Some diesel fuel produced by genetically modified bugs
Posted on 06/14/2008 12:12:56 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Some diesel fuel produced by genetically modified bugs
“Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.”
He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs – very, very small ones – so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.
Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV next to us. Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls “renewable petroleum”. After that, he grins, “it’s a brave new world”.
Mr Pal is a senior director of LS9, one of several companies in or near Silicon Valley that have spurned traditional high-tech activities such as software and networking and embarked instead on an extraordinary race to make $140-a-barrel oil (£70) from Saudi Arabia obsolete. “All of us here – everyone in this company and in this industry, are aware of the urgency,” Mr Pal says. <
What is most remarkable about what they are doing is that instead of trying to reengineer the global economy – as is required, for example, for the use of hydrogen fuel – they are trying to make a product that is interchangeable with oil. The company claims that this “Oil 2.0” will not only be renewable but also carbon negative – meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.
LS9 has already convinced one oil industry veteran of its plan: Bob Walsh, 50, who now serves as the firm’s president after a 26-year career at Shell, most recently running European supply operations in London. “How many times in your life do you get the opportunity to grow a multi-billion-dollar company?” he asks. It is a bold statement from a man who works in a glorified cubicle in a San Francisco industrial estate for a company that describes itself as being “prerevenue”.
Inside LS9’s cluttered laboratory – funded by $20 million of start-up capital from investors including Vinod Khosla, the Indian-American entrepreneur who co-founded Sun Micro-systems – Mr Pal explains that LS9’s bugs are single-cell organisms, each a fraction of a billionth the size of an ant. They start out as industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli, but LS9 modifies them by custom-de-signing their DNA. “Five to seven years ago, that process would have taken months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he says. “Now it can take weeks and cost maybe $20,000.”
Because crude oil (which can be refined into other products, such as petroleum or jet fuel) is only a few molecular stages removed from the fatty acids normally excreted by yeast or E. coli during fermentation, it does not take much fiddling to get the desired result.
For fermentation to take place you need raw material, or feedstock, as it is known in the biofuels industry. Anything will do as long as it can be broken down into sugars, with the byproduct ideally burnt to produce electricity to run the plant.
The company is not interested in using corn as feedstock, given the much-publicised problems created by using food crops for fuel, such as the tortilla inflation that recently caused food riots in Mexico City. Instead, different types of agricultural waste will be used according to whatever makes sense for the local climate and economy: wheat straw in California, for example, or woodchips in the South.
Using genetically modified bugs for fermentation is essentially the same as using natural bacteria to produce ethanol, although the energy-intensive final process of distillation is virtually eliminated because the bugs excrete a substance that is almost pump-ready.
The closest that LS9 has come to mass production is a 1,000-litre fermenting machine, which looks like a large stainless-steel jar, next to a wardrobe-sized computer connected by a tangle of cables and tubes. It has not yet been plugged in. The machine produces the equivalent of one barrel a week and takes up 40 sq ft of floor space.
However, to substitute America’s weekly oil consumption of 143 million barrels, you would need a facility that covered about 205 square miles, an area roughly the size of Chicago.
That is the main problem: although LS9 can produce its bug fuel in laboratory beakers, it has no idea whether it will be able produce the same results on a nationwide or even global scale.
“Our plan is to have a demonstration-scale plant operational by 2010 and, in parallel, we’ll be working on the design and construction of a commercial-scale facility to open in 2011,” says Mr Pal, adding that if LS9 used Brazilian sugar cane as its feedstock, its fuel would probably cost about $50 a barrel.
Are Americans ready to be putting genetically modified bug excretion in their cars? “It’s not the same as with food,” Mr Pal says. “We’re putting these bacteria in a very isolated container: their entire universe is in that tank. When we’re done with them, they’re destroyed.”
Besides, he says, there is greater good being served. “I have two children, and climate change is something that they are going to face. The energy crisis is something that they are going to face. We have a collective responsibility to do this.”
Power points
— Google has set up an initiative to develop electricity from cheap renewable energy sources
— Craig Venter, who mapped the human genome, has created a company to create hydrogen and ethanol from genetically engineered bugs
— The US Energy and Agriculture Departments said in 2005 that there was land available to produce enough biomass (nonedible plant parts) to replace 30 per cent of current liquid transport fuels
Just don’t light up after you take them out for a meal!
I don't mean to harp but Russia is the world's second largest exporter of oil (that's one country, whereas OPEC is how many?) and they are far more hostile to America than Saudi Arabia is.
It's not that much different.
The book about bacteria that ate petrol was “The Plastic Eaters” but I don't remember who wrote it.
Andromeda ate plastic if I remember right.
Well, I washopeful for a moment there... then I read this line. It makes me wonder who is ignorant of the basic laws of physics and chemistry... the interviewee, or the "journalist".
I saw estimates that algae oil will be able to produce 100,000 gallons of fuel grade diesel in one acre of land per year. This technology is now being ran through its prototype tests.
Details. You probably don't want to buy my perpetual motion machine, either.
?
In the “There will be war” anthologies was a set of stories set after the release of the “Gas bug”, a genetically engineered bacteria that ate all gasoline / petroleum. Threw the world back to dark ages unless you had renewable fuel or ethanol basis.
Glad to see someone working on the alternative.
“When these “bugs” escape into the environment; how long before the planet is covered in black ooze?”
Great sci-fi movie premise.
The answer to our prayers, namely the oil supply shortage and the terrorist problem. Turn waste and terrorist into oil. How many miles per terrorist does your car get?
Um...But we DO not only have, but USE a bug that eats oil spills. AND the world didn’t turn into black ooze. But we’re not allowed to use them often. Because the world might turn into black ooze.
Life sometimes has those little bonuses. . .
****************************EXCERPT******************************
Algae are one of the oldest forms of life on Earth.
Algae-to-biofuels is quickly becoming a hot item. Unfortunately, like many new technology trends nonsense prevails and uninformed investors follow the yellow brick road. However, there is reality emerging.
The truth is, that without algae, life on Earth as we know it would not exist. Almost three billion years ago our planet was a hostile place with excess N2, CO2 and toxic gases in the atmosphere until algae in the oceans began to transform CO2 through photosynthesis into oxygen (O2) making the air breathable. Then sunlight split some of the oxygen molecules to recombine into ozone (O3) and created the Ozone Layer, which protected the Earth’s surface from the devastating UV rays from the sun. Therefore, without algae we would not be here today.
Today we are calling on algae again to save our planet. It is worth repeating the five major factors that favor algae. These are as follows:
1. Algae produce 100 times more oil per acre than traditional food oilseed crops (i.e. corn, soy, etc.).
2. Algae eat CO2, the major Global Warming Gas, and produce oxygen.
3. Algae require only sunshine and non-drinkable (salt or brackish) water.
4. Algae do not compete with food crops for either agricultural land or fresh water.
5. Algae can reproduce themselves and their oil every 6 hours, while it takes Mother Nature millions of years to produce crude oil in the ground.
Our civilization must learn quickly to wean itself off crude oil or it will not survive.
If you think this statement is not true then let’s talk about engineering and scientific facts and not about political rhetoric. You should consider the following facts:
1. The three existing mega oil fields of the world (one in Mexico and two in Arab countries) are all exhibiting steep declines in production.
2. The oil industry finds only one new barrel of oil for every six barrels we burn.
3. The U.S. consumes 25% of all the oil produced in the world each day.
4. The United States has drilled more oil wells than the rest of the World combined yet only possesses 2% of the known oil reserves.
5. The U.N Secretary General Kofi Annan recently stated at the 2006 U.N. Climate Change Conference “Climate change is not just an environmental issue, as too many people still believe. It is an all-encompassing threat.” .
Mr. Annan went on to say “This is not science fiction. These are plausible scenarios, based on clear and rigorous scientific modeling. A few diehard skeptics continue to deny global warming is taking place and try to sow doubt. They should be seen for what they are: out of step, out of arguments and out of time.”
The above factors present an energy picture that is not sustainable even in the short-term, and it’s getting worst each day.
Algae-to-biodiesel can really make a substantial contribution to energy independence and can provide the U.S. with more fuel than soy oil, canola oil or corn oil combined. Algae oil can provide fuel without increasing food prices and algae meal could reduce animal feed prices or possibly even general food prices.
In New Mexico alone, the U.S. Department of Energy (US DOE) estimates that there are 5 billion acre-feet of salt water under the uninhabitable desert sands, which are good for little except growing algae.
Green Star Products, along with its Consortium partners, believes it has a decisive lead in the algae-to-biofuels race because it already possesses industrial biodiesel technology and has a technology lead in the production of algae.
That algae will win out since it eats CO2....
PETA will try to block investigation.
Can’t wait for the home model hook up to my septic add grass clippings, yard waste, kitchen compost, heck i’d even feed it old cooking oils and motor oil to get diesel fuel out the other end.
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