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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."
If they are right then they are instant Billionaires, if the process really worked they would be commercializing it and completely destabilizing OPEC. I'll believe it when I see it and the world will be rejoicing.
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obviously, solar energy is the ultimate renewable energy source
the ideal though is not to store or transmit that eletrically, but chemically (storage density, thermodynamic efficiency, etc)
i'm looking for the guy who turns poor fishermen in the philippines and indonesia (or anywhere access to shallow seas is easy) into the next sultans of brunei:
1. give them a bunch of specailly shaped clear plastic jugs, mini floating stills
2. they put a little gm algae inside the jugs
3. they throw the jugs in the ocean with anchors
4. they come back a month later, pick up the jugs
5. they are processed dockside directly into octane, in a low-tech facility
the guy, or gal, who figures out how to get algae to directly produce octane saves the world from itself geopolitically, environmentally, developmentally. then we have enough breathing room to master fusion
right now, the world is in an energy crunch. we will have more wars, the environment will suffer, there will be more poverty, until we get our act together on a truly large scale renewable energy source. too much renewable energy sources look at so far have been boutique, things that can never scale up
the cheap dig-it-out-of-the-ground era is over. oh of course, there's still more of it to dig out. its just too damn deep, and getting deeper every day, to call it cheap anymore
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Indeed, wouldn't it be terrible if everyone stopped sending their wood chips and grass cuttings to the starving in the third world and started turning them into oil instead.
Not likely. Oil companies need crude. International oil companies only hold about 8% of worls reserves; they are captial rich and resource poor, being limited mostly by poor host country infrastructure, quotas, and production capacities. If this new crude is available at $50/barrel, why wouldn't they buy it? They've been diversifying for years, getting into solar, natural gas, wind, and other industries.
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Well, this is a bit different. As the article says these organisms live in sealed vats, they are not out in the environment like GM crops. There is a chance of them escaping, but that's still different from deliberately releasing billions of GMOs into the wild.
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Crude oil often has contaminants like sulphur, which this process can simply leave out.
-jcr
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Solution to the current bubble: When the contract becomes due, pull up to the trader's office with a tanker truck and flood the building with the crude. That'll teach'em not to speculate.
I think your estimates for production are low - I doubt it would take 3 months for 100 gallons of bugs to excrete a gallon of oil. Even using your figures, my wife and I could easily put in a reactor large enough to generate that much fuel. Toss in the odd orange peel, and voila! Fuel for the family.
Doing the math:
1.3 gal/person/day = 2.6 gal/day for us. Using your figures that's approximately 9000 gal of bugs per gallon-day of fuel. That's 23400 gallons (or 3128 ft^3) of bugs. A pit 20x20x8 would comfortably hold them.
My concern with that many critters would be the disposal of the dead ones. That in itself is a lot of biomass - wait, maybe they can 'eat' their own dead! Soylent oil for real!
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It's not a matter of there being plenty of oil, it's a matter of there not being plenty of CHEAP oil. The remaining recoverable oil is progressively more and more expensive to extract, at a slower and slower rate. The issue that's going to be upon us is the CHEAP, easy to extract, easy to refine oil peaking.
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Did I mention something about downstream assets? Well that's the retailing and distribution networks. There's still a good profit to be made there. The mere existence of those chains is a barrier to entry and even if oil can be made in a vat, it'd probably make sense for the manufacturer to sell it via an existing company, rather than build their own duplicate distribution system.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Thing is, we're running out of oil that's easy(IE cheap) to extract. If Exxon either developed or bought and commercialized a patented process that produced an analogue to light sweet crude* for $50/barrel, they'd clean up. They'd rather expand and exploit that process than risk billions in new deep off shore oil platforms, which wouldn't be able to pull up oil for less than $50/barrel anyways. Or dealing with other countries where they have to worry about the government of the country nationalizing the rigs.
*I know, it wouldn't be exact, but most of the artificialy generated stuff I've heard about is actually easier to refine into stuff. Heck, as I understand it the oil resulting from thermal depolymerization can pretty much be poured straight into a diesel engine.
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... How they produce energy. It is a matter of supply and demand and trade. If any fuel is a publicly traded commodity, in today's politics and turmoil, it will become expensive simply because of hedge funds and such.
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No, it doesn't. The reason they "not viable" is because it takes more energy to extract the oil than you get from the oil; no matter where the price of oil goes, it'll stay not viable.
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