by Damozel | Okay, it's not April Fool's Day and it is the Times of London --- not exactly known for its jolly japes. Oh, how I wish Cockney Robin were around to cope with this one!
Apparently these scientists have genetically altered tiny carbon-based lifeforms to eat waste materials and excrete crude oil. That's right, 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. (Times Online)
Man, I'd like to see the expressions on the faces of the world's oil barons, including George W. Bush, when they hear this. Blind 'em with science!
But wait: there's more.
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. (Times Online)
And there's more good news.
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. (Times Online)
My immediate question before I'd even read past the first two paragraphs: why bugs? Why not cows? Or even us? Come on....think of the energy we'd save recycling our own waste!
Come on, you know it's a good idea. Instead of a septic tank, an oil tank!
Okay. Sorry. I just wanted to be the first.
At TMV, Jazz Shaw asks if these oil-excreting varmints might save the world, while reminding us that it's not going to happen overnight. The oil barons can relax and carry on charging $140 a barrel for their oil....FOR NOW.
Before you get too excited, the oil crisis has not suddenly been ended in one fell swoop. The technology has a ways to go, and currently the tank they have of these bugs can produce a whopping one barrel of oil per week. But with some further development and expansion, Mr. Pal thinks we can move into full scale production.
If they are right, commercial production of “renewable petroleum” could fill approximately one third of the nation’s transportation petroleum needs in the next decade. This approach also offers one very attractive feature: other renewable energy sources such as hydrogen would require a complete re-tooling of the infrastructure to put them in service. The ability to create petroleum on the fly would allow most machinery to continue operating as it always has. Also, the fuel is being billed as “carbon negative” which means that the amount of hydrocarbon emissions it puts into the atmosphere is less than the amount that the fuel’s raw materials extracted from the system during their growth.
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