Genetically modified bacteria that make diesel fuel

An article from Fast Company that offers a productive little bacterium as a potential solution to the world's limited petroleum resource. However, it doesn't even mention the continued problems from released carbon that we would face if we just replaced one source of oil with another, albeit renewable, one. However, the fuel has 50% more energy than ethanol, doesn't take much energy to refine or process, and would use much less land to produce than corn or soy biofuel crops...

clairity submitted 335 Days Ago, www.fastcompany.com, 5 of 5 people found this post informative
Tags: energy, sustainability, alternative energy, (More) | Add Tags

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by Naz on 02/08/08 (1 of 1 people found this comment informative)

Interesting article, Claire! Who knew you could create petroleum through bacteria? This is definitely an interesting approach towards sustainability and reducing our reliance on crude oil.

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by seraphic23 on 04/08/08 (0 of 0 people found this comment informative)

This is by far one of the more unique approaches to the petroleum/energy crisis but the arcticle fails to point out the danger of manipuating the very basic structures of life on the planet. The comment that LS9 will "redesign the genomes of existing organisms with a few mouse clicks" is particularly alarming. It seems that in these perilous times of climate change people have abandoned caution in favour of finding fossil fuel alternatives. Another factor that was missed while speculating the efficiencies and pay offs of bacterial derived diseal is that it is all based on typical combustion processes. Burning of a bacterial derived diseal continues to release carbonmonoxides into the atmoshere. The only real advantage is that there will be less of a dependancy on the current oil industry. What price will we pay in ignoring these factors?

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