Or us??
Posted on 08/02/2010 3:42:46 AM PDT by Freelance Warrior
Genetically modified bacteria that munch on sugar to produce refinable fuels could bring down the cost of switching to cleaner energy.
Once the technology is fully developed, the company expects the alkane to cost around $50 per barrel, says del Cardayre.
"We have a one-step process to make alkane" in an industrial process, says Schirmer. "Basically, in goes the feedstock – sugar – and out comes the vehicle-ready fuel.
The bacteria can be grown on any sugar, including those produced from second-generation cellulose-based sources such as grasses and plant waste, which do not compete for land with food crops.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
These convert sugar, not to alcohol, but to Carbon-Hydrogen chain molecules (ethane, methane, etc.).
The problem, once they can make the alkane in large quantity, is to control which alkane is produced. The longer the carbon chain, the harder it is.
Auto fuel is an eight carbon chain molecule, diesel is 16, kerosene (jet fuel) is 12... We'd also like propane too; 3 carbons.
So. If the bacteria generate random length chains, distillation towers would still be needed, so refineries wouldn't be done away with.
this adds new meaning to “the shit hitting the fan”
That problem doesn't make the proposed bacteria method worse than conventional oil drilling & refining.
Or us??
What's their reason? Carbon negative is "green" and no large investment in fuel producing/autos' design needed. Those left look totally irrational.
We’re not made out of sugar. Well women might be (along with spice and “all things nice”).
Yet more proof we are awash in hydrocarbons that can be converted into usable fuels. This shows “peak oil” to be a fraudulent concern, meant to stampede the public into approving yet more government intervention in the free market.
Technology now exists to convert sources as diverse as sewage sludge, waste from processing turkey carcases, algae, coal and wood wastes into usable fuels. The only issue is price.
Some coal conversion processes have a break-even cost of roughly $75 / bbl. Given our vast coal resources, the US has hundreds of years of hydrocarbon reserves.
Of course, we could extend our hydrocarbon resources by displacing coal-fired power generation with nuclear where possible. I am excited by the recent postings about thorium-powered reactors. Thorium is very plentiful, which would give the world as much electric power as it wanted to build the plants to produce.
If this bacteria can turn kudzu into a viable fuel, then it would be the best thing to hit the South since air conditioning.
Coal is carbon-positive, nuclear reactors are dangerous. The bacteria method is carbon neutral, while crops are used to feed the bacteria, and the article states it’s possible.
Re #15: If this technology, or any other, presents competition to the Saudi Arab’s dominance over our government and economy, rest assured that some “complication” will be found to render it ILLEGAL.
They will wait until million$ or billion$ have been invested and it’s all ready to start producing before the cease and desist order will be served, and some Court will order the demolition of any newly built plants or refineries.
Confiscatory fines and penalties will probably see to it that no one dares to try it again any time soon.
The full power and might of the federal government will swiftly punish anyone foolish enough to try to exploit this or any other practical energy technology.
Count on it.
We will depend on Muslims and Communists for our energy needs, and if we get out of line and / or refuse to submit to Sharia, we can watch each other freeze or starve... eventually.
The use of bacteria to make hydrocarbon feedstock is not without risk. First we have the risk associated with the growing and harvesting of the crops. Second, there will be risks associated with industrial scale biological processes. Third, the product still has to be refined. None of these activities are totally risk free.
Farmers and loggers die in accidents. People fall into sludge pits and drown. Workers get sprayed by burst pipes. The eColi being used may cause fatal infections in a small number of workers. Refineries blow up.
So, it all depends on what you mean is “dangerous”. After all, 52% of our power is produced by burning coal, and if you have every peered into the firebed of a coal-fired industrial scale boiler, it is the very definition of “dangerous”. The stack gasses of this very popular way of producing power not only contains corrosive chemicals like fluoric and sulphuric acid, it is so radioactive that it would be forbidden if it were coming from the vents of a nuclear power plant, a power source you call “dangerous”.
I think that as time passes, we will see that the wind power industry will have an accident history that is more costly than average. It is certainly “dangerous” to migratory birds.
And as to being “carbon positive”. SO WHAT? The Vostok curve of temperature and CO2 levels over time demonstrate an impossible fact: there are two temperature tends that exist for the same CO2 level and trend. That is IMPOSSIBLE under the current “settled science” that CO2 drives temperature and not vice versa. Nothing we do with respect to CO2 will change the climate going forward.
If someone wants to suggest that we need to reduce burning things in order to power our homes, offices and factories, let them argue on the grounds of clean air in general. Why burn something to generate power when you can use a nuclear reaction to do so, as long as the nuclear option doesn’t cost too much?
Ah, I thought the article stated that the bacteria converted the sugars into ethanol...
You needn’t a patented bacteria species for that. Good old yeast does the job quite fine.
Because the cost of potential accident is too high. The alternatives are subject to accidents too, but their costs are much lower. Moreover, agriculture is a less risky industry than coal mining.
And as to being “carbon positive”. SO WHAT? [...] That is IMPOSSIBLE under the current “settled science” that CO2 drives temperature and not vice versa. Nothing we do with respect to CO2 will change the climate going forward.
The Earth is a closed-curcuit system, and since biospheric processes are carbon-neutral so the human industrial activity should be kept the same for the off-chance. At least when it's affordable, and 50$/bbl looks like that.
So you’re giving up beer?
I already have.
I see so you spend much time munching down on some switch grass or wood trimmings? These bacteria are being engineer to secrete the hemicellulas enzyme to hydrolysis hemicellulose to 5 carbon sugars and cellulose to glucose. Humans cannot eat cellulose or hemicellulose only rumens with their symbiotic intestinal floral can process cellulitic materials. The E.coli genera is huge not just human gut bugs but a vast group of aerobic and anaerobic microbes these are certainly anaerobic heterotrophs, and would not survive for even a few minutes exposed to the O2 levels in air. The holy grail here is to take a non food waste product aka lignocellulitic materials and convert them directly to linear hydrocarbons with drop in use as fuel, the nice part is that E.coli protein structure is such that one sterilized the waste could be used to feed monogastics think Sus scrofa domesticus and Gallus gallus domesticus there is another group of reshearches attempting to put these genes for alkenes into nitrogen fixing cyanobacteria being autotrophs just add sun, air and water instant growable diesel.
“Our food reserves” include fodder for livestock.
It sounds great in theory. Hope they can get it to work.
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