Natural Gas-Gobbling Bacteria May Help Combat Oil Leaks

Grow

Colin Murrell, a co-author, told Reuters that scientists did not know how far bacteria limited leaks. The study said natural seepage of gases from underground deposits was widespread but "largely undocumented."

Still, he said it might be possible sometime to grow the microbes and seed them in areas where gas is leaking. "There is potential ... it may be seeding, leaving it and helping nature a bit along its way," he said.

But another expert who was not involved in the study said the bacteria seemed able to adapt on their own.

"The good thing about such bacteria is that they can grow fast: the one found here can double every 10 hours," Antje Boetius, a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Germany, told Reuters.

"After an oil spill, it can theoretically make up most of the bacterial community in the environment after a week and consume a lot of the methane or propane leaking," she said.

That explosive growth meant it would not be necessary for companies to try to grow bacteria, for instance, in case of oil spills. "Nature grows them for us," she said.


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