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Renewable Petroleum: Microbes Eat Waste and Excrete Crude Oil
DBKP ^ | June 15, 2008 | Mondoreb

Posted on 06/15/2008 6:34:27 PM PDT by mondoreb


Diesel fuel produced by genetically-engineered bugs.

Several Silicon Valley companies are already genetically altering microbes and small organisms--bugs, so to speak--so that they produce something for nothing.

The something? How about petroleum products.

The nothing? How about agricultural waste--wood chips or straw or other biomass.

The organisms eat the waste products and excrete crude oil.

“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.”

This sounds far-fetched, but the bugs are producing crude right now. In about a month, the experimental microbes will have produced enough oil to fill the first gas tank with something engineers call "renewable petroleum".

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.
Besides making Saudi oil a thing of the past, it will also render Al Gore's dreams of taxing the world back into the Stone Age obsolete.

(Excerpt) Read more at deathby1000papercuts.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: crudeoil; energy; environment; excrete; ls9; microbes
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To: mkjessup
It would be more efficient if the microbes could eat liberals and excrete crude oil

I think Al Gore could be considered biomass maybe even biomassive.

21 posted on 06/15/2008 7:06:55 PM PDT by Pontiac (Your message here.)
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To: Little_shoe

Yeah, something about the website is just “too real” for me. Also, I remember a similar story from eons ago.


22 posted on 06/15/2008 7:13:25 PM PDT by Melinda
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To: Dusty Road
????

And you mean?

Something?

To what I said......

23 posted on 06/15/2008 7:19:27 PM PDT by Lakeshark (Thank a member of the US armed forces for their sacrifice)
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To: mondoreb

Ok so they excrete crude oil. That means you have an oil spill. You’ll have to spend millions to clean that up, restore the environment, fines and so forth.

Oh and they wouldn’t allow you to drill for it anyway.


24 posted on 06/15/2008 7:22:55 PM PDT by driftdiver
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To: mkjessup
It would be more efficient if the microbes could eat liberals and excrete crude oil, it seems there would be a never-ending supply! LOL

What would that do to the price of liberals?

25 posted on 06/15/2008 7:23:29 PM PDT by ninonitti
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To: mondoreb

They should program these bugs to eat kudzu.


26 posted on 06/15/2008 7:25:29 PM PDT by zot
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To: mondoreb
Although there has been some talk of microbes producing petroleum

I thought it started with microbes that could eat oil after an oil spill @$40 bbl.....at $130bbl they can reverse the process?

What happens if they get mixed up?

27 posted on 06/15/2008 7:29:27 PM PDT by ninonitti
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To: Melinda
One thing is true, though: microbes do eat biomass and give off aromatic hydrocarbons, including methane, acetylene, propane and butane. Just drive past any sewage treatment plant and stiff the air.

They also give off hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and other less desirable byproducts. The trick is separating the wanted from the unwanted. They are trying to breed bacteria which will metabolize biomass and give off only the useful hydrocarbons.

28 posted on 06/15/2008 7:33:22 PM PDT by VietVet (I am old enough to know who I am and what I believe, and I 'm not inclined to apologize for any of)
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To: mondoreb
The nothing? How about agricultural waste--wood chips or straw or other biomass.

Oh yeah! Who needs compost for soil when we can put it on a chemical diet? Especially when we can put a claque of techno-whores on carbon credits so that they'll always vote for enviro-racketeering power freaks!

Great idea. /s

29 posted on 06/15/2008 7:36:20 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (We have people in power with desire for evil.)
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To: mondoreb

And p-ss gasoline.


30 posted on 06/15/2008 7:48:19 PM PDT by Waco
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To: mkjessup
It would be more efficient if the microbes could eat liberals and excrete crude oil, it seems there would be a never-ending supply! LOL

More likely, we'd just get a lot of methane....

31 posted on 06/15/2008 7:51:59 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s........you weren't really there)
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To: mondoreb

As always just a few years down the road and no cost estimate. Something like the oil from algae facility that was going to be built in the Arizona desert, 12 square miles of ponds.
Right.


32 posted on 06/15/2008 8:06:58 PM PDT by count-your-change (you don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: GOPJ
Too dais-ex-machina for me...

What is that? An after-dinner speech, in the nick of time?

33 posted on 06/15/2008 8:17:46 PM PDT by Arthur McGowan
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To: mkjessup
> It would be more efficient if the microbes could eat liberals and excrete crude oil, it seems there would be a never-ending supply! LOL

Nah, wouldn't work. It's like the joke about how biological researchers are turning to using lawyers instead of rats for their experiments, because... there are some things even a rat just won't do...

Well, there are some things even a microbe won't eat...

34 posted on 06/15/2008 8:40:26 PM PDT by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)
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To: Lakeshark

Just adding to the sales pitch you pointed out.


35 posted on 06/15/2008 8:42:17 PM PDT by Dusty Road
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To: mondoreb

Stop clogging FR with irrelevant crap. You have been warned ............ FRegards


36 posted on 06/15/2008 8:54:47 PM PDT by gonzo ( What Part Of "Shall Not Be Infringed" does anyone have a problem with? The USSC will soon wonder ..)
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To: henkster
It might help, but there is no way you can run the American economy on microbe poop. There just won’t be enough of it.

Why not? If lowly CO2 can change the world's climate then bugs can make cars go giddy up.

37 posted on 06/15/2008 9:18:59 PM PDT by Mind-numbed Robot (Not all that needs to be done, needs to be done by the government.)
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To: mondoreb
Although there has been some talk of microbes producing petroleum, this is the first time I had heard that a large-scale production facility would be ready to open in about three years.

There have been quite a few posts about this technology. Check out threads where BellPlantation posts. He has a company doing something similar in Tifton, Georgia.

38 posted on 06/15/2008 9:39:37 PM PDT by fso301
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To: Little_shoe
This just seems too real to be true.

It's pretty well known that organisms extrude a variety oh hydrocarbons. In aggregate, they pool to form crude oil.

39 posted on 06/15/2008 9:42:18 PM PDT by fso301
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To: mondoreb

Check Bell Plantation and Bell_Energy from Georgia. They have an engineered “bug” eating grass and like bio-mass that is producing hydrocarbons. Things are working well in the lab and a test plant should be running in aTest plant should be running in a couple of months. http://wordpress.com/tag/jc-bell/


40 posted on 06/15/2008 9:49:16 PM PDT by WellyP (How much does Huma know?)
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