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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.
I heard that Cane Toads soak up oil at 10 times the rate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species
The fact is that new types of bacteria appear in the ocean all the time. You've been watching too many movies if you're scared of this idea. Fear not, the bacteria will not mutate and infect all life in the sea.
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.
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.
I realize this is Slashdot, but if you RTFA you will find that he got his hands on the design and spent $20M or so of his own money on having them improved to the point that they were useful for processing a mess into CLEAN water AND clean OIL. Nowhere is it claimed that he invented the centrifugal separator.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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
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 price of gasoline is not affected because this spill has no affect whatsoever on the refineries in Texas. They are still collecting oil from Saudi tankers and still pumping out gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and so on.
Also, and this is just personal opinion, I think people that believe in conspiracy theories (9/11 was a planned demolition, etc) are whackjobs. Why believe in outlandish complicated scenarios when the simplest answer is staring you right in the face? Supply-and-demand. That's why prices fluctuate
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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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.
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.
There are natural bacteria that eat oil that have been used before and are very safe, even it wetlands:
http://farmwars.info/?p=3013
So far, right now, the only people who are truly upset about this are the "environmentalist whack jobs."
Beg your pardon. How many millions of people live on the Gulf coastline? Which are they - whack jobs or not upset?
Yeah, thinking that that oil conglomerates fix prices is a super nutty conspiracy thinking. I mean, it's not like giant companies like ADM have ever been involved in price fixing with their group of international competitors. Now, I may not be totally up on the matter, because I'm a geek and stick to tech news rather than business news, but I've never heard of price-fixing happening in real life and not just in conspiracy nutters ramblings. The whole concept is just crazy. You are a wise man.
>>>OPEC decides how much we should pay and supplies that much
OPEC only generates 30% of the world's supply. So no OPEC doesn't "decide" the price, because they are just one piece of the market. If they charge too much, we have other cheaper options like Russia, Canada, and so on. It's equivalent to if Microsoft turned stupid & started charging $100 for Internet Explorer - people would simply jump ship to a cheaper browser.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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.
Apparently that oil well had not previously produced oil for sale,
Oil prices are set based on speculative futures. In other words, normally people would say, opps - that means less oil coming to market down the road so the price needs to jump - and it does. Odd that it didn't do what it has always done in this case.
People need to understand that there exists a few products which are absolutely NOT part of free market economies and are not directly driven by supply and demand. Both diamonds and oil are such products. Their prices and supplies are artificially manipulated at every corner. While oil, unlike diamonds, truly are a scarce resource, they are both so heavily manipulated before and after they enter the market, their prices do not reflect reality of market demands - not in the least. If it were any other goods, talk of conspiracy, price fixing, price gouging and lots of serious investigations would be par for the course.
And no, this isn't crazy talk. I encourage you to do some modest investigation for yourself. You'll find lots and lots and lots and lots of completely legitimate sources stating all this.
Did you know if too much gas is produced and/or accidentally scheduled for delivery to the US, its dumped on non-US markets; traditionally south America? We certainly wouldn't want the price of gas to fall. Did you know refinery plants have been shut down but no new refineries have been created? Did you know one of the most cost effective refineries was one of the ones shut down? In fact, it was purchased for the explicit purpose of shutting it down? Following its shutdown, the price of fuel steadily went up stating they were at production limits and no one wants them to create a refinery in their back yard?
The amount of fraud, conspiracy, and market manipulation is so criminal, it makes criminals in awe of how complex and complete the oil industry fucks everyone - without prosecution.
In short, EVERYTHING you learned in economics 101 does NOT apply to oil/diamonds. Period.
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'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..
Uhh.. They did. There was even a movie about the whole thing starring Matt Damon.
AccountKiller
Technically, they are required to. Unfortunately, the agency responsible for signing off on their response plans is basically a textbook case of regulatory capture. Thus, companies routinely get away with either ridiculously under-specced contingency plans, or just outright lying about what capabilities they possess. Corruption is cheaper than actual hardware and it isn't as though the US is a very good place to be cast as the "mean evil regulator who hates business, and wants your gas to be expensive"...
Whack jobs. I mean seriously, who lives there post katrina?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I'd say that it passed, and is now busy accruing extra credit...
I do and I'm not a whack job. Been living here right on the water in Navarre all my life (46years). I have gone through more hurricanes than I can remember and will go through many more. I have 4 acres and lost 150+ trees from one storm alone. You would be amazed how well nature recovers and I have lots of new trees. The man-made stuff is insured so that's easily replaced.
This spill is not a natural problem and will seriously impact the ecological balance of the gulf. I'm right on the intercoastal waterway that runs between P-Cola Bay and Choctawhatchee Bay. It's a major spawning area for redfish, grouper, trout and many other species. Not only will people making a living on these fish suffer but so will the wildlife that feed on them such as pelicans, hawks, herons and other fish. This is a fight to save an ecological balance nature created but man is disrupting.
Also note the use of dispersant is even worse than the oil itself. Yes allowing the oil to reach the surface will kill hundreds of mammals but when the oil stays suspended it also kills the most basic life forms that are the start of the food chain, planktons and larvae . Their argument that these lowest forms can bounce back faster is backwards thinking. It still disrupts the food chain and the mammals will still die, but from starvation instead.
Surface oil will also turn into a tar ball. Tar balls become inert fairly quick (5-10 years) and studies have found creatures inhabiting old tar balls from previous spills
Kevin Costner's machines were originally developed by the Idaho National Laboratory for nuclear fuel reprocessing.
I promise I will personally take the blame if anything should go wrong.
- AC
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.
It depends on your definition of "safe." You see the bacteria burn oxygen in their metabolic process. Too many of them feeding at once and suddenly there is not enough oxygen to sustain any sort of sizable lifeforms. Already this is happening in the gulf, and considering that at least half of the gulf was already a dead zone due to lack of oxygen, this implies that most of the gulf will become a massive dead zone. Its really hard to say what the long term effects of any of this can be. Also there is always the looming threat of a hurricane coming and stalling operations as well as dumping a great deal of oil along the coast with the storm surge. Yeah. The oil eating bacteria is certainly a solution, and is better than just leaving the oil there to soak into wetlands and lakes and whatnot. I mean if you already have something that is incapable of sustaining life, at least restoring it somewhat helps. I don't think they need to introduce any new bacteria. There seem to be enough naturally occurring strains already out there doing their jobs. The great thing about bacteria is that they reproduce at a phenomenal rate and will just keep increasing their blooms and spreading along with the oil. Will they solve the problem? Certainly not, but they are indeed helping a great deal.
zosxavius photography
There's nothing complicated about learning to fly a jumbo jet and then fly it into a building (times three). That was Osama Bin Laden's plan, and a lot simpler explanation then to believe thousands of demolition engineers wired the buildings with TNT, rented some planes, flew them into buildings, set off the explosives, and nobody saw them do it..... or none of them felt guilty about what they did, and talked.
Only a complete nutter would believe the latter explanation to be true
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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Many of them aren't even people, they are Floridians.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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.