Oil 2.0 ? Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol.

[deep]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4133668.ece


I thought this was a joke.

But, there are a couple of articles posted



Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol - Times Online

“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.

http://www.examiner.com/x-243-Progressive-Politics-Examiner~y2008m6d15 -The-Future-is-Oil-Excreting-Bugs

 

[melon]

Sugar cane ethanol already exists in appreciable quantities in Brazil, even without these bugs. It is not in the U.S., though, because we slapped cost-prohibitive tariffs on it. Ethanol really had little to do with fuel production, and more to do with politicians pandering to farmers in "red states."

Nonetheless, this is highly interesting.

 

[deep]

Ethanol is "an alcohol product produced from corn, sorghum, potatoes, wheat, sugar cane, even biomass such as cornstalks and vegetable waste. When combined with gasoline, it increases octane levels while also promoting more complete fuel burning that reduces harmful tailpipe emissions such as carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons."


this is an oil
with many more properties than just an ethanol

I always believed oil was a problem because of the rate we are consuming it verses the time it took for it to come into being.



If these articles are correct, the time to create oil is no longer a concern.

 

[Vincent Vega]

No, they just have to find a way how we can eat this oil. Wait.... that's already known!

 

[deep]

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.

 

[melon]

If this is all that it promises, including being carbon negative and being able to feed on agricultural waste, rather than siphoning off of our food stock, then it could be our "Holy Grail" to self-sufficiency and environmental protection.

The only problem, environmentally, is that there would be absolutely no incentive for ground oil to stop being pumped, particularly from the Middle East, so we would continue pumping more carbon from the ground into our atmosphere. A shift to hydrogen fuel and the elimination of gasoline engines from the industrialized nations of the world would take any oil out of consideration. I do notice, though, there's a footnote in that article about how genetically engineered "bugs" are also being used to create hydrogen fuel.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

put a load of bug shit in your tank.

 

[sue4u2]

If this is all that it promises, including being carbon negative and being able to feed on agricultural waste, rather than siphoning off of our food stock, then it could be our "Holy Grail" to self-sufficiency and environmental protection.

A shift to hydrogen fuel and the elimination of gasoline engines from the industrialized nations of the world would take any oil out of consideration.

Well forget that. The only research the oil companies want to do with their billion dollar profit's is to find a bug to produce more oil. Oh my god, what would they do if a real viable alternative source of energy is found.
Oh yeah, go out of business. Unless they discover it, which they won't because they are making too much off if the oil dependency.
I'm sorry, I don't trust the oil industry to help with solving any oil crisis and I'm not buying any of this.

put a load of bug shit in your tank.

 

[ntalwar]

I've seen dozens of these types of claims, most of which turn out to be bogus.

The article mentions the biggest hurdle to this (and any alternative) technology: Scalability.

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.