Vegetable oil is great for cooking french fries.
But it is even better for energizing microbes. PNL, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, successfully demonstrated in the laboratory that microbes energized by vegetable oil can filter nitrate from simulated underground aquifers. Nitrate is considered one of the most pervasive groundwater contaminants in the United States. PNL's patented process works by injecting vegetable oil into the earth around the base of a well. As it enters the earth's subsurface, the oil becomes trapped in pockets between the various layers of sediment.