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+--- Thread: Diesel Shitting Bug. (/showthread.php?tid=2152)
Diesel Shitting Bug. - winmutt - 01-18-2011
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/a-brave-new-world-of-fossil-fuels-on-demand/article1871149/
Quote:In September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent for “a proprietary organism” – a genetically adapted E. coli bacterium – that feeds solely on carbon dioxide and excretes liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline. This breakthrough technology, the company says, will deliver renewable supplies of liquid fossil fuel almost anywhere on Earth, in essentially unlimited quantity and at an energy-cost equivalent of $30 (U.S.) a barrel of crude oil. It will deliver, the company says, “fossil fuels on demand.”
RE: Diesel Shitting Bug. - BlueCrayfish - 01-18-2011
File that under the same category as "algae biodiesel", perfect on paper and in the lab but will never happen in the real world.
Great comment in the article.
Quote:How can an organism exist with only carbon dioxide as a physical input ? Isn't it made of proteins ? Proteins have more than carbon as constituents. Doesn't it have DNA ? Doesn't it grow ? Wouldn't it need other types of nutrients as inputs ? Does it reproduce ? If it doesn't reproduce, where does it come from ? How do you make more of them to boost production and replace dead ones ? If it does reproduce, and escapes into the environment, what keeps it from spreading all over the surface of the planet and converting all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and coating the entire surface of the planet in stinking toxic hydro-carbons, killing off all other life forms ? (not to mention that removing all carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would cause all plant life to die which would kill everything higher up in the food chain).
This sounds too good to be true. This story reminds me of the following quote:
"We are now in the techno-rapture phase of [industrial civilization] which features massive amounts of magical thinking" - JH Kunstler, futurist
RE: Diesel Shitting Bug. - RustyLugNut - 01-20-2011
"NEVER say NEVER" is very applicable to these lab situations. The work to make them commercially viable has not even begun and you are already discounting the idea? Like algae bio fuels, bacterium bio fuels will see some research thrown at it and then scale up plants. At that point, commercial pitfalls and viability become apparent. It may be a while before it gets to that, if at all, but so much factors into these energy tech's that to say NEVER is being too simplistic. Unlikely might be a better word.
In my understanding, these bacterium live and grow like any other bacterium - they are often found in undersea fumer holes. They are chosen because they exhibit unique survival traits when "stressed" - ie, they use unique food source and secrete useful wastes. They will not take over the earth because they are already out and about in nature and just happen to live in very specific climes. They become useful when stressed (starved) in a lab and are fed CO2.
The problem with bacterium bio fuel production, like algae bio fuel production, is the concentration of CO2 - it is quite diffuse in the air. Fuel production is thus very slow. Most of these schemes are planning on connecting the exhaust output of coal fired power plants and the high concentration of CO2 available, to help "clean up" the exhaust and provide a second stream of income via bio fuel production.
Once cheaper fuel sources become exhausted, maybe these technologies will be viable, but for now, I would just call them improbable.
(01-18-2011, 10:33 AM)BlueCrayfish File that under the same category as "algae biodiesel", perfect on paper and in the lab but will never happen in the real world.
Great comment in the article.
Quote:How can an organism exist with only carbon dioxide as a physical input ? Isn't it made of proteins ? Proteins have more than carbon as constituents. Doesn't it have DNA ? Doesn't it grow ? Wouldn't it need other types of nutrients as inputs ? Does it reproduce ? If it doesn't reproduce, where does it come from ? How do you make more of them to boost production and replace dead ones ? If it does reproduce, and escapes into the environment, what keeps it from spreading all over the surface of the planet and converting all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and coating the entire surface of the planet in stinking toxic hydro-carbons, killing off all other life forms ? (not to mention that removing all carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would cause all plant life to die which would kill everything higher up in the food chain).
This sounds too good to be true. This story reminds me of the following quote:
"We are now in the techno-rapture phase of [industrial civilization] which features massive amounts of magical thinking" - JH Kunstler, futurist