Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol


Science | 206789 hits | Jun 14 3:58 pm | Posted by: Hyack
10 Comment

Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide 'renewable petroleum'

Comments

  1. by avatar Bacardi4206
    Sun Jun 15, 2008 3:29 am
    Amazing

  2. by avatar commanderkai
    Sun Jun 15, 2008 3:39 am
    ...This isn't a joke right? I mean, holy shit this is amazing.

  3. by ridenrain
    Sun Jun 15, 2008 3:45 am
    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.


    Didn't you guys read this part?

  4. by avatar romanP
    Sun Jun 15, 2008 5:09 am
    Shouldn't we be finding ways to stop burning stuff to make energy, instead of finding more ways to keep burning stuff to make energy?

  5. by avatar RUEZ
    Sun Jun 15, 2008 5:19 am
    "romanP" said
    Shouldn't we be finding ways to stop burning stuff to make energy, instead of finding more ways to keep burning stuff to make energy?

    We still need to find cleaner means of propulsion but things like this can't be ignored.

  6. by avatar C.M. Burns
    Sun Jun 15, 2008 6:51 pm
    romanP said it first but allow me to paraphrase:

    wrong wrong wrong!

    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.

    And will cost how many hundreds of billions?

    ... 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.

    Except that so-called waste is really locked up carbon that, when put back into the earth allows us to grow more useful things like food.

    Like the clever money-making monkeys that they are, they think it's better to take carbon out of the soil, burn it and then put the carbon into the air where it does nobody any good.

  7. by avatar N_Fiddledog
    Sun Jun 15, 2008 7:56 pm
    Not really on topic, but kinda. The decade after 2010 is going to be a fascinating time.

    So many times I'm reading about these miraculous discoveries, and I see see a phrase, something like "not ready until after 2010", or "expect it around 2010".

    I can hardly wait till 2010 to see what happens.

  8. by avatar C.M. Burns
    Sun Jun 15, 2008 9:39 pm
    "N_Fiddledog" said
    Not really on topic, but kinda. The decade after 2010 is going to be a fascinating time.

    So many times I'm reading about these miraculous discoveries, and I see see a phrase, something like "not ready until after 2010", or "expect it around 2010".

    I can hardly wait till 2010 to see what happens.

    Wikipedia says:
    The technological singularity is a hypothesised point in the future variously characterized by the technological creation of self-improving intelligence, unprecedentedly rapid technological progress, or some combination of the two.

    I hope 2009 isn't too long.

  9. by naelch
    Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:37 am
    Amazing 8O They just need to improve the efficiency and voila, the World will be free!

  10. by avatar Hyack
    Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:50 am

    Wikipedia says:

    Not Wikipedia!!!!




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