Producing Gasoline With Metabolically-Engineered Microorganisms

An anonymous reader writes "For many decades, we have been relying on fossil resources to produce liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and many industrial and consumer chemicals for daily use. However, increasing strains on natural resources as well as environmental issues including global warming have triggered a strong interest in developing sustainable ways to obtain fuels and chemicals. A Korean research team led by Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) reported, for the first time, the development of a novel strategy for microbial gasoline production through metabolic engineering of E. coli."

Comments

Re:Sounds plausible

[StormReaver]

My poop already comes out black and tarry. Turning it into crude oil is the next logical step.

While your comment was humorous, it isn't what made me laugh. That honor went to the realization that there were Slashdot moderators who thought, "Wow, that's useful information; I'm going to mark that as informative!" What's even funnier than that is that there was more than one moderator who had the same thought.

The only thing I can say to those moderators is, "Here's your sign."

Re:Mixed Blessing

[DarkOx]

If gasoline can be used in a carbon neutral way why get off it at all? It would be essentially rendered harmless.

What you want to use ecologically horrific batteries everywhere?

Re:This solves nothing

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

yeah, another ignorant green reaction.

First, Fossil Fuel is what comes from the ground after millions of years of biological decay. Nothing today will create "fossil" fuel.

Second, taking CO2 that we have released into the atmosphere and turning it back into hydrocarbon fuel will close the loop so that things will at least not get worse. It might not do a lot to remove 100+ years of excessive burning of fossil fuels, but at least will help to reach a balance where we might be able to remove as much CO2 as we put into the air from burning fuels moving forward. If we reach a balance like that, then nature can do the rest to remove the excessive CO2.

Abandoning hydrocarbons is not a solution. Hydrocarbons are a highly concentrated and relatively easy to transport and store form of energy and ALL other forms of energy production are a lot less efficient in the long run to create the energy we need. That isn't going to change, ever. I would even suggest that being able to hook in solar or wind energy and having them produce hydrocarbons using some process is better than simply abandoning burning "fuel" and relying solely on something that only makes energy when the sun shines or the wind blows.

A system to create a closed cycle where CO2 is released but then pulled back to create fuel is what our civilization needs, not an ignorant reactionary myopic solution like "fossil fuel is bad" so ride a bike bullshit.