Coming soon, to a devastated Ecosystem, near you -- MAYBE?
Bio-Remediation
What Is Bioremediation?
Bioremediation can be defined as any process that uses microorganisms or their enzymes to return the environment altered by contaminants to its original condition.
[...]
Not all contaminants are readily treated through the use of bioremediation; for example, heavy metals such as cadmium and lead are not readily absorbed or captured by organisms. The integration of metals such as mercury into the food chain may make things worse as organisms bioaccumulate these metals.
However, there are a number of advantages to bioremediation, which may be employed in areas which cannot be reached easily without excavation. For example, hydrocarbon spills (or more specific: gasoline) may contaminate groundwater well below the surface of the ground; injecting the right organisms, in conjunction with oxygen-forming compounds, may significantly reduce concentrations after a period of time. This is much less expensive than excavation followed by burial elsewhere or incineration [...]
What's Wiki say, on the Topic?
Bioremediation
Bioremediation may be employed to attack specific soil contaminants, such as degradation of chlorinated hydrocarbons by bacteria. An example of a more general approach is the cleanup of oil spills by the addition of nitrate and/or sulfate fertilisers to facilitate the decomposition of crude oil by indigenous or exogenous bacteria.
[...]
Bioremediation can occur on its own (natural attenuation or intrinsic bioremediation) or can be spurred on via the addition of fertilizers to increase the bioavailability within the medium (biostimulation).
Recent advancements have also proven successful via the addition of matched microbe strains to the medium to enhance the resident microbe population's ability to break down contaminants (bioaugmentation).
[...]
The use of genetic engineering to create organisms specifically designed for bioremediation has great potential.
Well, that doesn't sound TOO scary ...
What's the US Govt say, on the Topic?
Hmmmm ... seems like some think it can work ...
that it already has been successful with just the plain old "background" Microbes, already out there.
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
Bioremediation: Nature's Way to a Cleaner Environment
Crude oil spill, Bemidji, Minnesota
-- In 1979, a pipeline carrying crude oil burst and contaminated the underlying aquifer. USGS scientists studying the site found that toxic chemicals leaching from the crude oil were rapidly degraded by natural microbial populations. Significantly, it was shown that the plume of contaminated ground water stopped enlarging after a few years as rates of microbial degradation came into balance with rates of contaminant leaching. This was the first and best-documented example of intrinsic bioremediation in which naturally occurring microbial processes remediates contaminated ground water without human intervention.
So if Nature can do it, that could mean, with a little assist from several 1000 Lab Petri Dishes, we can do it Better?
What do Entrepreneurs say, what are they doing, with the concept of Bioremediation?
Microbes developing appetite for oil
Evolugate seeks approval to use its life forms to help clean up the Gulf oil spill.
By Anthony Clark, Business editor, gainesville.com -- Monday, June 7, 2010
A Gainesville startup company is developing "designer microbes" specially tailored to the Gulf oil spill in hopes of helping cleanup efforts.
Evolugate LLC has developed a technology to speed the process of evolution in microbes used to create biofuel and to control insects. In recent weeks, it has turned its attention to cleaning the Gulf oil spill.
[...]
Once the microbes are ready, Evolugate will need approval from the Environmental Protection Agency.
[...]
Then it [Evolugate] will need a customer. That could be BP, a state agency or a local municipality with a cleanup site, Lyons said.
The company says its technology will create more effective methods of oil cleanup than current methods.
Those methods include dumping nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous and iron into the environment to feed naturally occurring microbes that eat oil.
That method speeds the natural breakdown of oil threefold, Lyons said. The problem is it also feeds microbes that don't eat oil, including some that are pathogens.
Another method is to introduce microbes that are not natural to a particular area but have worked with oil spills in other areas. Lyons said that is less effective since nonindigenous microbes often don't grow because they are not adapted to that area's temperature, salinity or oxygen levels.
Evolugate has sampled the Gulf oil spill and is gradually adapting microbes native to the Gulf to that specific environment.
Once the oil is gone, depriving the microbes of their food source, other native flora will out-compete them and they will likely become extinct, Lyons said.
The microbes also are learning to eat the chemical dispersant being used on the oil spill.
"Not only is the composition of this dispersant a mystery, no one knows how it will biodegrade," he said.
The microbes would have to be adapted separately for each contaminated site.
Who says Science, is not relevant?
What are some of the Bio "Road Blocks" with such a 'Eco-cleansing' approach?
Oil-Eating Microbes for Gulf Spill
A Florida start-up thinks it can save the Gulf; experts doubt it.
Sandra Upson, IEEE Spectrum -- Jun 11, 2010
The problem, Lee and Atlas say, is that besides oil, the bacteria need other nutrients in greater abundance for their populations to grow. "What is useful is the addition of a fertilizer -- nitrogen or phosphorus," Atlas says. And not just anywhere: Adding fertilizers, if it works at all, would work best in coastal areas rather than in the open ocean, where Deepwater Horizon is gushing and the nutrients can easily disperse. For fertilization to work in open waters, engineers would likely need to come up with a way to force the nutrients to bind to the oil, he says.
But even if adding fertilizers boost bacterial growth in coastal waters, it has a dark side, says Cornell’s Howarth. "About two-thirds of coastal water and bays [in the United States] are severely degraded by nitrogen and phosphorus pollution," he says. Leaving the environment’s native bacteria to do their own cleanup might be just as good, he adds.
Thomas Lyons (no relation to Ben Lyons), Evolugate’s principal research scientist, maintains that his company has a new approach. "We believe the reason it hasn’t worked in the past is because the microbes haven’t been adapted," he says. "Our methodology is, you’ve got to get oil from the actual site where you’re going to be putting the microbes." As the experiments go forward, Thomas Lyons says that his staff will collect more samples from the waters and marshes along the Gulf Coast and attempt to evolve "designer communities" for each sample.
[...]
If they get lucky, the scientists at Evolugate will accelerate the evolution of a population of oil-devouring microbes perfectly tuned to life in the Gulf. But so far, the scientific record is not in their favor.
OK that's a bit MORE scary -- perfectly tuned?
Of course, that's the language of a critic -- Evolugate has its own built-in Bio-safety valve:
Once [their food is gone] the oil is gone, depriving the microbes of their food source, other native flora will out-compete them and they [those "designer communities"] will likely become extinct.
Sounds good 'on paper' ... But, we all saw Jurassic Park, you know ...
Here's what one very sharp, Marine Scientist has to say on the topic of Oil-eating Microbes and Bioremediation.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow - Univ. of GA Marine Scientist Samantha Joye: The Plumes
http://www.youtube.com/...
Thanks to one great Journalist, we have some idea of the potential Road Blocks and the potential Fallout of Nature's Bioremediation, when it takes place on a "mass scale" ...
PS. It's kind of happening -- ALREADY!
Two hidden disasters of the Deepwater Horizon. Worry smarter, OK?
By The Rachel Maddow Show -- Tue Jun 8, 2010
MSNBC Video Transcript:
JOYE: [...] Now, this methane is very palatable for microorganisms and the microbial consumption of that oil and gas is consuming oxygen in the water. And the oxygen levels in the plume drop as you get further away from the source. So, as the plumes age, if you will, the oxygen is getting drawn down to fairly low levels.
The lowest concentrations that we measured were about three milligrams per liter, which may not mean a lot or sound like a lot, but basically the level where animals begin to get stressed out is two milligrams per liter. So, we're almost to the point where fish and other organisms that require oxygen will be stressed in this water.
MADDOW: And just to be clear and forgive my -- the speed at which I absorb these things because I'm not a scientist, but what you're saying is when microbes essentially eat the oil, they're also using up the oxygen in the water, and so, while that sort of bioremediation of these microbes going through the oil is a good thing in terms of getting rid of the oil, it also can create potentially dead zones where this water can't sustain living things.
JOYE: That's precisely correct. And things will survive in the low oxygen water, but any higher organism that requires oxygen won't be able to survive in that water. It will be -- will avoid it, if possible. [...]
There's that dang 'Faustian' Tradeoff again -- Where do they keep coming from?
you can follow the work of this dedicated Marine Scientist here:
Gulf Oil Blog: gulfblog.uga.edu
The migrating undersea plume
UGA Department of Marine Sciences
Worry smarter -- great advice, Rachel.
I hope the 'Best and the Brightest' have this one -- this Bio-Whats-zit -- this Bio-Remediation
somewhere on their High-Tech Radar Screens ...
And I hope Evolugate, can adapt those Microbes, as 'precisely' as they say they can ...
Otherwise ... we might have a REAL mess on our hands.
This is where the Rubber meets the Road, I guess?
Do we turn to "Science" to save us -- from ourselves, and our short-sightedness?
Or do we deserve the Consequences, of our mindless mad-grab for the Easy Oil, that occupied much of the last century?
These are the Decisions, in our Future ... whether we like them, or not.