The discussion revolves around the potential use of oil-eating bacteria to address the BP oil spill, exploring their effectiveness, environmental impacts, and comparisons to other methods of oil cleanup. Participants examine the implications of using both natural and genetically modified organisms in the context of ecological balance and the creation of hypoxic zones in the ocean.
Participants express a range of views on the effectiveness and environmental implications of using oil-eating bacteria, with no clear consensus reached on the best approach or the potential consequences of such methods.
Participants highlight the complexity of the ecological impacts of using bacteria for oil cleanup, including the need to consider oxygen levels and the effects of existing nutrient runoff. There are unresolved questions regarding the scale of the oil spill compared to other environmental factors.
Not all hydrocarbons are created equal. When burned, petroleum in particular produces large amounts of soot, aka black smoke, and anything burned at high temperature in the atmosphere produces nitrogen oxides. Bacteria does none of the above.TubbaBlubba said:Wouldn't this be akin to setting the stuff on fire, anyway? The oil-eating bacteria would almost certainly oxidize the hydrocarbons into CO2, in which case you might as well, you know, burn it.
I take your point. Given the scale of O2 in the ocean, does it really stand to be depleted by bacteria at scale consuming the oil leaked (and not already captured or removed) over the surface of the Gulf of Mexico? Also I'm not sure if I'd call the products of the combustion of all that oil a cosmetic effect.nismaratwork said:Yes, but it is that CO2 and the oxidizing process that... wait for it... causes hypoxic regions in oceans. In fact, naturally occurring bacteria in the ocean may help the cleanup, while killing large regions much as they might render a human host dead. There needs to be a balanced approach, not just a cosmetic one.
mheslep said:I take your point. Given the scale of O2 in the ocean, does it really stand to be depleted by bacteria at scale consuming the oil leaked (and not already captured or removed) over the surface of the Gulf of Mexico? Also I'm not sure if I'd call the products of the combustion of all that oil a cosmetic effect.
mheslep said:I take your point. Given the scale of O2 in the ocean, does it really stand to be depleted by bacteria at scale consuming the oil leaked (and not already captured or removed) over the surface of the Gulf of Mexico? Also I'm not sure if I'd call the products of the combustion of all that oil a cosmetic effect.
No doubt, but I wonder if the size of this petroleum spill coming from one pipe compares in size with the forever ongoing effluent of the Mississippi river?Ygggdrasil said:I'm not an expert in the area, but it seems reasonable to worry about oil-eating bacteria creating hypoxic zones in the ocean. Nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from the Mississippi delta is enough to create a hypoxic zone at the Mississippi delta (http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/)
mheslep said:No doubt, but I wonder if the size of this petroleum spill coming from one pipe compares in size with the forever ongoing effluent of the Mississippi river?
socean said:How about oil eating bacteria that are attached to a substrate that absorbs output of metabolic reactions? Substrate would also serve to "bind" oil into floating jelly that can be more easily collected.