Alan Anderson wrote:


Just to be contrary, though, I can imagine a scenario where a
bioengineered petroleum-eating microbe, originally intended to help
clean up such things as supertanker spills, gets out of control and
begins consuming underground oil reserves.


Actually they're looking at using oil eating microorganisms to extract
difficult oil deposits from underground; the bacteria eat the oil, then
you mix the bacteria and their waste products into solution with water
and pump the goo to the surface where it's reprocessed into petroleum
products.
Soap is another method, as it allows the oil to go into solution with
water and be pumped up.

Pat