CO2 Researchers Are Now Hacking Photosynthesis (chicagotribune.com)

Remember that story about the "artificial leaf" solar cells? Long-time Slashdot reader managerialslime quotes the Chicago Tribune: University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have developed a way to mimic plants' ability to convert carbon dioxide into fuel, a way to decrease the amounts of harmful gas in the atmosphere and produce clean energy. The artificial leaf essentially recycles carbon dioxide. And it's powered entirely by the sun, mimicking the real photosynthesis process.
But meanwhile, in Germany: Biochemists led by Tobias Erb at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology...have developed a new, super-efficient method for living organisms to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere. Plants, algae, and other organisms turn CO2 into fuel. Erb and his colleagues reengineered this process, making it about 25 percent more energy efficient and potentially up to two or three times faster... Erb hopes that one day the CETCH cycle could be genetically engineered into living organisms, helping them more rapidly reduce atmospheric CO2 while producing useful materials.
The researchers created their new CO2-transforming cycle using 11 carefully chosen enzymes.

Comments

Beginning of the end

[ghoul]

If this technology escapes the lab this would be the ultimate weed. Sucking out all of the CO2 out of the air and killing off crops. This is an Interstellar type disaster scenario. Finally the Global Warming alarmists have gone too far. Till now they were only threatening our economic wellbeing. Now they are going to kill the planet.
Time to finally get rid of the Global Warming alarmists.