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.

New tech?

[lorthia]

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.

Re:New tech?

[drinkypoo]

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.

Re:This mess is just too much

[Pollardito]

Apparently that oil well had not previously produced oil for sale, so losing it didn't impact supply at all. From the Wiki page [wikipedia.org]:

The platform commenced drilling in February 2010 at a water depth of approximately 5,000 feet (1,500 m).[11] At the time of the explosion the rig was drilling an exploratory well.[12] The planned well was to be drilled to 18,000 feet (5,500 m) below sea level, and was to be plugged and suspended for subsequent completion as a subsea producer.[11] Production casing was being run and cemented at the time of the accident. Once the cementing was complete, it was due to be tested for integrity and a cement plug set to temporarily abandon the well for later completion as a subsea producer.

Re:New tech?

[Anonymous Coward]

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 [farmwars.info]

Re:This mess is just too much

[LurkerXXX]

Yeah, thinking that that oil conglomerates fix prices is a super nutty conspiracy thinking. I mean, it's not like giant companies like ADM [wikipedia.org] 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 [wesrch.com] happening in real life [yahoo.com] and not just in conspiracy nutters ramblings. The whole concept is just crazy. You are a wise man.

Re:This mess is just too much

[ridgecritter]

"Debeers is now allowed to operate in the U.S. because they are a price fixing monopolist." Nope. Although DeBeers is a monopolist as you say, it is now allowed to operate in the US not because of their monopolist status, but because they settled the various lawsuits pending against them in the US, some of them quite longstanding. See Wikipedia article on DeBeers. As a result, it is now possible for DeBeers' employees to come to the US without fear of arrest. Prior to the settlement, if you were a scientist employed by DeBeers and wanted to attend a conference in the US, you couldn't.

How we forget Kudzu

[HockeyPuck]

If you've ever driven through the south eastern US, say along HWY 85 from Georgia to Alabama you can see fields of kudzu [wikipedia.org] that are engulfing whole areas. This stuff grows inches per day and covers trees, cars, telephone poles etc..

Re:This mess is just too much

[Vellmont]

Uhh.. They did. [wikipedia.org] There was even a movie [wikipedia.org] about the whole thing starring Matt Damon.

Re:New tech?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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"...

Re:New tech?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Kevin Costner's machines were originally developed by the Idaho National Laboratory [house.gov] for nuclear fuel reprocessing.

Uh, applies to a shitton of markets

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it in the US that you regularly let enormous amounts of food rot because you can't dump it on the market?
Well, it certainly happens in Europe all the time. And the governments run and organise it. The governments. Not the farmers, but the state officials and administrators.
Foodstuffs for which there exists an active futures market, so precisely the same effect applies. And the justifications for restricting supply is identical.
Consolidations in the auto industry? Shutting down of plants? "ZOMG ALL PLANTS SHOULD PRODUCE AT MAXIMUM CAPACITY OR ITS MANIPULATION"

Yes, it is manipulation. The reason why it is done in the oils market is that storage capacity is limited, demand is quite stable, while supply is _not_ always stable, and storage is limited - which means that, if people demand 100,000 barrels of oil a day and you come supply them with 120,000, nobody would buy the remaining 20,000 unless you practically gave it away. I believe at certain times the gas price has been _negative_ for this reason - demand is stable and there is no available storage, so you actually _pay_ whoever can take gas off your hands with a spare rubber balloon to take it away.

This is not somehow "breaking the model", only your internal model, which doesn't describe either how the world works or how it should work. Things done this way works well. If things were not done this way they wouldn't do well. That is all the justification that needs to be given.