Two more small points about microbes in the service of man.
They can be bred, by the mutation-selection method as above, to eat toxic wastes and thus dispose of them
¾even without genetic engineering in the DNA sense (which is still far away for this pur-pose). A conference at the U. of Wash., Seattle, in July revealed several such techniques, including the disposal of PCB's.Readers may remember that the EPA banned this non-combustible material from electrical transformers because of its very slight risk as carcinogens, ignoring the much larger fire risk of its replacement [AtE Mar 85]. Apart from the several fires thus caused by the EPArsonists, the stuff was also dumped at toxic dumps across the country. A bacterium has now been isolated that removes the chlorine from PCBs, dioxins, chlorinated phenols and chlorinated benzenes, rendering them harmless
¾a feat formerly thought impossible. These bacteria, which have not been genetically engineered in the strict sense, show that the big noise about "bio-degradability" in the early 70s was propagandistic bunk; and I do not doubt that genuine genetic engineering will eventually reveal the campaign against plastics as "contaminating the environment forever" as more such bunk.Second, how come that in 14 years of Access to Energy we keep running into the same three bacteria out of the thousands (or millions?) of types kicking around the biosphere?
Actually the only one of the three that earns a living in its own right is Thio the Miner, whose specialty is attacking metal ores. The other two, E. Coli and Pseudomonas are bred or engineered for the various jobs in which we have met them, not because of any special talent for the particular job, but because they are readily available (both reside in the human body), and because they multiply quick-ly, making them suitable for breeding and engineering in general, without any special inborn professional abilities.
[More: "Bugs and coal: Processing fuels with biotechnology," EPRI Journal (Box 10412, Palo Alto, CA 94303), June 1987; two other, less easily acces-sible reports are Biotechnology and Coal, by G. Couch, Int. Energy Agency Coal Research, London, May 1987, Intl. Coal Info. Serv., Tech. Rep. no. 38; and Processing of coal with microorganisms, by Natl. Bureau of Standards March 1986, EPRI AP-4472. The latter is obtainable (at a hefty price, if you are not a utility) from EPRI at the address above. For waste disposing bacteria see "Discovering microbes with a taste for PCBs, Science, 28 Aug 87, pp.975-6.
The OTA's recent New Developments in Biotechnology, vol.1 ($7.50, GPO, report OTA-BA-337, March 1987) deals with the ownership of human tissue and only Chapter 3 explains general biological aspects, the rest is for lawyers and philosophers.]
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Vol. 15, No. 3
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 15, No. 3 Date: November 30, 2004 03:51 PM Title: Gulf oil
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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