Newly Discovered Bacteria Could Aid Oil Cleanup 167
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? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:New tech? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Kevin Costner's machines were originally developed by the Idaho National Laboratory [house.gov] for nuclear fuel reprocessing.
Uh there already are batcteria eating oil (Score:5, Insightful)
The gulf is blooming with natural oil eating bacteria that already know how to live among the communities and predators there. Indeed there are so many of them eating the oil right now they say it's removing all the oxygen from the water making a deadzone.
Re:Uh there already are batcteria eating oil (Score:4, Insightful)
You make an excellent point : there's no telling what will happen when you introduce a newly discovered ( and as such , pretty much unknown ) life form into the open sea.
However , from past experiences , when we decide to meddle with nature , it usually doesn't end up well for either.
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This is a newly discover strain of a very common and widely dispersed bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa [wikipedia.org]. This strain developed naturally in an oil contaminated enviroment, and P. aeruginosa is a well known for eating oil. My hunch is this strain is either already there or will evolve on it's own, if the strain isn't introduced into the GoM by us.
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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]
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What about oil based materials?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0564476/ [imdb.com]
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/gerry-davis/mutant-59.htm [fantasticfiction.co.uk]
CC.
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Or if you prefer to shoot your oil mutants:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/larsiusprime/super-energy-apocalypse-recycled [kongregate.com]
Go ahead, use the konami code.
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It depends on your definition of "safe." You see the bacteria burn oxygen in their metabolic process. Too many of them feeding at once and suddenly there is not enough oxygen to sustain any sort of sizable lifeforms. Already this is happening in the gulf, and considering that at least half of the gulf was already a dead zone due to lack of oxygen, this implies that most of the gulf will become a massive dead zone. Its really hard to say what the long term effects of any of this can be. Also there is always
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Now the real question is why aren't oil companies required to have cleanup response equipment before being allowed to drill? They certainly can afford it. Or if they don't want to keep and maintain such equipment, perhaps the Coast Guard can maintain it under its fleet. Then if anything happens, we'll bill them for the cleanup.
If only the vast federal government had some sort of Agency charged with Environmental Protection! Sadly, Washington being what it is, the EPA only produces paperwork and only protects it's own jobs. I'm fairly libertarian, and I could certainly see tax dollars going for what you suggested! But I don't think government agencies are allowed to do anything useful any more.
They don't need bacteria (Score:2, Funny)
I heard that Cane Toads soak up oil at 10 times the rate.
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Sadly winter never hits the south.
Go ahead and add it... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Until the oil is consumed and they all die.
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They live on in places where gas and/or oil is spilled regularly like in the water close to marinas, on the water in ports, and around oil rigs.
Breaking down carcinogenic spills all around the world? Sounds good.
They get into the suboceanic and other oil supplies and deplete them.
This is a strain of P. aeruginosa, generally an aerobic organism. They can probably not live in anoxic conditions, never mind the pressure they'd be subjected to (do oil drillers use sterile equipment? I think not).
They find one or more hospitable environments where they live off of something other than oil causing possible harm to any number of ecosystems.
You sure they can even survive in seawater? This is a household strain, not some sort of superbug.
5 years from now we find out... (Score:1)
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Won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
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This whole thing sounds more and more like Neal Stephenson's Zodiac [amazon.com] as time goes by. And that story included a nuclear option as well (I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it; it's a great book. In fact if Stephenson was too pie in the sky for you before, this is the one to read. It would make a much better movie than the pile of shit that came out which is called "Zodiac", too. Who keeps putting the Gyllenhalls in movies?)
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I've been thinking that this entire time. I just read Zodiac a month or two and the parrallels are starting to become pretty amusing :) I'm particularly interested to see how that stuff with the oil dispersents will turn out.
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The oil is bad, but we know from experience that introducing new organism to already vulnerable ecosystems is generally a bad idea.
It's actually a slightly different strain of a very common bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa [wikipedia.org], that's better a biodegrading the very toxic PAHs, Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [wikipedia.org] because of the Biosurfactant [wikipedia.org] they produce. Many other stains of P. aeruginosa are already there naturally eating up the oil spilled.
problem is with collecting, not separating (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:problem is with collecting, not separating (Score:5, Funny)
If Kevin Costner was selling a machine that can suck up cubic miles of water, that would be newsworthy
Must.....resist.....Waterworld.....joke....
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Must.....resist.....Waterworld.....joke....
Probably needs to clean up the gulf of mexico just to finally pay off a bunch of old waterworld bills.
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As I understand it, the interesting part is that the resulting oil is clean enough to be sold and used, which means there's a bigger economic incentive (or less of an economic cost) to clean up the spill.
Let's face it, corporations don't work as hard for a "do it or else" as they do with a "free oil for the taking!".
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And if they aren't going to sell it, exactly what do people think they would do with it?
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In another article, BP said they would sell it, but the price would be lower because of the methanol they're injecting to prevent ice buildup.
I fail to see how burning it off is a sound decision if it's saleable. Even if it can't be used for fuel, if there's anything at all that it can be used for it'd be stupid to just waste it to placate people who irrationally want to punish the oil for the disaster.
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Him getting press is a way to promote the tech. The average USian doesn't know anything about icky science, but understands Hollywood stars.
It's the height of arrogance to assume the little people are more than they are.
It is the height of realism to market to them in ways to which they respond. The public absolutely dictate the terms of engagement.
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It's the height of arrogance to assume the little people are more than they are.
Careful, buddy, our irony meters might get stretched out of shape.
Ammonia (Score:1)
Nice. New bacteria. I don't have time to go look it up, but somebody else might... I'm under the impression that the whole process of breaking down hydrocarbons eventually leads to a drastic increase in ammonia and related compounds, and severe oxygen depletion. Even (especially?) biological processes. Somebody once posted a nice short progression of the basic chemistry involved in a similar topic here on /. not too long ago.
Ain't nothin' free. Break it down? It has to break down into something...
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Ain't nothin' free.
Sunsets, rainbows, rain... all free.
This is for a grant? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are thousands of bacteria on the face of the planet that can break down oil and I bet many of them are in the Gulf itself, right now, which has been seeping oil for what, 100's of millions of years? The problem is not if there are bacteria that can metabolize oil; we already know 100's of ones that do, the question is, will it be more effective than the 1000's already out there?
This is just a press release for a grant writing fishing expedition for BP money. Everyone is doing it right now in academia, trust me.
The REAL Reason... (Score:3, Funny)
The REAL reason Kevin Costner waited this long to release this isn't government testing. His arch nemesis, The Deacon (Dennis Hopper), just died, removing the last hurdle by getting the smokers out of the way.
BS, as usual (Score:2)
If it was just discovered, it will take at the very least 10 years for it to be deployable, likely significantly longer. That this is published now is just profiteering from the disaster.
ORLY? (Score:2)
Good for Costner (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know of any person in the world that has put his/her money so consistently where their mouth is. Costner has spent most of his fortune in developing various environmentally friendly technologies, such as super-fast flywheel energy storage. Honestly, I thought such a altruistic business proposal could never succeed in the world we live in. Maybe I wasn't 100% right.
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Yeah, he's pretty good, too. But probably a more able businessman than Costner, who is more heart than economical acument. IMHO.
I wish the best of luck to both.
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How we forget Kudzu (Score:3, Informative)
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..
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since SCO lost (again) (Score:2)
Lemme guess. They've got a patent pending on it.
Same Crude Material (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Lousy idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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Like, perhaps, The Andromeda Strain..??
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The fact is that new types of bacteria appear in the ocean all the time. You've been watching too many movies if you're scared of this idea. Fear not, the bacteria will not mutate and infect all life in the sea.
Famous last words. I, for one, welcome our new microscopic petrol guzzling overlords!
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Only if you accept responsibility for all damages if we don't use this bacteria
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Will you accept all responsibility for any damages that this new bacteria may or may not cause?
I didn't RTFA, but I think it's always good to take things with some skepticism.
Your assuming many things, mainly "Newly Discovered" = "New", it doesn't, it's a very common species of bacteria that learned how to eat oil a little bit better than it's oil eating siblings did.
Something will eat them... (Score:2)
Do you promise that? Will you personally take all the blame if something does go wrong? Will you accept all responsibility for any damages that this new bacteria may or may not cause?
I can promise you this : As soon as there is a new form of life that proliferates madly, nature usually finds something to eat it.
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I promise I will personally take the blame if anything should go wrong.
- AC
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I really, really hope this article will soon be tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"
Doesn't sound like a very good idea to release huge amounts of a newly developed, untested, unverified bacteria into our oceans...
I think you meant "What could possibly grow wrong"
Re:This mess is just too much (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This mess is just too much (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently that oil well had not previously produced oil for sale,
Oil prices are set based on speculative futures. In other words, normally people would say, opps - that means less oil coming to market down the road so the price needs to jump - and it does. Odd that it didn't do what it has always done in this case.
People need to understand that there exists a few products which are absolutely NOT part of free market economies and are not directly driven by supply and demand. Both diamonds and oil are such products. Their prices and supplies are artificially manipulated at every corner. While oil, unlike diamonds, truly are a scarce resource, they are both so heavily manipulated before and after they enter the market, their prices do not reflect reality of market demands - not in the least. If it were any other goods, talk of conspiracy, price fixing, price gouging and lots of serious investigations would be par for the course.
And no, this isn't crazy talk. I encourage you to do some modest investigation for yourself. You'll find lots and lots and lots and lots of completely legitimate sources stating all this.
Did you know if too much gas is produced and/or accidentally scheduled for delivery to the US, its dumped on non-US markets; traditionally south America? We certainly wouldn't want the price of gas to fall. Did you know refinery plants have been shut down but no new refineries have been created? Did you know one of the most cost effective refineries was one of the ones shut down? In fact, it was purchased for the explicit purpose of shutting it down? Following its shutdown, the price of fuel steadily went up stating they were at production limits and no one wants them to create a refinery in their back yard?
The amount of fraud, conspiracy, and market manipulation is so criminal, it makes criminals in awe of how complex and complete the oil industry fucks everyone - without prosecution.
In short, EVERYTHING you learned in economics 101 does NOT apply to oil/diamonds. Period.
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>>>Both diamonds and oil are such products.
Only because governments hand-out monopolies (deBeers, Comcast), or governments form cartels (OPEC). The free market would work if these damn governments would simply step out of the way.
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Yeah Standard Oil wasn't a monopoly. That's a popular myth but by the time the government stepped-in with trust busting, Standard Oil's competitors had already taken a big chunk of the market. Same with Kmart which used to be the dominant store of the 1970s and 80s..... it too lost its way to new competitors. Another example: Internet Explorer. Once had over 90% of the web share, and now it's fallen to around 60% due to new competition arising.
Monopolies are a self-correcting situation that don't need
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Another example: Internet Explorer.
Actually the government had its hand in that correction - at least somewhat.
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The stuff you learn in economics 101 (or for that matter any 101 type course), is never a complete picture of what's going on.
Supply and demand as taught in those kinds of courses is the same as the kinds of physics you get taught where everything is functionally behaving in a vacuum, except for some reason people understand that a ball won't behave exactly the way it does in the formulas when you throw it but they presume that the market will.
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I completely agree with you. The difference here is, after you learn the world doesn't exist in a vacuum, you still know absolutely nothing about how the economics of oil/diamonds work; at least not based on traditional economics. Excluding products such as those, at least both before and after your "vacuum realization", you had some vague understanding of the economies around you. Which is, after all, entirely the point of why they are taught.
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True enough.
I just get frustrated by the number of people who believe they understand everything because they understand supply and demand.
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Apparently that oil well had not previously produced oil for sale,
Oil prices are set based on speculative futures. In other words, normally people would say, opps - that means less oil coming to market down the road so the price needs to jump - and it does. Odd that it didn't do what it has always done in this case.
It's not clear to me whether you think this oil spill should affect the price of oil because it is slowing down the speed with which it becomes a useable well, or because the worldwide supply of oil is being reduced by this wastage. If it's the latter, it should be pointed out that the amount of oil lost that would ruin the environment is much less than the amount of oil lost that would make a substantial difference in world supply. if it's the former, than we'd have to know A. when this well was going to
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"ZOMG ALL PLANTS SHOULD PRODUCE AT MAXIMUM CAPACITY OR ITS MANIPULATION"
Please get a clue. Everyone makes it very clear that despite modest increases in production capabilities, we are woefully under producing. This in turn is used to justify higher prices. When asked why they don't increase production, they state no one wants a refinery in their back yard. Which is odder since they have shutdown plants and have old plants which could be recycled as an existing site.
And yet, if demand is so high and oil is available (it is), why wouldn't you increase production, especially to a
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This well was going to produce at something like 0.1% of U.S. consumption, that is enough to impact prices some, but it isn't enough to send futures into a shitstorm, it is certainly less of an issue than increasing Chinese consumption.
And yet BP was punished some $85 billion. You seem to falsely believe the price of oil is related to actual events. They usually are not. In fact, just about any excuse, no matter how stupid or irrelevant is typically used to drive prices drastically up. That's entirely the point of my previous post.
Woosh...
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Bullshit. Period.
In a world where Exxon has yet to pay for its cleanup, liability caps, exposure for BP, contrary to media hype, is bullshit.
Re:This mess is just too much (Score:5, Insightful)
The price of gasoline is not affected because this spill has no affect whatsoever on the refineries in Texas. They are still collecting oil from Saudi tankers and still pumping out gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and so on.
Also, and this is just personal opinion, I think people that believe in conspiracy theories (9/11 was a planned demolition, etc) are whackjobs. Why believe in outlandish complicated scenarios when the simplest answer is staring you right in the face? Supply-and-demand. That's why prices fluctuate
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Re:This mess is just too much (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This mess is just too much (Score:5, Informative)
Uhh.. They did. [wikipedia.org] There was even a movie [wikipedia.org] about the whole thing starring Matt Damon.
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AND AS I SAID, if price-fixing was happening the government would already be suing Exoon, BP, or whoever else is responsible
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Shout all you want.
You first said worries of price fixing were along the lines of nutter conspiracy theories. When it was pointed out you were entirely wrong, suddenly you said the government would sue and fix everything. No admission you were totally wrong about what is and is not a valid concern vs crazed conspiracy theory.
Now you spout off that if price fixing was happening the government would already be suing the gas cartel. Here's another nugget you don't get. Proving those cases is hard without an
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>>>OPEC decides how much we should pay and supplies that much
OPEC only generates 30% of the world's supply. So no OPEC doesn't "decide" the price, because they are just one piece of the market. If they charge too much, we have other cheaper options like Russia, Canada, and so on. It's equivalent to if Microsoft turned stupid & started charging $100 for Internet Explorer - people would simply jump ship to a cheaper browser.
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If they charge too much without making a couple of phone calls, that's true.
but you forget that there are a limited number of serious oil players in the world. they all have a finite resource they are interested in maximizing the value of.
what possible advantage would it be for them to pump it out as fast as possible at the lowest possible margin when they could simply slow it down a bit and multiply their margin many times over? especially when all it takes is informal agreement not to drop the price too
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30% is a lot and there are no other options to fill that 30% void - sure you can ask more from others but they will ask more for it (supply & demand you see) and probably won't be able to fill demand until their prices are on par with those of OPEC. If OPEC decides to charge more, the price of oil will go up. Maybe not 1:1 but definitely noticeable.
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There's nothing complicated about learning to fly a jumbo jet and then fly it into a building (times three). That was Osama Bin Laden's plan, and a lot simpler explanation then to believe thousands of demolition engineers wired the buildings with TNT, rented some planes, flew them into buildings, set off the explosives, and nobody saw them do it..... or none of them felt guilty about what they did, and talked.
Only a complete nutter would believe the latter explanation to be true
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Re:This mess is just too much (Score:5, Insightful)
So far, right now, the only people who are truly upset about this are the "environmentalist whack jobs."
Beg your pardon. How many millions of people live on the Gulf coastline? Which are they - whack jobs or not upset?
Re:This mess is just too much (Score:4, Funny)
Whack jobs. I mean seriously, who lives there post katrina?
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I do and I'm not a whack job. Been living here right on the water in Navarre all my life (46years). I have gone through more hurricanes than I can remember and will go through many more. I have 4 acres and lost 150+ trees from one storm alone. You would be amazed how well nature recovers and I have lots of new trees. The man-made stuff is insured so that's easily replaced.
This spill is not a natural problem and will seriously impact the ecological balance of the gulf. I'm right on the intercoastal waterway
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I dunno ... posts AC, gets defensive over obviously humorous post, sounds a little whacky to me.
surface oil - whats the big deal? (Score:3)
Surface oil will also turn into a tar ball. Tar balls become inert ...
What's the big deal here? Just use tar -xvf and be on your way.
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Many of them aren't even people, they are Floridians.
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This was a TEST well, not a producing well. It was in the process of being CAPPED OFF so they could move the rig and drill more test wells. It has no bearing on oil used for gasoline or anything else.
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HOW is the price of oil REALLY controlled?
Simple answer: it's not.
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it seems useful to view BP as Prince Phillip and Shell as Prince Bernhard (deceased goodwin vioation). I wonder how one might speak of an ex-member of goodwin violation.
Talk to an insider and the Brits pretty well run the whole oil business.
If you think east india company policies, a little price fixing is not what you worry about.
Try this. 1970's oil shock. the arabs stopped pumping oil? Published stats do not show a decrease in production. anacortes refinery had tankers backed up into the sound th
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It seems quite useful to think the post-fdr era is "current events". And current history, post 1400's. I wonder how I should look on someone whose opinions are offered based on a few years of sound bites. Oh well. I am sure the domestic unions are the direct cause of the bailouts of the speculators, including the foreign speculators.
But on cleanup. To get permission to drill this well BP had to show a capacity to immeadiately deal with 300k barrels of spill a day. So their plan was not real great but i
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Still have no clue what you're trying to say. Your thoughts jump randomly without coherence. In paragraph 2 how did you jump from BP's drilling plan to the US Government's cleanup plan, to Obama's pressure, and then British citizens opinions. Huh?
My question was rather simple: The US Government had a plan to deal with oil spills (corral the oil and then set fire to it). Why did the USG not implement the plan immediately? You didn't answer it.
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ah well. I do not see where I talked about a "US government cleanup plan" I did talk about some paperwork BP had to file with the feds to demonstrate they could cleanup this sort of thing. So I guess this is a BP plan.
As far as jumping randomly, incoherently, I guess you should go back to your sound bites.
As far as some coast guard plan not being implemented, probably because Obama has left BP in charge. I suspect we would agree this was yet another bad Obama behavior but asking "why" invites more comp
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I have to wonder how the price of gasoline hasn't gone up significantly since the news of this story initially broke.
I have to wonder why you think the price of oil would suddenly shoot up. The spill hasn't affected supply, since the leaking well never produced any oil for market. It's certainly made BPs stock price plummet, but honestly, why should this disaster make oil prices rise, and why do we need some big conspiracy to account for the lack of that?
So far, right now, the only people who are truly up
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He sounds like a knee-jerk Fox News watcher and Rush Limbaugh listener, or owns stock in a company that is forced to comply with environmental regulation. Before the Clean Air act you literally could not drive past a Monsanto plant with your windows rolled down; the air was so toxic it burned your lungs.
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Actually the Oil producers are being hurt by the worldwide recession reducing demand, so they are taking a profit hit to keep cash-flow up as much as they can.
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Can a government be held to account for not paying for something it orders within 3-4 days?
Although it may seem like it sometimes, BP is *NOT* a government. They are a trans-national corporation.
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My guess is that Ocean Therapy lacks the cash needed to actually build more than a few machines.
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D2O [unitednuclear.com] goes for about $70.00/100gm @ 'Ultrex' grade (99.999% pure), DOE [fbodaily.com] has 580 MT up for bid, but it's contaminated with tritium; a bit more than your looking for.