Helping nature clean up an oil spill with little or no side effects sounds like a dream. But, biofermentation is a realistic solution to augment what is already being done to clean up the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This green method leaves nothing harmful behind.
Oil Spill Crisis Demands More Than One Solution
According to This Borrowed Earth, Lessons from the 15 Worst Environmental Disasters around the World by Robert Emmet Hernan, the total spill from the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster was approximately 11 million gallons of crude oil. By 1992, only about 3 to 4 percent of the oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez was recovered. Conservative estimates of the Gulf spill vary from 5,000 barrels to 20,000 barrels per day, or 300,000 gallons per day.
In an interview on June 3, 2010, Dr. Rob Whiteman, Technical Director of ABS, Inc., the biofermentation company, discussed the remediation options. “No one application can clean up at the rate we’re going" he said, "The problem is so large that all technologies must be used because no one company can supply enough product to make up for all the lost time and oil that is still gushing. Bioremediation should be part of the solution.”
What is Bioremediation?
Bioremediation, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, is a process which introduces naturally occurring microbes into harmful chemicals such as oil spills, changing them into harmless gases.
What is Biofermentation and how does it Differ from Conventional Solutions?
Biofermentation is a branch of biotechnology called bioremediation. According to Dr. Whiteman, there are four main branches of bioremediation: natural attenuation, biostimulation, bioaugmentation, and biofermentation.
In natural attenuation, an attempt is made to stimulate indigenous microbes, such as ones that already exist in the environment, to grow and clean up the environment. The first drawback to this method is that nitrogen and phosphorous must be introduced, both environmental hazards to the ocean. These substances can cause harmful algae blooms, and that may lead to fish kills. Some can also be toxic to humans. The second problem with natural attenuation is that it has been shown in groundwater studies to be quite slow, taking years, even decades to be effective.
The second most commonly used method is biostimulation, which involves the manufacture of microbes. They are then concentrated, preserved and put on a bran carrier medium. There are several drawbacks to this method, including loss of approximately 90% of the product during transportation. Further, this product is like planting a seed in a toxic environment. The chances of it growing are slim. Finally, this technique also requires the addition of nitrogen and phosphorous to the environment, both environmental hazards.
How is Biofermentation Better than Attenuation or Biostimulation?
Biofermentation is based on the concept of introducing microbes into the oil/water solution. Once the microbes are in contact with the oil, they eat it, digest it into carbon dioxide and water, and then produce more oil eating microbes. These microbes are then eaten by fish and other life forms higher in the food chain, until they just dissipate back into the environment.
According to Dr. Whiteman, natural attenuation, biostimulation and bioaugmentation all depend on trying to grow the correct microbes in the contamination. For example, we have been told on news media that the "natural microbes" to biodegrade the oil exist in the ocean. Well, nothing seems to be happening, or happening very slowly. The advantage of Biofermentation is that it can take any microbe, including the naturally occurring ones, grow them up in huge numbers and reintroduce these back into the oil, therefore avoiding the need for growing under non-ideal conditions."
“Biofermentation is a technology that we have been working on for more than a decade,” says Dr. Whiteman. “It uses the concept that we can grow bacteria on site, it can be injected directly into the contamination, and the microbes are immediately ready to go and hungry.” ABS, Inc. has developed the technology to produce custom-made microbes on the site of the cleanup. Its portable tanks have the capacity to each produce 6 tons per day of product.
ABS, Inc. has a partner company which produces the actual microbes. Zymo, International produces the microorganism for eating oil washed off automotive machinery parts. It has been approved by the National Science Foundation for this purpose.
“By pairing the two companies, we now have the capability to produce enough microbes on site, just in one tank, to turn out 6 tons per day of microbes, which is 10 the 6th power over the industry standard”, according to Dr. Whiteman.
What is the Downside of Biofermentation?
“I really don’t believe there are any downsides,” says Dr. Whiteman. “We’ve already proven on many different applications on the wastewater sides that we’re getting 5 to 10 times faster cleanup than conventional methods. So there’s absolutely no reason that we shouldn’t be able to do the same thing on the oil spill. It is just simply a different microbe. All that’s being done is taking one microbe that’s proven in the industry, putting in the biofermentation systems, growing that up in large number and applying that to the oil spill.”
Why isn’t British Petroleum using Biofermentation?
“There are several technologies, and I think BP is doing the right thing using several technologies,” says Dr. Whiteman. “The only technology they’re not using are biological methods, and I don’t understand that, because unlike the Valdez oil spill, where the water temperatures were too cold, bioremediation got a bit of a black eye. The Gulf, however, is above 80 degrees Fahrenheit most of the year, an ideal temperature for these organisms to thrive.”
The oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico demands more than one solution. To effectively clean up a disaster of these proportions, many techniques need to be employed. Biofermentation is one green remedy that can be part of that solution.
Nancy Barrood - Nancy Barrood is a mom, attorney and freelance writer, residing in New Jersey. For the past twenty years, her writing has been read in ...
