Innovation Anthology #195:
It’s taken millions of years for tiny microbes in the ground to break down organic matter and turn it into oil.
Using the new science of genome sequencing, it may be possible to speed up that process. That’s certainly the prediction of Dr. David Bailey, President and CEO of Genome Alberta.
Dr. Bailey says once the important microbes are identified, they can be seeded into oil wells where they can change the viscosity of the crude. This in turn will make extraction easier and more efficient.
But how do you reduce millions of years down to decades?
DR. DAVID BAILEY: In the past, you would have had competing microbial communities working very slowly over time. If you remove some of that or influence the number of microbial populations of a specific type, you could actually increase the rate of that happening. I think that is all we’re looking at here. This would be more efficient if you used these communities versus that. The communities vary from location to location, But that’s an important thing to determine and figure out because you don’t want to be seeding them with a population that is not going to help them at all.
This project is the highest priority for Genome Alberta. And Dr. David Bailey says we’ll see results within one or two decades.
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I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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Program Date: 2008-12-23