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Engineered Stomach Microbe Converts Seaweed Into Ethanol
PolygamousRanchKid writes "Seaweed may well be an ideal plant to turn into biofuel. It grows in much of the two thirds of the planet that is underwater, so it wouldn't crowd out food crops the way corn for ethanol does. Because it draws its own nutrients and water from the sea, it requires no fertilizer or irrigation. Most importantly for would-be biofuel-makers, it contains no lignin—a strong strand of complex sugars that stiffens plant stalks and poses a big obstacle to turning land-based plants such as switchgrass into biofuel. Researchers at Bio Architecture Lab, Inc., (BAL) and the University of Washington in Seattle have now taken the first step to exploit the natural advantages of seaweed. They have built a microbe capable of digesting it and converting it into ethanol or other chemicals. Synthetic biologist Yasuo Yoshikuni, a co-founder of BAL, and his colleagues took Escherichia coli, a gut bacterium most famous as a food contaminant, and made some genetic modifications that give it the ability to turn the sugars in an edible kelp called kombu into fuel."
So... how long until this microbe gets into the wild and we end up with an ocean of ethanol...?
For the sake of argument, lets say it works and pretty soon the ocean is all fenced off like Nebraska and each family farmer (multinational corp) has their own little farm (ocean). All this does is push off the problems of over populating a little bit further all the while putting pressure new pressures on the environment. While kelp would capture CO from the atmosphere in equal parts to those exhausted when burnt, I'm sure we are not taking into account the other things it will be removing from the seas. What affect might that have? No one knows. While the Capitalist ethic of "Drive it hard and fix what breaks." is romantic, it is also dangerous and doesn't take into account the people they kill along the way. I think I'd prefer to have a substantive conversation on the population control instead of only looking for more resources to exploit. Eventually Malthus will catch up to us, why not stop running from him and face his challenge. Better now while only 7 billion people will have to suffer rather than 12 billion in 20 or 30 years.
No. The thing about a carbon cycle is that it's, uh, a cycle. If you take a plant and burn it, then grow another plant that absorbs the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, then you end up with no net increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The problem is that we are mostly burning things like coal and oil that have not been atmospheric carbon for several million years. This is, in theory, the point of carbon offsets - they grow some new plants to absorb the carbon that you release from burning fossil fuels.
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The nutrients would be left over after processing, since all we're interested in is ethanol final product (containing only carbon, oxygen and hydrogen) all the other minerals, fixed nitrogen, proteins etc. would end up as a slurry with waste water. Dump that back into the ocean over the area you're harvesting as fertilizer. Very little would be lost.
My biggest concern is the ability to scale this method so it produces a worthwhile fraction of our energy needs and becomes economically viable. Ethanol is a fairly poor choice for motor fuel since it's so volatile and hygroscopic - it spoils quickly. It also has low energy density which is more of an inconvenience (need more to get the same output). I'd be much happier with biodiesel as an end product.
=Smidge=
The WSJ had an article last month on the Cellulosic Ethanol Debacle. The various approaches just haven't worked at all. Try whatever tabletop approach catches your fancy but in the real world lignin just doesn't scale up to anything approaching meaningful commercial volumes, as of yet anyway. And our tax dollars go towards these attempts, keep in mind.
People have been fiddling about with these approaches for almost a century too, and making all manner of grandiose claims; I've parsed news clippings from the 1920s promising a coming era of limitless cheap ethanol to replace rock oil. It would take catastrophically high crude oil prices to really spur development here, but chances are we'd also turn to dirtier approaches like coal-to-liquids which are somewhat more profitable and scalable; or simply employ conservation to the point where the price would drop back down anyway. The International Energy Agency had an excellent document on approaches for
Saving Oil in a Hurry, which may be of interest.
Hemp would still compete with crops for arable land.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
If they can keep this GMO sequestered in a watertight tank and remember that it could possibly destroy the ocean it would help the population of the world. It's sort of silly, however, that they spent all those resources creating this GMO when hemp is a very common and old source for ethanol. But nooo, we don't want to upset the fine folks at Dow, Goodyear, or Monsanto do we. Let's forget hemp and create a new organism.
The above illustrates the problem of informing the uninformed about scientific developments.
What reproductive and survival advantage does E Coli get from having these modifications done? Right... none. So while it'll happily digest the seaweed in a lab, or even in a manufacturing tank, if you dump it into the ocean it will a) die from incorrect environmental osmolality and pH b) be eaten by a variety of sea creatures.
Introducing rabbits to Australia was FAR worse than dumping TONS of this stuff into the ocean. This bacterium is so far from being able to "destroy the ocean" that it would take a colossal act of ignorance to claim it as such. Oh wait...
so thats the fuel problem solved then
Errrrrrrrrrr well i seem to recall an article right here on slashdot not more that a couple of weeks ago saying that what was it E39 or whatever they cal ethanol in the US was bieng done away with as it was not a good fuel ..
That article was about making biofuel from corn. The bottom line there is that growing the corn and fermenting it to create ethanol takes more energy than it produces.
This is about using a genetically engineered stomach organism to convert seaweed. Truly the parallels are astounding.
You can't compare the edible seaweed in the market with seaweed for ethanol production. It's probably a completely different plant.
Probably? So you don't actually know anything relevant, but you decided to gift and delight us with your comment anyway? Too bad you didn't read the fine summary: "Synthetic biologist Yasuo Yoshikuni, a co-founder of BAL, and his colleagues took Escherichia coli, a gut bacterium most famous as a food contaminant, and made some genetic modifications that give it the ability to turn the sugars in an edible kelp called kombu into fuel." HTH, next time think for more than a tenth of a second before clicking submit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So you think the successful Republican efforts to block conservation and alternative energy research post-OPEC oil embargo - to include Reagan ripping Carter's solar panels off the roof of the White House - had nothing to do with Big Carbon's wishes?
Interesting perspective.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
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Not long ago I watched a TV program that presented the work of Japanese scientist Izuru Senaha . He have found that seaweed grows optimally at 2% CO2 concentration (72 times the normal concentration in sea water). They use method (developed by Masanori Hiraoka) where the seaweeds are in constant motion to boost their growth.
He is making experiments by collecting CO2 from local power plants and using it to grow seaweed.
It would make a lot more sense to have farms for rapid growth than having to collect seaweed from the ocean.
This method alone could be great for collecting the carbon from the air and making it into solid form (thus reversing the greenhouse effect). But that would not be profitable on its own.
so thats the fuel problem solved then
What would be the ecological effect of harvesting huge amounts of seaweed? Knee jerk solutions lead to unintended consequences. Mother nature can be a vengeful biatch.
JoeR
Actually it is mostly the fact that the yeast in alcohol is limited to producing 10% alcohol before the yeast starts to die. So unless this yeast can get past 10% it will likely take the same energy to get to finished product as corn ethanol.
Fyi it takes 15700 BTU of fuel per gallon of ethanol to grow and transport the corn required. Ethanol has 114000 BTU per gallon a 8* payoff. 90% of the remaining energy used in producing ethanol is electric and still has a payoff. If you stop with hydrous ethanol (can be burned as e85, cannot be mixed with gasoline) the payoff is 2-3*. While anhydrous ethanol is more like 1.6* source: http://www.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/preprint%20archive/Files/21_2_NEW%20YORK_04-76_0029.pdf