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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.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
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.
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.
I don't read AC A human right