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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.
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.
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.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Guess what. Enzymes are usually called enzymes because they make possible a biochemical reaction, or enhance the natural reaction in such a way that they are not used up. Like a catalyst, but catalysts can be inorganic. Enzymes are definitely protein based, and as such, organic molecules.
As other proteins, they can denature or even disintegrate due to external circumstances (too much heat, acidity level) but in the right circumstances they keep existing and can process virtually indefinitely.
Well, 'we' are already working on a not-happy outcome for 'us' due to 'our' own shortsightedness and hubris. Be glad there are still people willing to look into (even if they are radical) solutions to reverse this shit, instead of moaning about some imaginary economic doom scenario if they were ordered to actually move their asses for once.
There are already a lot of things making perfect sense (also economically) to do to reduce more damage. But often they aren't done because of established order and general inactivity and who-gives-a-shitness. Well, I do.
Instead of bio-engineering an organism which collects sunlight and uses it to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, why don't we just plant more trees?
I understand that you're upset that we're not doing more about CO2 emissions. But you have to understand that we're directly in control of those CO2 emissions. If we wanted to, we could stop all our CO2 emissions tomorrow. The problem isn't the capability, it's the desire. We already have the capability, we just lack the desire.
Releasing a self-replicating bio-engineered organism which extracts CO2 from the atmosphere is an order of magnitude more reckless than wantonly emitting CO2 to generate energy. Because once you release a self-replicating organism, you no longer have any control over it. If it turns out our calculations and predictions are wrong about the effects of reducing our CO2 emissions, we can modify our behavior in response because we control our CO2 emissions. But once you release that organism, that's it. It's out of our control. If our calculations were wrong about what the steady state response of the ecosystem will be to the introduction of that organism, we won't be able to stop it even if we desire to do so.
At least with trees, you have an organism which has been around for millions of years so its steady state effect on the ecosystem is pretty well understood.
Posted this a bunch of times on stories like this, but nobody ever seems to take notice. Let's try again. There exists *today* a viable carbon sequestration scheme which relies on extant technology, improves soil, and could be made into a profitable venture. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
What is your carbon footprint? Is that the carbon that you actually contain, or is that the carbon you require to live? Or, is that the carbon you choose to alter because you like a nicer quality of life than what it minimally required to live?
It's the third one, sort of. Your "carbon footprint" is the amount of carbon compounds per unit time that your existence puts into the air. That include everything associated with your existence. Not just the carbon in you and what you exhale, excrete, etc., but also the amount of carbon put into the air: to make the electricity you use; to drive your car; to make the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the house you live in; and so on.
The OP's question on the carbon footprint of the enzymes was analogous: what's the entire carbon budget associated with manufacturing, transporting, distributing, and maintaining a solution based on this technology? The ideal case, as TFS mentions, is to incorporate the enzyme into a living organism that can take care of several of the above steps. Whether this technology turns out to be carbon-negative will be answered in due course.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
I saw a few YouTube videos where people from the US Navy described a system that took seawater and electricity to create jet fuel. The intention is to use this system on a nuclear powered vessel so that it can produce the fuel for the aircraft it carries. Obviously a modern aircraft carrier carries a lot of aircraft, and is nuclear powered, but there are lots of other ships that could use this technology. Most every ship in the US Navy and US Coast Guard will carry one or two helicopters for the purposes of search and rescue, carrying in supplies, moving crew to and from shore or other ships, etc. These ships could use this technology to fuel those helicopters and/or any small boats used for similar purposes.
This seawater to jet fuel process doesn't have to be driven by nuclear power, I'd guess, but that's the way to go. It could be powered by sun, wind, or water, but nuclear power doesn't care about the weather. Powering it from coal or other fossil fuel is just stupid. This process doesn't have to be on a ship either, if it can be made cheap enough then it could compete with fossil fuels.
I've mentioned this before and I get stupid responses on how this is a bad idea. One reason given that it is a bad idea is because it still involved burning hydrocarbons, and burning anything is somehow bad. Another reason given that this is a bad idea is because the CO2 is taken out of the water, not the air, and therefore still contributes to global warming. First thing is that by taking the CO2 from the water the cycle is closed, any hydrocarbons it produces is from CO2 in the environment, not from deep in the ground. Second, the CO2 in the water got there from the air. Any body of water exposed to the air will reach a CO2 equilibrium with the air, any CO2 pulled from the water will then get pulled from the air.
The US Navy has demonstrated this technology and it works. All it needs is some funding so that it can be developed further and deployed.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The "hydrogen economy" would produce huge amounts of CO2 if we use the cheapest most efficient means of producing hydrogen, namely hydrocarbon fractionation. I had read of energy balances for ethanol that show it requires more energy to produce than it actually produces. Not to mention the stupidity of using food for fuel. Ethanol drove up the price of corn enough that there were food riots in latin America.
Having seen this blow up in our faces before I want to raise a warning flag early so we can nip a bad idea in the bud.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Of course nature has a feedback method to automatically correct the damage we do: extinction (or a major culling at least)
This signature is false.
Oh come on. Just say it - that you believe some god will fix it for you.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap