[Lapg] Could seaweed stop offshore drilling accidents?/Gunter Pauli Blue Economy Innovations

[Margie Bushman, Coordinator, SBCC Center for Sustainability]

Could seaweed stop offshore drilling accidents?


MAY 10, 2010 13:12 EDT
ENVIRONMENT | GREEN BUSINESS | MARINE SCIENCE
http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2010/05/10/could-seaweed-stop-offshore-drilling-accidents/

­Dr. Gunter Pauli, PhD, MBA, is an entrepreneur 
and founder of the  ZERI Foundation (Zero 
Emissions Research and Initiatives). He is the 
author of 17 books and 36 children’s fables. 
His latest book The Blue Economy 
http://blueeconomy.de  contains one innovation outlined in this article. —
One wonders if the oil industry will ever learn.

When in the summer of 2006 holes in pipelines 
forced British Petroleum to shut down a major 
part of its network in Alaska, oil prices shot up to record levels.

The analysis of the problem unveiled that 
microbial induced corrosion (MIC) contributed to a dramatic domino effect.

Microbes are known to cause corrosion. 
Concentrated and purified metals are easy energy 
sources for bacteria, which consider this as 
their equivalent of fast food. After the 
insurance paid most of the environmental clean-up 
costs, and consumers footed the bill for a huge 
premium on the market, the industry reverted to 
improve a model that has proven to fail.

Why does a $1 billion clean-up bill not force the 
oil sector to embrace a portfolio of fundamental 
shifts in thinking and doing? It seems an obvious 
opportunity to launch an aggressive search for an 
out-of-the-box solution and dedicate the relevant 
budgets that build on new modus operandi, already well founded in science.

Industry has the power to move breakthrough 
solutions quickly through the mazes of government approvals.

The main obstacle to fundamental shifts even in 
the wake of tremendous risks to the business and 
the environment seems to be the core business 
approach based on core competence.

Companies are pressed within a straitjacket known 
as supply chain management, with outsourcing and 
a continuous drive to reduce costs, especially 
overheads. Innovations that sit square in the 
supply chain logic do not have a chance, even when these are proven to work.

The fossil fuel sector operates under stress. 
Oil, gas and water exit together from a well and are separated out.

Seawater, fresh water and natural gas are pumped 
back down to help maintain the pressure to pump 
the hot oil to the well heads. Microbes can enter 
anytime. These bacteria cause corrosion, one of 
the main reasons of failure and one of the X-factors in maintenance.

This jeopardizes the long term viability of the 
oil and gas infrastructure. Microbes eat their 
way through nearly any layer of metal.

The typical wear and tear of metals is compounded 
with the chemistry of the smallest living cells 
on earth. The only option industry embraces is 
harsh chemistry and mechanical force, which also 
deteriorate the infrastructure.

Industry knows that bacteria cause problems. 
Pipes made from carbon steel can not resist the 
acidity released by the bugs. The installation of 
weldable chromium, nickel, copper and rare earth 
metals offers alloys of steel that resist the 
corrosion caused by colonies of bacteria, known as biofilms.

Unfortunately, these corrosion-proof pipelines 
are simply too expensive. The decision to stay 
with the existing installations, especially those 
that have already been sunk into the ocean bed or 
in delicate tundra and rain forest, force the 
industry to shut down operations regularly and 
flush the system with bactericides.

If seaweeds would have chosen the same chemical 
annihilation technique as industry applies, then 
the seaweeds would never have survived.

Bacteria simply outnumber all other life on 
earth, and since they do not have a nucleus with 
DNA, they mutate whenever under stress. Bacteria 
colonize, sense a quorum, and take over their 
hosts even in the presence of killing chemistry.

Instead, some seaweeds reverted to a smarter 
tactic: render the bacteria deaf. While this sounds simple, it works.

Bacteria communicate through small molecules and 
the seaweeds successfully developed one of their 
own ­ known as the furanone ­ that bt blocks the 
receptor of the bacterial cells.

Since the individual bacteria cannot “hear or 
see” each other, they cannot create a biofilm. 
This effectively blocks the creation of biofilm, 
that stops all coordinated activities, including corrosion.

The Quorum Sensing Inhibitor Chemistry (QSIC) was 
only discovered two decades ago. It has been well 
described by Professors Peter Steinberg (USA) and 
Staffan Kjelleberg (Sweden) both academics at the 
University of New South Wales, in Sydney (Australia).

QSIC has proven its effectiveness against a wide 
spectrum of bugs and even fungi. The oil industry 
has been exposed to these findings. Now that a 
new big clean-up job is required dealing with 
5,000 gallons a day dispersed into the Gulf of 
Mexico, time has come to become innovative with 
the mess and go beyond the burn, chemically 
disperse and clean-up the beaches approach.

Time has come to reflect on the root causes of 
these disasters and accept that corrosion and 
bacteria are a fact of life. Society does not 
need an antagonistic approach to the errors of 
the past, and the unintended consequences of 
today. Society needs an industry with an open 
mind that searches for dramatic shifts in the 
business model, which go beyond the framework 
defined by supply chain management.

This is the core of the proposal of The Blue 
Economy. If we are prepared to embrace hundreds 
of fundamental innovations, we can design 
business models that respond to the basic needs, 
and uses what we have, including these marvelous 
solutions that ecosystems provide.

The survival of the Delicea pulchra against the 
onslaught of bacteria could be a starting point 
in this debate for the oil and gas industry.

_____________________________________

Photo shows pelicans sitting on pilings along the 
Dauphin Island Parkway, Alabama May 5, 2010. REUTERS/Brian Snyder


­Dr. Gunter Pauli, PhD, MBA, is an entrepreneur 
and founder of the  ZERI Foundation (Zero 
Emissions Research and Initiatives). He is the 
author of 17 books and 36 children’s fables. 
His latest book The Blue Economy contains one 
innovation outlined in this article. —
One wonders if the oil industry will ever learn.

When in the summer of 2006 holes in pipelines 
forced British Petroleum to shut down a major 
part of its network in Alaska, oil prices shot up to record levels.

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ABOUT GUNTER

"Gunter Pauli, PhD, MBA, and entrepreneur is 
founder of the Zero Emissions Research & 
Initiatives (ZERI) Foundation and author of The 
Blue Economy: 100 innovations to generate 100 
million jobs in 10 years, an exploration of 
alternative business models inspired by nature. 
He is also author of 16 other books published in 
21 languages, and 36 fables that bring science 
and entrepreneurship to children at an early age."
MORE FROM GUNTER
BLOG:
www.zeri.org/


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