Natural Microbes Eat Oil!!!

[Zalorticus]

Gulf Oil Spill-Gutsy Solution Restores Environment in Just Six Weeks

Hello everyone! I've been gone for a little while, but that doesn't matter right now.

I've had this idea for a while now, but I had no idea it was real. Please take the time to watch this video and send it to absolutely everyone you know. Hopefully we can make it possible for these microbes to be used at the oil spill.

[Rain]

So long as some huge corporation doesn't buy it and refuse to use it.

[El Jacko]

They can occur naturally aswell, but they have the slight disadvantage in that they consume oxygen from the water itself, effectively leaving that area uninhabitable for anything that respirates.

[Zalorticus]

They can occur naturally aswell, but they have the slight disadvantage in that they consume oxygen from the water itself, effectively leaving that area uninhabitable for anything that respirates.

I think animals would rather have less oxygen then oil. Oxygen can come back, how do you think they can breath in the first place?

[El Jacko]

They can occur naturally aswell, but they have the slight disadvantage in that they consume oxygen from the water itself, effectively leaving that area uninhabitable for anything that respirates.

I think animals would rather have less oxygen then oil. Oxygen can come back, how do you think they can breath in the first place?

At the surface, it's pretty much a perfect solution, seeing as the water there gets cycled very regularly. The problem I refer to is primarily at depth, for example the large underwater plumes. As the depth increases, the rate of oxygenation decreases rapidly. It could take decades for water at the bottom of the plumes to regain its former oxygen levels, while the surface is refreshed immediately.

[Zalorticus]

By the time the microbes sink to the bottom, they should be dead. After they eat the oil, it is said that they just die. Anyway, from the video, it looks like they just float on the surface, not go deep underwater.

[Rain]

Then we'd have to filter them out somehow. Are they natural microbes and do they decompose by themselves? Also, are there any dangers of introducing invasive species of microbes? I don't want "The Germ That Ate Planet Earth".

[Zalorticus]

The microbes die after they eat their fill of oil. Once they die, they are completely safe for animals to eat. They are completely natural; the company who found them has brought them from all different parts of the world. The microbes won't reproduce, so there is no chance for them to invade a territory.

[Toruk Makto]

Sounds "too good to be true"...

I distrust technical processes that haven't been tested in real-world scenarios.

[Zalorticus]

They've used it on another spill before, and it worked. Granted, it wasn't as large a spill as the current one (or coming from the bottom of the ocean).