We have invention and Industry.
Posted by Tina
Ask and it shall be given unto youman, you are going to love this story!
Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol, by Chris Ayres Times Online UK
Ten years ago I could never have imagined Id 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? ** 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, its 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 firms 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.
You go for it Mr. Pal.
INDUSTRY and INVENTION will save the day(and the planet if you must, kiddies).
UPDATE: 4th genration biofuel
Here’s more from another article:
18 Months Until Custom-Made, Oil-Pooping Bacteria, by Hank Green ecogeek.org
Craig Venter has his own scientific institute. He led the private effort to sequence the human genome and was one of Time Magazine’s 2007 most important people. And he’s been building new life. He builds chromosomes from scratch, inserts the new chromosomes in bacteria, and then “boots up” the organisms. ** The new organisms, which Venter says should be multiplying in the lab in the next 18 months, would need high concentrations of CO2 (say, from the smokestack of a coal plant) to convert it to oil at maximum efficiencies. He can alter the octane of the fuel by altering the genes of the organism and, by selecting the best of thousands of molecules, he can “unnaturally select” the most efficient oil producers. ** They’re calling it 4th generation biofuel, and you can expect that it will be only the first application of this fascinating and somewhat alarming new technology.
A little scary but very interesting.