large amounts of it knows that it's a constant struggle to keep "bugs" out of it so they don't consume it or clog fuel filters, you have to put additives in to kill them. What fantastic high-tech bio-weapon is needed when it's already happening?

Re:Bugs already eat diesel!

[Easy2RememberNick]

Why and how bugs eat diesel

Really big peanuts

[HKTiger]

Ahem, this is something I know a tad about (no, not big peanuts, you there in the back snickering).

I mean something called bio-diesel. Apparently, Mr Diesel (Rudolph?) who invented yon diesel engine originally planned for it to be used on vegetable oil, and it got sidetracked for petroleum. And bio-diesel is far less polluting, easy to produce (about as difficult as home brewing beer), and, depending on your country's excise etc, can be cheaper than petro-diesel.

But for me the truly funky thing is that it can be made from *used* cooking oil: how's that, just empty out the chip pan and brew a bit 'o' diesel. And it makes your car smell like chips instead of icky hydrocarbons. Any vegetable oil will do, so a variety of crops can do the trick on a large scale, which makes it renewable as well.

Oh, yeah, and most diesel engines can run it *without* modification, or with only very minor mods. I know of someone who's gone to bio-diesel on his farm: he goes to the local fish and chip shop and relieves them of their old oil (and they used to pay someone to take it away, so they're happy) and makes enough bio-diesel to keep all his farm equipment running. No engine mods, bugger all pollution, and that there oil kept out of the ocean. Truly funky.

Where's the "News" here?

[Zspdude]

Are we really that surprised at the Pentagon fiddling about with things that have the capability to destroy? Whereas I'm sure that we should be worried about bugs eating our oil, it's not the biggest threat to the environment that national security has ever come up with. Nuclear fallout, anyone? Napalm, Defoliants? Firestorms from conventional incindiaries? Landmines and undetonated explosive devices cluttering up farmland??

Not to offend any oil reserves, but as I'm a HUMAN and not a hydrocarbon, maybe this isn't such a sin after all.

Re:Biological Weapons

[Slashamatic]

Bio-weapons are banned for some very good reasons. It is very difficult to differentiate between a manufacturing plant that produces one kind of weaponised bug to another that perhaps produces something a good deal more lethal to humans.

Simple weed-killer (a non-human chemical weapon) in the form of "Agent Orange" caused enough problems (and court cases from soldier/airmen) who were harmed whilst handling the stuff.

Last point, is how to educate these little critters as that eating your own creator's stuff is unamerican? Sorry, cordite is cordite and explosives are explosives.

Re:"Ultimate dream"? - Nightmare

[Glorat]

I'm surprised not many of the normally astute /. readers have noticed but this is a an environmentalists nightmare!

The bacteria convert the oil to carbon dioxide and water... the same thing that happens when the oil is set on fire albeit in a more controlled reaction. If it's gonna be releasing the same CO2 pollutants anyway, I'd rather it be doing something useful in a power plant or moving cars about than just having it disappear

Re:bullshit

[mpe]

You are talking years for a weapon used in Afganistan to effect Europe, much less the U.S especially when the U.S. quarentiens its boarders and only accepts north and south American oil.

Considering that huge quantities of illegal drugs, arms and even people manage to enter the US each day it seems very likely that such a bioweapon could get a "return to sender"... Even diseases can be spread around the globe at the speed of jet planes. Even without deliberate attempts to spread them.

Re:You'd be fine

[mpe]

Car would keep running on ewsistant ethonol/oil mixtures with minimal modifications. Boats can be ethenol or nuclear powered. The only thing which breaks down is the airplanes.

Actually a gas turbine engine can be a lot less fussy than a piston engine. There is a Russian figher which will run on anything which is liquid and will burn.

Plus, everyone who is saying this suff would cause a disaster is an idiot. It would not spread that fast. Bugs just don't spread like they do in the movies.

This isn't just any old load of bugs it's a weapon. Weapons are generally transported according to the whim of people.

This is mostly a tool for fucking up the millitary capacity of underdeveloped nations without causing too many casualities.

It'll probably work even better against someone with a large military then....

Re:in defence of Timothy --- from original poster

[sam_handelman]

- new germs are being genetically enginered (so they do not exist in nature );

Bugs that eat gasoline already exist in nature. The bugs discussed in the first link I posted are natural organisms that already get in people's fuel lines and eat their gas. When you genetically engineer an organism - which I've done on several occasions, thank you very much - you use proteins that already exist in some other organism (hence the more proper term, "transgenic" - meaning genes that have been moved from place to place) you don't create enirely new proteins. Therefore, you are simply recombining features that exist in natural organisms. This can result in destructive new combinations (HIV that spread like ebola is theoretically possible, for example) but you can't do much novel chemistry - you're stuck with the chemistry you already have.

An organism genetically engineered to be hardier, so that it might consume the fuel in enemy depots, would be (extremely) unlikely to survive deep underground where our fuel reserves are. It is possible that it might get into our public gas stations and destroy some fuel that way, but, based on the metabolism of the organism (it would still require OXYGEN; fermentation, that is to say, eating without oxygen, of those hydrocarbons is already ongoing) it simply wouldn't be a threat to world fuel supply.

A *plastic* eating microbe, depending upon which type of plastic it ate, might be a major threat to industrial society. I don't take the metal corroding microbes seriously.

I used the word virus because "deadly-virus-escaping" is more a press cliche... Hope most people got the irony.

I appreciated that it was an attempt at humor. The critical point - the reason I was yelling at Timothy and not at 1gor (original poster) - is that I don't think Timothy did.

It was a factually confusing joke which shouldn't have been carried, or should have been labeled as a joke by the editor.

- "We, Environmentalists" are rude and might use some Valuim...:))

You got it all wrong! I'm razzing him, but it's all about the love! Can't you see that? What are you, stupid? Jesus, there's no point in even talking about the love to someone as ignorant and debased as you are. Just do us all a favor and shut up. :)

Silicon plague in Dune encyclopaedia

[theolein]

In the Dune encyclopaedia, the author referrred to the "silicon plague" destroying almost all "thinking machines" and the general state of mankind as being repressed by those machines leading to the "Bulerian Jihad". This applies quite well to modern day contexts, albeit in a slightly diffeent way.

Still smoking in Afghanistan

[Ilan Volow]

No wonder we keep seeing Cheech and Chong at every global hotspot.

How to survive if oil became unavailable

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Given that oil became unavailable, our most realistic bet would be electricity generated by nuclear power.

Granted, we'd need very strict rationing of the oil on reserve. All cars off the roads, only buses and bikes. (Hey, we'd lose a few pounds in the process), and transportation of essentials.

Reroute all available oil reserves into transporting and manufacturing power plants (nuclear, wind, hydro). Making a wind power plant is not rocket science. Making an efficient wind power plant is trickier, but not technologically impossible. You have plenty of steel plants. Use them as much as possible.

Heating can also be provided by burning trees. Yes - I advocate burning trees when the going gets tough. Trees contain carbon that is already actively part of the carbon cycle, so burning trees is more environmentally friendly than burning coal or oil. Trees are also renewable. Plant one. Watch it grow.

Hot shower? You get black rubber hosing that you run across your roof. Sun-powered. Just take a shower when you get home from work, rather than the moment you wake up.

I think we can live without oil given that we prioritize the moment it disappears. If we're given advance warning, we might even do better.

On the other hand, if all oil was immediately destroyed, we would be in much greater trouble. Then again, we're already overpopulated. Biology class with population biology is an eye-opener, folks.

Re:Alcohol is a good fuel

[Stone Rhino]

Alcohol is just a carbon chain with one hydrogen replaced with an -OH. It's close enough to oil that bacteria could probably metabolise it too. So where's your alcohol now?

One word

[hey!]

agriculture.

No fossil fuels, no modern agriculture. No food for most people who are not currently subsitence farmers.

I think you have to make a distinction between the survival of the human race, and the survival of our culture and along with it a very large chunk of the human race.

Packaging and Sterilization. Heard of 'em?

[cryptochrome]

In order for the bacteria to eat their fuel and ammo it has to get to it first, and its' growth can't be limited by other factors. The former would keep them from eating all those self-contained, sealed bullets, and the latter would keep them from eating fuel in the tank.

Degrading stuff out in the open is another matter. Coatings, lubricants, seals, etc. Asphalt roads would be a good target (In theory an environmentalist's dream too - except it probably means more gas-guzzling off-roaders) as would lubrication oils. But there are simple ways around this with synthetic lubricants and alternative fuels.