Remember that story about how bacteria had eaten all the oil in the gulf?

[Hannah Bell]

Done by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

In the aftermath of the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, a dispersed oil plume was formed at a depth between 3,600 and 4,000 feet and extending some 10 miles out from the wellhead. An intensive study by scientists with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) found that microbial activity, spearheaded by a new and unclassified species, degrades oil much faster than anticipated. This degradation appears to take place without a significant level of oxygen depletion.

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2010/08/24/deepwater-oil-plume-microbes/

LBNL = funded by & ties to BP, e.g.:

By Robert Sanders, Media Relations | 1 February 2007

BERKELEY – Global energy firm BP announced today (Thursday, Feb. 1) that it has selected the University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to lead an unprecedented $500 million research effort to develop new sources of energy and reduce the impact of energy consumption on the environment.

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/02/01_ebi.shtml




The connection between the crisp lab coat in Berkeley and the oiled bird more than 2,000 miles away is BP, the petroleum company responsible for the largest oil spill in U.S. history. BP sponsors the Energy Biosciences Institute at Cal, a buzzing lab of 300 researchers trying to make fuel out of plants.

It may seem incongruous that an oil company responsible for such environmental devastation is funding this effort to find green fuels and reduce oil use. But the scientists here say what they're doing is more important than where they get the money.


For some, however, the spill also has raised new questions about a research partnership that has been controversial from the start, marrying the profit-driven interests of a global oil company with the brains and cachet of one of the world's top universities.

The $500 million BP pledged in 2007 to form the Energy Biosciences Institute was the largest corporate sponsorship ever of university research. The gift – doled out over 10 years to UC Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – created an institute to research plant-based fuels such as ethanol.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/06/06/2801531/bp-funds-search-for-green-fuels.html#ixzz0zICIuLJa

[jobycom]

1. No, I don't. I remember a story about one sixth of the oil being eaten by bacteria.

But I absolutely don't recall anyone claiming that ALL the oil was eaten by bacteria.

The connection between the research and BP is disturbing, obviously, at least in terms on relying on that research for public policy. We need a research lab able to calculate the oil contamination left in the Gulf that isn't connected somehow to the oil industry, if such exists.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. K&R

:kick:

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. I remember thinking that the heavy crude would sink to the bottom.

[Tsiyu]

4. Crosspost of relevance

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9116909

[leveymg]

5. One-sixth of crude oil by weight is aromatic hydrocarbons -- benzene, etc. -- that evaporate.

The aromatics are toxic, and some are proven carcinogens. Once they evaporate, they are transported by wind and fall with precipitation on land, crops and fresh water many miles away. In other words, hundreds of thousands of tons of the BP spill were released into the air where they entered people's lungs and bodies, and got into the food chain.

All that oil didn't "disappear." Much of it simply wafted over populated areas. In mid-July, NOAA detected extremely high concentrations of hydrocarbons over the cities of the Gulf Coast.

[old mark]

6. I am shocked to find that a company like BP would lie to us...No, really!!!

:eyes:

Rec.

mark

[xchrom]

7. Recommend

[SidDithers]

8. Can you please remind us where the story that claimed...

"bacteria had eaten all the oil in the gulf" was published?


Sid