What About A Petroleum Enzyme To Eat The Oil

[Me.]

instead of dispersants? There's a company in Norway called Novozyme that makes such an enzyme.

[UndertheOcean]

1. How much does it cost ? and can we force BP to pay it ?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Natural organisms do a better job.

[Me.]

3. But Maybe They Could Use Some Help

As the oil is killing all life off.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. I think microorganisms will do just fine.

Particularly the ones that thrive on oil. Enzymes and lab created organisms designed to eat oil have been tested before, and they always pale in comparison to the wild type organisms that do it naturally in the tests. Given the scale of the problem, I'd assume using synthetic stuff would be like pissing into the wind.

Then, of course, you'd have all the Luddites complaining about the untested, highly toxic enzymes killing off the world's oceans.

[Posteritatis]

7. It's a pity, too; those would *work* but lack the instant-fix factor and squick the wrong people. nt

[BrklynLiberal]

5. One might have hoped the BP and all the other oil companies would have had a huge stock of this,

JUST IN CASE THERE WAS EVER AN OIL SPILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Big fat "DUH!"

[atomic-fly]

6. But BP needs to use up all the toxic stuff that ..

no other nations will buy from them.

[backscatter712]

8. The catch with the biological approach.

i.e. using microbes to eat the oil, is that well, that's already happening in the Gulf. The problem is that the microbes that eat the oil also consume all the oxygen in the water in that area, which runs the risk of creating dead zones. Of course, that may not be much of a problem considering that the oil and dispersants alone are causing dead zones...

[Ian David]

9. I think we should make Michael Steele eat it. n/t

[H2O Man]

10. Recommended.

I think that this is an option that is worthy of consideration. I will be relaying some information to a few politicians and journalist.

[H2O Man]

11. It's curious how

an OP that raises a question, merely suggesting that people think outside the box, gets "unrecommends" on this forum.

[AnnieBW]

12. I was wondering about that

I remembered hearing about that stuff and wonder if it would work.