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Newly Discovered Bacteria Could Aid Oil Cleanup
suraj.sun passes along news from Oregon State University, where researchers have discovered a new strain of bacteria that may be able to aid cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. The bacteria "can produce non-toxic, comparatively inexpensive 'rhamnolipids,' and effectively help degrade polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs — environmental pollutants that are one of the most harmful aspects of oil spills. Because of its unique characteristics, this new bacterial strain could be of considerable value in the long-term cleanup of the massive Gulf Coast oil spill, scientists say." In related news, Kevin Costner's centrifugal separator technology has gotten approval for deployment; now it is only waiting on funding from BP.
in china
The quick brown nigger jumped over the lazy dog.
The bacteria idea sounds great, but will probably result in a new and deadly plague that will give rise to oil gobbling mutants! As for the other idea, I don't see how Kevin Costner can claim to have developed an oil separator that has been in use by US Navy ships since before the early eighties. We had them on my ship when I was in back in 1983. They were used to separate water and dirt from lube oil.
I heard that Cane Toads soak up oil at 10 times the rate.
I really, really hope this article will soon be tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"
Doesn't sound like a very good idea to release huge amounts of a newly developed, untested, unverified bacteria into our oceans...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species
If this mess had happened in the area of the middle east or something like that and not by a company with local presence in the U.S. like BP or Exxon, the price of gasoline would spike. I have to wonder how the price of gasoline hasn't gone up significantly since the news of this story initially broke.
So far, right now, the only people who are truly upset about this are the "environmentalist whack jobs." Somehow, the market has managed to keep the price of fuel stable during all of this. This leads me to a question that I am sure many others ask as well -- HOW is the price of oil REALLY controlled? It's not by market forces or else we would have seen a spike.
Debeers is now allowed to operate in the U.S. because they are a price fixing monopolist. I see what looks like evidence of price fixing or some sort of conspiracy related to the price of oil in all of this and I have to wonder why there isn't at least some investigation into it. I recall several times in the past that congress was threatening to investigate pricing of oil but they never did it. I'm really sick of it all.
Summary: "Awaiting funding from BP". Article headline: "'has green light, but no green'". First paragraph: "is awaiting money from BP".
However further down, "Ocean Therapy officials acknowledged that full implementation of the systems may depend on how quickly BP pays for the 32 it committed to Wednesday."
Maybe giving 3-4 days to pay would be OK?
Can a government be held to account for not paying for something it orders within 3-4 days?
That there isn't a huge evolutionary change to go from oil eating to flesh eating...
Given he quantity of oil that has been released and the volume of the gulf, the only way this could possibly work was if the bacteria in question was able to spread throughout the gulf after being released. Unfortunately, if that is the case then that's really not something you want to introduce to an ecosystem that isn't used to it. The oil is bad, but we know from experience that introducing new organism to already vulnerable ecosystems is generally a bad idea.
I get WHY Kevin Costner is getting so much press with his oil separation machine; it's not like he has to work hard to get a camera in front of his face. But it's not like the separation process is what is causing an environmental disaster; it's all that oil out in the ocean. If Kevin Costner was selling a machine that can suck up cubic miles of water, that would be newsworthy
Nice. New bacteria. I don't have time to go look it up, but somebody else might... I'm under the impression that the whole process of breaking down hydrocarbons eventually leads to a drastic increase in ammonia and related compounds, and severe oxygen depletion. Even (especially?) biological processes. Somebody once posted a nice short progression of the basic chemistry involved in a similar topic here on /. not too long ago.
Ain't nothin' free. Break it down? It has to break down into something...
There are thousands of bacteria on the face of the planet that can break down oil and I bet many of them are in the Gulf itself, right now, which has been seeping oil for what, 100's of millions of years? The problem is not if there are bacteria that can metabolize oil; we already know 100's of ones that do, the question is, will it be more effective than the 1000's already out there?
This is just a press release for a grant writing fishing expedition for BP money. Everyone is doing it right now in academia, trust me.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
The gulf is blooming with natural oil eating bacteria that already know how to live among the communities and predators there. Indeed there are so many of them eating the oil right now they say it's removing all the oxygen from the water making a deadzone.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
We hear about a new backteria that's going to fix whatever is in the headline, and is then never heard from again. Like all those new energy things from a few years ago.
You might end up with this: http://www.amazon.com/Ill-Wind-Kevin-J-Anderson/dp/0312857608
The REAL reason Kevin Costner waited this long to release this isn't government testing. His arch nemesis, The Deacon (Dennis Hopper), just died, removing the last hurdle by getting the smokers out of the way.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Hmmm I wonder if the separator can extract heavy water at the same time. That might help offset the cost of use. I'm trying to find the price of a gallon of heavy water, but all I keep finding is some type of Vodka....
If it was just discovered, it will take at the very least 10 years for it to be deployable, likely significantly longer. That this is published now is just profiteering from the disaster.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
What do they feed them on while breeding them up in the lab in sufficient quantities to be useful? Snake oil?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I don't know of any person in the world that has put his/her money so consistently where their mouth is. Costner has spent most of his fortune in developing various environmentally friendly technologies, such as super-fast flywheel energy storage. Honestly, I thought such a altruistic business proposal could never succeed in the world we live in. Maybe I wasn't 100% right.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
If you have distended. All I who sell another more stable ASSOCIATION OF happines5 Another HEAKD SPINNING
If you've ever driven through the south eastern US, say along HWY 85 from Georgia to Alabama you can see fields of kudzu that are engulfing whole areas. This stuff grows inches per day and covers trees, cars, telephone poles etc..
Instead of whining about getting his life back, BP's CEO will start saying things like "we're just going to take it one day at a time. I'm going to try to help the cleanup effort any way I can, and God willing, things will work out."
Author Kevin J. Anderson, Ill Wind http://www.curledup.com/illwind.htm Great read on bacteria that eats oil and oil related products.
Lemme guess. They've got a patent pending on it.
Do you promise that? Will you personally take all the blame if something does go wrong? Will you accept all responsibility for any damages that this new bacteria may or may not cause?
I can promise you this : As soon as there is a new form of life that proliferates madly, nature usually finds something to eat it.
This is my sig.
OTEC is another green technology, which happens to suck up vast amounts of water:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion
So why not use this to collect up the contaminated water, during future spills?
Then you can apply your centrifugation.
As people have already pointed out, introducing a single bacteria in the mass quantity that it would take to actually facilitate improvement would probably end up changing the the entire makeup of the gulf. It could have far reaching effects that we couldn't even predict. To a degree, the sad reality of this situation is that with our limited technology, we are going to have to roll up our sleeves and do this by hand as there is no quick fix. BP is using dispersant chemicals only to avoid pictures of sea animals dying of suffocation, but truth be told this area of the gulf is already decimated. I say this all with a heavy heart because it is in my own backyard. Oh and two interesting points. I highly recommend people read Zodiac, by Neal Stephenson, which covers a good deal about this kind of tactic without adequately predicting the outcome in a fictional but well researched context. Also, make note that these oil consuming bugs have been around for quite some time. The first stable version came around in the 70's. In practice, I've understood them to not really be that effective.
Is it in the US that you regularly let enormous amounts of food rot because you can't dump it on the market?
Well, it certainly happens in Europe all the time. And the governments run and organise it. The governments. Not the farmers, but the state officials and administrators.
Foodstuffs for which there exists an active futures market, so precisely the same effect applies. And the justifications for restricting supply is identical.
Consolidations in the auto industry? Shutting down of plants? "ZOMG ALL PLANTS SHOULD PRODUCE AT MAXIMUM CAPACITY OR ITS MANIPULATION"
Yes, it is manipulation. The reason why it is done in the oils market is that storage capacity is limited, demand is quite stable, while supply is _not_ always stable, and storage is limited - which means that, if people demand 100,000 barrels of oil a day and you come supply them with 120,000, nobody would buy the remaining 20,000 unless you practically gave it away. I believe at certain times the gas price has been _negative_ for this reason - demand is stable and there is no available storage, so you actually _pay_ whoever can take gas off your hands with a spare rubber balloon to take it away.
This is not somehow "breaking the model", only your internal model, which doesn't describe either how the world works or how it should work. Things done this way works well. If things were not done this way they wouldn't do well. That is all the justification that needs to be given.
Surface oil will also turn into a tar ball. Tar balls become inert ...
What's the big deal here? Just use tar -xvf and be on your way.
it will be ready for use in 10 years?
Once the crude oil is separated from the sea water and digested by the bacteria the by product is a solution that looks and tastes like fermented hops and barley. This solution also has the property to make any woman look like Lady GaGa to male humans.
Well...if we are going to fantasize...why not??
So you're saying, we're cool here? I mean is that why BP is just making half-assed quarter-baked efforts at stopping this, because it's nbd?
Cool. So we're cool, right?
All other offers of help from outside of the USA, notably Belgium and other European countries, have been turned down by the Administration because of the Jones Act
Oh man, I thought they were gonna sacrifice Justin Bieber and send him out on a raft to the leak.
The bacteria in question grows on a sort of tuber plant from Central America known as a Tatta. The way it works is you thinly slice the Tattas and deposit them in the area of the oil spill. Then, as a catalyst you set the oil on fire. The Tattas then suck up the oil and fry crispy crunchie golden and can be served with tomato sauce, or soggy peas.