Bug That Excretes Oil

[ProSlasher 176]

Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol

 

“Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d 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? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.”

 

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, “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.

 

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 firm’s 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. It is a bold statement from a man who works in a glorified cubicle in a San Francisco industrial estate for a company that describes itself as being “prerevenue”.

 

Inside LS9’s cluttered laboratory – funded by $20 million of start-up capital from investors including Vinod Khosla, the Indian-American entrepreneur who co-founded Sun Micro-systems – Mr Pal explains that LS9’s bugs are single-cell organisms, each a fraction of a billionth the size of an ant. They start out as industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli, but LS9 modifies them by custom-de-signing their DNA. “Five to seven years ago, that process would have taken months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he says. “Now it can take weeks and cost maybe $20,000.”

 

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.

 

For fermentation to take place you need raw material, or feedstock, as it is known in the biofuels industry. Anything will do as long as it can be broken down into sugars, with the byproduct ideally burnt to produce electricity to run the plant.

 

The company is not interested in using corn as feedstock, given the much-publicised problems created by using food crops for fuel, such as the tortilla inflation that recently caused food riots in Mexico City. Instead, 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.

 

Using genetically modified bugs for fermentation is essentially the same as using natural bacteria to produce ethanol, although the energy-intensive final process of distillation is virtually eliminated because the bugs excrete a substance that is almost pump-ready.

 

The closest that LS9 has come to mass production is a 1,000-litre fermenting machine, which looks like a large stainless-steel jar, next to a wardrobe-sized computer connected by a tangle of cables and tubes. It has not yet been plugged in. The machine produces the equivalent of one barrel a week and takes up 40 sq ft of floor space.

 

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.

 

That is the main problem: although LS9 can produce its bug fuel in laboratory beakers, it has no idea whether it will be able produce the same results on a nationwide or even global scale.

 

“Our plan is to have a demonstration-scale plant operational by 2010 and, in parallel, we’ll be working on the design and construction of a commercial-scale facility to open in 2011,” says Mr Pal, adding that if LS9 used Brazilian sugar cane as its feedstock, its fuel would probably cost about $50 a barrel.

 

Are Americans ready to be putting genetically modified bug excretion in their cars? “It’s not the same as with food,” Mr Pal says. “We’re putting these bacteria in a very isolated container: their entire universe is in that tank. When we’re done with them, they’re destroyed.”

 

Besides, he says, there is greater good being served. “I have two children, and climate change is something that they are going to face. The energy crisis is something that they are going to face. We have a collective responsibility to do this.”

 

Source(s): http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/envi...icle4133668.ece

 

 

Hmm... Reminds me of this...

[Fc3sZero 78]

I'm always excited about new innovations and advancements in technology. Would be cool if they could put this to every day use to decrease are dependency on foreign oil.

 

I don't know if you guys get the Popular Science magazine but they had about 10 pages of clean technology that would generate the power we need without using fossil fuels. My brother in-law is up a OSU working on genetically altering these algae to production Hydrogen for fuel.

 

I could go on forever so I'll stop here.

Edited June 15, 2008 by Fc3sZero

[Speedskater 167]

Bugs huh. never would of guess this would happen

[Ruler of War 169]

wow i have to admit thats actually pretty cool but i really don't think they should be genetically altering things to fit our needs... but i guess its what must be done at this point.

[Azu 24]

Why do they have to do bacteria to do that? Why not just a machine? o.0

[Fc3sZero 78]

Might be cheaper but thats my wild guess.

[LoyaL 68]

Chemicals.

Making Oil takes Charcoal. We don't need a bunch of temporary fixes like this, we need the price of oil to go up to 6 dollars a gallon so the lobbyists can't win anymore and Hydrogen's price goes down, resulting in clean energine from Hydrogen fuel.

[Suteki 114]

Oh no! Don't hurt the poor bacteria so that I don't have to spend almost $5 for one single gallon of gasoline!

They need to hurry up with this shit because if it's already at $5 and it's 2008, 2011 is a looong ways away.

 

The problem I see is this...

 

The closest that LS9 has come to mass production is a 1,000-litre fermenting machine, which looks like a large stainless-steel jar, next to a wardrobe-sized computer connected by a tangle of cables and tubes. It has not yet been plugged in. The machine produces the equivalent of one barrel a week and takes up 40 sq ft of floor space.

 

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.

 

That is the main problem: although LS9 can produce its bug fuel in laboratory beakers, it has no idea whether it will be able produce the same results on a nationwide or even global scale.

 

 

That is a pretty big problem.

 

Chemicals.

Making Oil takes Charcoal. We don't need a bunch of temporary fixes like this, we need the price of oil to go up to 6 dollars a gallon so the lobbyists can't win anymore and Hydrogen's price goes down, resulting in clean energine from Hydrogen fuel.

 

You keep thinking that way, and you will soon see more homeless people than you have ever seen in your life. True, people could walk and or ride a bike. But not everyone lives within "biking distance" to their job and even so, the prices affect company's as well. Company's can't just "bike" everything to their store.

[Fc3sZero 78]

Oh no! Don't hurt the poor bacteria so that I don't have to spend almost $5 for one single gallon of gasoline!

They need to hurry up with this shit because if it's already at $5 and it's 2008, 2011 is a looong ways away.

 

 

You keep thinking that way, and you will soon see more homeless people than you have ever seen in your life. True, people could walk and or ride a bike. But not everyone lives within "biking distance" to their job and even so, the prices affect company's as well. Company's can't just "bike" everything to their store.

 

First part:

 

haha Yeah really

 

Second part:

 

I'm sure he was talking about replacing oil with hydrogen for fuel. Not just ditching oil all together without something else to substitute it. Although what you said it completely true, I think you must have misinterpret the point he was getting at. I have to agree with Loyal as well. As much as it sucks for me spending $75 on gas every 1-2 weeks. It's something that needs to be done. We can't just continue to rely on oil like we do.

 

 

They may have to work on this a bit. 1 barrel a week and taking up 40 SQ Ft sucks. The US alone consumes 9,253,000 barrels/day. So bust out your calculators and prepare to be let down.

Edited June 15, 2008 by Fc3sZero

[Suteki 114]

I'm all for alternatives. However I don't think raising it to $6 first before we even have those reliable alternatives is a very wise idea.

[Azu 24]

Chemicals.

Making Oil takes Charcoal.

 

According to this post it just takes wood chips.

 

 

Anyways, plastic is very useful and don't we need oil to make it? Or is there a way to make it out of hydrogen?

[Union1 33]

Where can i get these bugs. Sounds very cool 2 me. I want to throw them into someone's gas tank and see what happends.

[LoyaL 68]

Chemicals.

Making Oil takes Charcoal.

 

According to this post it just takes wood chips.

 

 

Anyways, plastic is very useful and don't we need oil to make it? Or is there a way to make it out of hydrogen?

 

 

That's Petrol. You use heat to change Petrol to Gasoline.

 

You keep thinking that way, and you will soon see more homeless people than you have ever seen in your life. True, people could walk and or ride a bike. But not everyone lives within "biking distance" to their job and even so, the prices affect company's as well. Company's can't just "bike" everything to their store.

LoyaL Posted Today, 01:3

 

Pay attention this is hard to explain. Sometimes i don't even get it.

 

 

Oil Companies control our government. Close to Fact.

Lobbyists push different taxing and sanctioning against Hydrogen Fuel, so it costs nearly 6$ "a gallon."

 

Once The price of gasoline reaches 6$ a gallon, people will say fuck you to the government, and figure it's the same price, less polution. Sure, the cars cost more, but with oil prices surely continuing to rise it is worth it.

 

Also, the reason it is at 6$ a "gallon" (hydrogen) is the lobbying and the supply/demand type things.

 

 

In other news, there are air compression powered cars that fold up.

[Fc3sZero 78]

I'm all for alternatives. However I don't think raising it to $6 first before we even have those reliable alternatives is a very wise idea.

I can see why you would think that although how important would an alternative fuel source be if gas were back down to $1/gal? People will only see how serious the situation is once the economy is hurting because of a dramatic increase in price. That and if people drove less the demand would be lower than the supply so the price would go down.

[Union1 33]

Yep the US will only start doing alternatives when the last drop of gas is burned

[LoyaL 68]

Yep the US will only start doing alternatives when the last drop of gas is burned

 

Don't be so quick to condemn the U.S.

We get the bad rep, but most countries do the same shit we do.

[ProSlasher 176]

Thats why France and Japan are doing just fine off of 8 dollars a gallon?

[Azu 24]

Where can i get these bugs. Sounds very cool 2 me. I want to throw them into someone's gas tank and see what happends.

 

It's yeast, not bugs. And they eat organic matter, not gasoline, so nothing would happen.

 

Fail troll is fail.

[Zar 696]

Cool.

[Zack 0]

custom-de-signing

custom-de-signing

custom-de-signing

custom-de-signing

custom-de-signing

Edited June 16, 2008 by Zack

[Zar 696]

What about custom-de-signing? You're just spamming.

[Zack 0]

custom-de-signing is an incorrect phrase. It's custom designing

[Zar 696]

Custom-de-signing is correct in the context of rewriting DNA . . . (mr. smartypants) :boredom:

[Zack 0]

hmm i must wiki more often then

[Azu 24]

This post has been edited by Zack