yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) (09/18/89)
With all of the publicity surrounding the Exxon Valdez spill, I was wondering what ever happened to the oil-eating bacteria that genetic engineers were working on a few years ago. I seem to remember it was designed specifically for cleaning up oil spills. Is it operational yet? If so, why didn't they use it on the Valdez spill? If not, when do they expect it to become operational? Can it survive in the environment of an underground oil deposit? If so, what safeguards exist to prevent it from getting into, say, the Alaskan or Saudi oilfields? It seems like it could make an exceedingly nasty terrorist / economic warfare weapon. _______________________________________________________________________________ Brian Yamauchi University of Rochester yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu Computer Science Department _______________________________________________________________________________
chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) (09/18/89)
In article <1989Sep17.193703.6598@cs.rochester.edu> yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu.UUCP (Brian Yamauchi) writes: >With all of the publicity surrounding the Exxon Valdez spill, I was >wondering what ever happened to the oil-eating bacteria that genetic >engineers were working on a few years ago. I seem to remember it was >designed specifically for cleaning up oil spills. > >Is it operational yet? If so, why didn't they use it on the Valdez >spill? If not, when do they expect it to become operational? I have often wondered the same thing. As a matter of fact, some naturally-occurring bacteria eat oil -- I just heard on NPR news (I know, not the greatest source of information, but I have heard of naturally-occurring oil-eating bacteria elsewhere) that one thing tried during the cleanup was to put fertilizer on oil-coated areas (I don't remember the details) to encourage growth of these oil-eating bacteria. >Can it survive in the environment of an underground oil deposit? If >so, what safeguards exist to prevent it from getting into, say, the >Alaskan or Saudi oilfields? It seems like it could make an >exceedingly nasty terrorist / economic warfare weapon. All of the biological ways of eating oil that I have ever heard of involve oxidizing it with oxygen (biological ways of oxidizing it using sulfate or nitrate are conceivable, but I haven't heard of any). The naturally-occurring oil-eating bacteria also have this limitation -- in the above-mentioned NPR broadcast they mentioned that the bacteria would not be able to do anything to oil that had soaked into gravel, soil, or sand due to the lack of a significant oxygen supply down there. The only thing other than oxygen capable of reacting with oil that is likely to be present in large amounts in oil-soaked environments (including oilfields) is water. However, I have not heard of a satisfactory biological means of getting energy out of the reaction of hydrocarbons with water, which takes high temperatures to do industrially. Organisms are not going to eat something if they cannot get energy or something else useful out of it (and if they are getting something else, but not energy, then they have to have another source of energy alongside it). Unless somebody finds a way to get bacteria to get energy from reaction of hydrocarbons with water (I don't know if this even gives off energy at reasonable temperatures -- should an enzyme be find that does this reaction, it might tend to run the other way -- anyone know more about the thermodynamics of this?), the oilfields are safe (as long as you don't pump air down there). | Lucius Chiaraviglio | Internet: chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu BITNET: chiaravi@IUBACS.BITNET (IUBACS hoses From: fields; INCLUDE RET ADDR) Internet-gatewayed BITNET: chiaravi%IUBACS.BITNET@vm.cc.purdue.edu Alt Internet-gatewayed BITNET: chiaravi%IUBACS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
gst@gnosys.UUCP (Gary S. Trujillo) (09/18/89)
In article <26170@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes: > In article <1989Sep17.193703.6598@cs.rochester.edu> > yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu.UUCP (Brian Yamauchi) writes: > >With all of the publicity surrounding the Exxon Valdez spill, I was > >wondering what ever happened to the oil-eating bacteria that genetic > >engineers were working on a few years ago. I seem to remember it was > >designed specifically for cleaning up oil spills. > > > >Is it operational yet? If so, why didn't they use it on the Valdez > >spill? If not, when do they expect it to become operational? > > I have often wondered the same thing. As a matter of fact, some > naturally-occurring bacteria eat oil -- I just heard on NPR news (I know, not > the greatest source of information... Hey, whaddaya got against NPR? Their news is as acurate and timely as that of any of the other sources available, for my money. I can't see that their errors (which they're honest enough to admit, when listeners call them on 'em, when letters get read on "All Things Consdidered"'s Thursday program) are any more frequent or serious than those of newspapers of network television. Lay off!! > , but I have heard of naturally-occurring > oil-eating bacteria elsewhere) that one thing tried during the cleanup was to > put fertilizer on oil-coated areas (I don't remember the details) to encourage > growth of these oil-eating bacteria. I heard what I imagine is the story you're referring to on this past Saturday's (9/16) All Things Considered. I think you got the essence of the story (which you quoted in your posting) right. The ATC story on Saturday said that the tests were very successful, and that the technique was being extended to other fouled beaches, but it was really too late in the season to expect much good to come of it, since the bacteria cannot survive the colder weather soon to come. Here's something from Econet's Greenpeace Press-Release conference (gp.press) on the subject, from when the tests were first being initiated: Topic 152 EXXON TO TRY FERTILIZER TO SPEED UP gn:greenlink gp.press 8:27 am May 15, 1989 Subject: EXXON TO TRY FERTILIZER TO SPEED UP NATURAL OIL BREAKDOWN Date: June 6, 1989 Via GreenLink: ============== GEORGE LOBSENZ WASHINGTON (UPI) - Exxon will spread fertilizer on oil-soaked Alaskan beaches in a test effort to accelerate the growth of natural bacteria that break down toxic hydrocarbons from oil, the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday. Under an agreement with the EPA, Exxon will apply nitrogen and phosphorous to about two acres of beach along the southern shore of Snug Harbor on Knight Island, one of the areas of Prince William Sound hardest hit by the 10.9 million gallons of oil spilled by the supertanker Exxon Valdez March 24. The nitrogen and phosphorus are nutrients intended to stimulate the growth of native micro-organisms in the sound that "eat" certain toxic elements of the spilled crude oil. The experiment, which is to begin June 8, could result in the breakdown of toxic hydrocarbons within two to three years rather than the five- to 10-year period required under normal circumstances, said Dick Valentinetti, an official in EPA's Office of Research and Development. If successful, EPA officials said they might use the technique in other parts of Prince William Sound as a way to get at oil that has soaked deep into beaches. "The hydrocarbons that would be removed are the ones most likely to affect fish fry and other marine animals because they are the most mobile in the environment," Valentinetti said. EPA officials said treated beaches still would be blackened because the bacteria do not attack tars and other heavier constituents of oil. However, the remaining oil would be less sticky, meaning it would be less likely to coat seals, otters and birds. Exxon, EPA and state officials in Alaska will monitor the experiment to watch for damage to the environment. Valentinetti said there is some concern the fertilizer would enhance the growth of algae, which could choke off other ocean life by gobbling up oxygen in the water. In addition, he said that as bacteria break down hydrocarbons, "secondary" toxic byproducts are released into the environment. If the rate of degradation is accelerated enough, those byproducts could reach harmful levels. The EPA will issue a progress report on the experiment on July 1 and the test is expected to run 90 days. Under the agreement with the EPA, Exxon will pay all the operational costs of the experiment - about $3 million in cash and resources - while EPA will spend $1.6 million for oversight and independent analysis of results. -- Gary S. Trujillo {linus,bbn,m2c}!spdcc!gnosys!gst Somerville, Massachusetts {ima,stech,wjh12,cdp}!gnosys!gst
BHB3@PSUVM.BITNET (09/18/89)
There probably wouldn't be much problem, putting naturally occuring bateria into the water where and oil spill has just occured, but I would think that approval for use of geneticly engineered "oil-eating" bacteria is a long way of f. Releasing a virtually untested bacteria into the open environment could have dire unseen consequences.
jay@banzai.PCC.COM (Jay Schuster) (09/19/89)
chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes: >In article <1989Sep17.193703.6598@cs.rochester.edu> >>Can it survive in the environment of an underground oil deposit? >All of the biological ways of eating oil that I have ever heard of >involve oxidizing it with oxygen (biological ways of oxidizing it using >sulfate or nitrate are conceivable, but I haven't heard of any). An old housemate of mine specializes in biological degradation of toxic wastes. She says that what they do when they find ground contamination is culture the soil to find the bacteria that thrive on the gunk, and then find the conditions that make them thrive best. Then they inject the soil with this bacteria (that was already there, they are just increasing the population) and inject in whatever else the bacteria need (water, air, extra nutrients). Sounded pretty nifty to me. She also said that they don't have stock libraries of bacteria that eat particular toxins, because bacteria are so incredibly abundant in the soil that any soil you sample will have *something* in it. -- Jay Schuster <jay@pcc.COM> uunet!uvm-gen!banzai!jay, attmail!banzai!jay The People's Computer Company `Revolutionary Programming'
chi9@quads.uchicago.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) (01/31/91)
In article <1991Jan30.144806.14934@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> jwm@sun4.uucp (James W. Meritt) writes: >BTW: Are the bioagents which are being planned to be used against the >spill taylored to require the presence of sea water? It does NOT look >like a bug I would care to follow the slick back and get underground >away from the ocean. I can just envision the mideast as an area with >food mines... :-( I don't think you need to worry about this, unless oil-eating microbe technology has made a truly awesome leap in the last <4 years. At least as of 1987 (the date of publication of a book on anaerobic microbiology that I have read; I have also found this information elsewhere), no microorganisms are known which can consume hydrocarbons without using free oxygen. Although the amount of oxygen required is not necessarily equal to that needed for complete oxidation of the hydrocarbons, oil deposits are almost certainly completely devoid of free oxygen, at least in their natural state. Even if some oxygen were injected during attempts to get the oil out, it would be rapidly consumed, thus bringing any oil degradation to a halt (assuming that this started in the first place). Besides, even if you pumped oxygen continuously into an oil well (-: not a good idea :-), it would not be much available to oil-eating microbes except at the surface of the oil and in the volume outside of the oil (where they won't be able to eat the oil, of course), because oxygen doesn't dissolve very well in liquid hydrocarbons (which is why you can store sodium and other such water- and air- reactive metals under kerosene; the surface of such metals under kerosene does get oxidized eventually, but it takes many years of storage for the oxidized layer to get really thick). Completely anaerobic decomposition of hydrocarbons is thermodynamically feasible under a variety of reasonable conditions for microbial growth, but no one has found any organisms which do this, much to the discouragement of those who wish to clean up oil spills with microbes, since oil can form oxygen-excluding clots and/or seep into anaerobic areas of soil. I would predict that if such microbes were found or engineered, the threat to underground pools of oil would still be limited, however, by the general lack of water within volumes occupied by oil, and also by the lessening of thermodynamic favorability of decomposition by the buildup of metabolic waste products. With decomposition of the oil limited to its surface and limited in rate by the escape (if any) of metabolic waste products, I would wager that we would still be guzzling the oil faster ourselves than the microbes would. -- | Lucius Chiaraviglio | Internet: chi9@midway.uchicago.edu