Algae Could Be Key to Cleaning Up Nuclear Accident Sites

Watch out, here comes the radioactive cleaning technologies. All those companies and tinkerers that enviously eyed the BP oil disaster aftermath but had to sit quiet because their stupid algae/biochemicals/nanorobots only eat stupid nuclear waste can now let their half-baked offspring loose in Japan. Yee-ha!

Contrary to the cynical ... ummm ... wit of the previous posters, bioremediation is a useful strategy for managing environmental contamination. As it is often presented as some kind of panacea in the popular press, a lot of wide-eyed misinformation follows the field around. That's a shame, but it is a common problem with the popular science press.

The point of bioremediation is to control the chemical state of the target element (strontium in the case of this article). Most elements on the periodic table can commonly exist in more than chemical state. Typically, the higher valence state is more soluble and therefore more mobile in water systems. Thus, when water become contaminated with the high valence metal, the contamination is quite mobile -- it will spread far beyond the point of the original contamination as water moves on and below the surface.

Bioremediation is a strategy to encourage certain microorganisms to flourish. As part of their metabolic cycle, these organisms can chemically transform the target metal from a high valence state to a low valence state. In the example of the algae in this article, doing so also cause small crystals containing strontium to form. The advantage of this is that the lower valence state is not soluble in water.

This does not mean that the resulting strontium is somehow not radioactive. Nor is it somehow not poisonous. But it is much less mobile because it is no longer soluble in water in its new chemical state. This doesn't fix the problem, but it does reduce the scope of the problem dramatically by keeping the contaminant in place rather than wandering away with the ground and surface water.

Would it better not to release radioactive strontium into the environment? Of course. But once a problem exists, bioremediation is a much more useful tool than well-practiced cynicism.

Sure thing, trust on technology to sort it out. Biotechnology can solve all our problems, so let's just party like there is no tomorrow and leave the rest to the engineers.