Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
expensive expeditions to polar regions, glaciers and high altitudes may not be
required to prospect for microbes with 'ice resistance'. It may be only necessary
to continue to develop and use these strong selective techniques to recover those
organisms with useful properties. It is hoped that microbial gene products can
be more easily folded in bacterial vectors and that high levels of cost-effective
production would be possible. Thus these microbes may reward us with
reagents that can contribute to environmental safety and help secure a safe
and effective methodology for the energy sector.
2.5 Conclusion
Gas hydrate deposits will be important sources of energy in the future, as
traditional sources of energy become more costly to exploit, and will undoubt-
edly be used for gas storage and transportation. However, since the offshore
industry is going to deeper waters, with consequent increased pressures and
decreased temperatures, unpredicted hydrate formation is a major economic
concern for industry. More significantly, the formation of these 'fire ices' are of
environmental concern because of their blow out potential and the possible
pollution linked to the use of chemical hydrate inhibitors. The need for green
inhibitors is urgent and ice-associating proteins and glycoproteins offer the
promise of environmentally safe alternatives. The described innovations for
the selection of microbes with these properties now offer the real prospect of an
emerging technological solution to a very real environmental risk.
Acknowledgments The majority of our described research was funded by Discovery and
Equipment grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada)
and a Queen's University Research Chair to V.K. Walker. Drs. Mike Kuiper and Peter Davies
are acknowledged for their encouragement and two anonymous referees are thanked for their
advice on the manuscript.
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