So I moved to Nashville, Tennessee last October…
Now everything is riverfront property due to the massive flooding…
You doing Ok down there?
And it could be worse. In California it is all fireside…
In… well pretty much any state boardering the Gulf, it’s oilside property.
So which is worse: doing the manual clean up knowing that we will lose some natural habitat or burning the slick off? Won’t this pretty much toss all emissions gains right out the window?
That was cynicism. I don’t know why they don’t star salting the slick with that oil eating bacteria. I guess this is why I am in IT not BioT.
I don’t know off-hand, but I would guess it is a matter of scale. The bacteria in question evolved to thrive in areas of small surface seepages and while it has been cultured in larger scales to handle small, contained spills (but realistically lab created bugs have only worked well in labs thus far), I don’t think it would be able to keep up with a 210,000 gallon a day output that is moving rapidly across an extremely wide surface area—even if they could culture enough of it in time to do so.
I also just read that part of the problem is that the oil that is emerging from the leak contains more water than average, which makes it more difficult to burn or chemically disperse. It might also reduce the effectiveness of bacterial solutions as well.
Wock, as the Irish say, I’m sorry for your troubles. I have family in Music City, and they’re hurting now with four feet of water in their basement. Total loss down there, and watch the insurance company wiggle out of liability. They work at Vanderbilt and say the campus has many problems, too. I hope your own situation is not as bad. We had a small tornado in our NJ town last March. Tore up a lot of gorgeous century-old trees. These extremes of weather are getting more common as the warming trend continues. Take care and be well. – D