Black Monday

eastbay · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 6:25 pm Post subject: Black Monday

This interesting scenario portrays a scenario by which the world as we know it crumbles due to the intentional introduction of an oil eating microbe into the worlds oil supply... all of it.

No fuel, no food, riots, street barricades, neighborhood warlords, no cops, battles between US army and various local national guard units... you get the picture. Total chaos. Military and ad hoc tribunals followed by immediate execution for most crimes we now call 'petty.'

It has a happy ending so I won't spoil it any more than that. It was entertaining enough... but the ending won't satisfy anyone with a doomerosity index higher than 7.

A nice read for a rainy day.

(mods, please merge if this book has already been mentioned)
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smallpoxgirl · Moderator Joined: Nov 08, 2004 Posts: 5164

Interesting idea, but seems pretty unrealistic. Oil eating bacteria metabolize petroleum by oxidizing it. Oil reservoirs are by nature anaerobic. That's why the oil sits there for millions of years without spontaneously oxidizing. If you injected oil-eating bacteria into an oil reservoir, they would just die from lack of oxygen. In fact, if oil-eating bacteria could survive in an oil reservoir, over millions of years nature would undoubtedly have introduced them there.
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eastbay · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 5:19 pm Post subject: Re: Black Monday

Yeah, hardly realistic. As is the case with much science fiction. One must take most of it with a ton of salt then just enjoy the read.

The book addressed this implausibility, as most science fiction books must, by having a lab create the bacteria by combining several and applying creative genetic tinkering. Then 'voila!' an oil eating (eating is the wrong word... more like oil 'altering'... the bacteria's waste makes the oil caustic somehow) bacteria is everywhere spread by pipes and other service-related equipment. Pretty neat story anyhow. Planes crashing and all ground transport rendered useless.
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Everything is Impermanent. Shakyamuni Buddha