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GE Microbes Make Ersatz Crude Oil From Many Sources
polymath69 writes "According to The Times Online, genetically modified microbes have been developed capable of turning surplus material such as wood chips, sugarcane, or others, not into ethanol, but into a substance which could substitute directly for crude oil. They claim it could be sold for about $50/bbl, and the production process would be carbon negative."
<science scare story hat>
Two quotes FTA:
E.Coli, usually harmless etc, commonly found in the gut and able to survive brief periods outside it's normal (animal intestine) environment. So if this escaped into the wild, and you accidentally consumed a small amount, would it turn you into crude oil?
</science scare story hat>
No seriously, I can see tabloid newspapers having a field day with this: "Genetic Frankenstein Bugs Ate My Grandmother!"
Yeah, but Obama wants to give them and their children microbes US citizenship. This poses a problem since we then have to build tiny ramps on all building for them to get in.
These hippies are trying to destroy American oil companies!
Think of all those poor oil companies...their employees have children, think of the children!
-I only code in BASIC.-
Personally I love the taste of wood chips, wheat chaff and corn husks but if they can help solve our fuel problem I am willing to tighten my belt and limit my diet to steak, peas and mashed potatoes.
obviously, solar energy is the ultimate renewable energy source
Actually, there's already a way to turn solar energy into crude oil : grow plants, bury dead plants deep underground, wait several millions years, extract oil.
You do realize oil *is* solar energy right?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Religion perhaps?
Yeah, but they both "bring good things to life".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OILIX
Snake? Snake?! SNAAAAAAAAKE?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Wear a big glove?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Great! Let's chip the Amazon!
We don't believe in radical loony monotheistic religions from the middle east -- we're Christians.
The process is likely to work, though scaling up may be a problem....
I seem to remember that when Yahoo was looking for capital investment, VCs started throwing money at a company that had no product and no sales. Same happened when they went public. So, here's a company that has a product that can replace fossil fuels at a time when fuel prices are sky-high and they're having problems scaling up?
Maybe they should start sending spam to generate funds.
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
Or do it at night.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
What will be interesting is how the oil giants respond to this competition.
DMCA takedown notices?Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the temperature. Water isn't really very wet at, say, 0 degrees Kelvin.
My blog
No more toilet stops on those long drives!!
No more petrol stops either!!
Started turning the starving third world into oil? Are you mad??
you absolutely do not know what you are talking about.
1) Saudi's are only appear to be devout
2) Saudi's were actually at war with Iraq
Do you think Muslims countries do not have wars or politics? Read some history.
From TFA:
"to substitute Americaâ(TM)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."
I would have no problem with leveling Chicago.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
And, if a billion years or so, we might find yet another use for them...as oil.
From TFA:
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.
OMG! Isn't anyone thinking about the ramifications? I'm talking about Global Cooling!
Won't someone please think of the children?!?
Seriously, though, I nearly spit out my coffee from reading the phrase "Oil 2.0". What a creative name. *rolls eyes*
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
Good news: All of our oil problems are solved! We can use this great bacteria to make any biomass into oil.
Bad New: We all need to move to Mars becasue we've accidentally converted the entire biosphere into oil.
Sounds reasonable, except that it overlooks many nasty facts that exist in the real world. Notably, the nature of monopolistic capitalism and the sheer malignancy of the petrochemical industry.
While yes, they may be able to develop a new tech to synthesize oil cheaper than it costs to pump, but the problem isn't one of simply pushing their own costs down; their profitability is dependent upon the total domination of the entire global operation.
A new technology could be held onto for a while. Once variants are developed (no tech monopoly lasts long, patent protection is a whack a mole game that patent holders can never win) they lose the position of total global domination that they enjoy now. Thus, they know that their best long term proposition is to hold onto the monopoly that they hold now, as it can and is physically enforced by a) insurmountable barriers to entry and b) a myopic US government willing to protect Big Oil's interests politically and if necessary, militarily.
In other words, I see your tinfoil hat, and raise you a tinfoil codpiece.
I hate printers.