Bioremediation is the process of using plants, fungus or bacteria to restore a contaminated environment to its original state. Natural, oil-eating bacteria exist in our oceans, and they have been collected, bred in vast quantities and stored in powder form to be used to clean up oil spills -- as they have been used in the past. With the entire Gulf of Mexico's ecosystem in the balance, large-scale use of these natural bacteria may be a critical option for local, state and national governments around the Gulf to consider.
The following video discusses the use of this bacteria in tests and off the coast of Texas. The real information starts about 2 minutes into the video:
Given that these are natural bacteria, even though their deployed masses die off without oil to consume, it seems likely that the unmodified variants will likely reproduce for a short period given an enormous quantity of available oil. Hence, while large scale deployments of these bacteria cultures may appear to be dwarfed by the scale of the crisis, if the available material is carefully spread around the Gulf, particularly targeting immediate hot spots and the largest masses of oil, it may be possible to reproduce enough bacteria to keep the problem contained. Especially if the bacteria are densest above the oil plumes.
On the downside, it is likely they will go inert in the depths where the plumes emerge, but small quantities could be released into the plumes to be carried to warmer surface waters where they would eventually become active, to the extent that they stayed with the oil flow.
All comments and suggestions are welcome.
P.S. I'm not the guy narrating the video.