Mirror image microorganisms process and produce molecules of opposite normal chirality as a result of their metabolism. Since there's no a priori reason why life should prefer either left handed or right handed molecules, the way we got here is the result of the first proto-metabolic processes billions of years ago just happening to choose what we use today. If we introduced mirror image microorganisms into the ecosystem, the danger is they could outcompete existing organisms while simultaneously contaminating the environment with their mirror-image waste products.
in tl;dr scifi parlance, we could make it so that we'd have bountiful food and starve because we turned earth into an alien planet
Who you calling "we", l-grogenaut?
Presumably they would be poisoned by the large amount of right handed biochemistry thats everywhere already.. It might be super hard to keep them alive in nature at all.
But if youre in the lab and thinking about it could ya whip us up some C-F eating/mineralizing micros? Talk about whats poisoning the biosphere..
Wouldn't they be at a strict disadvantage because they cannot eat other typical-chirality-producers for resources?
I think the idea is that we would keep them in a lab and feed them whatever works.
For anyone interested in this concept, without spoiling too much, you should read the sci-fi book Starfish by Peter Watts. He has the entire text of the book up for free on his website, in glorious 1990s handcrafted HTML: https://www.rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm
Thanks so much for breaking it down - fascinating topic!