Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
This has happened before, when plants first evolved the C4 cycle about 35 million years ago. It wasn't until about 6 million years ago that C4 became ecologically significant, when grasslands became widespread. The resultant fall in atmospheric CO2 caused global cooling and may have been a reason for the ice ages.
Ending deforestation tomorrow and planting trees until every square inch of arable soil is covered won't make a dent in the 100 or so gigatons of extra CO2 in the atmosphere from human activities. We should still do it, but don't expect it to fix the problem. The weight of all *biomass* combined on the planet is only something like 400 gigatons. We've really burned a lot of coal and oil, people need to understand this.
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.