High-octane bacteria could ease pain at the pump—Engineered E. coli mass-produce key precursor…

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewpressrelease/116/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]High-octane bacteria could ease pain at the pump[/font]

Date: Jun 25, 2013

[font size=4]Engineered E. coli mass-produce key precursor to potent biofuel[/font]

[font size=3]New lines of engineered bacteria can tailor-make key precursors of high-octane biofuels that could one day replace gasoline, scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School report in the June 24 online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The same lines can also produce precursors of pharmaceuticals, bioplastics, herbicides, detergents, and more.

"The big contribution is that we were able to program cells to make specific fuel precursors," said Pamela Silver, Ph.D., a Wyss Institute Core Faculty member, Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, and senior author of the study.

New biofuels are needed for cars and other vehicles. Ethanol, the most popular biofuel on the market, packs only two-thirds the energy of gasoline, and ethanol-containing fuels also corrode pipes, tanks, and other infrastructure used to transport and store gasoline. Meanwhile, burning gasoline itself adds huge amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and relies on the world's dwindling supply of oil.

…[/font][/font]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1307129110

[Bay Boy]

1. Doesn't burning ethanol create

carbon dioxide too?

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Yes, but… where did the carbon come from?

Living things do not create carbon, they get it from somewhere, either they get it from breathing CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] (like trees do) or, they got it from their “food” (like we do.)

When we burn fossil fuels, we’re putting carbon into the atmosphere, which had been safely stored underground.

When we burn “bio-fuels” (like trees for example) we’re returning carbon to the atmosphere, which the trees drew out of the atmosphere when they grew. (With bio-ethanol, it’s the same idea.)


In any case, this study is not about producing ethanol.

New biofuels are needed for cars and other vehicles. Ethanol, the most popular biofuel on the market, packs only two-thirds the energy of gasoline, and ethanol-containing fuels also corrode pipes, tanks, and other infrastructure used to transport and store gasoline. …

The idea here is to produce something which resembles gasoline. However, the same principle applies. Since it is not coming from the ground, it would be “carbon neutral.”

[kestrel91316]

3. Ethanol produced from CO2 by bacteria is not a fossil fuel, it's carbon neutral.

No different from burning wood. It is just recycling CO2 that is already in the atmosphere. It's not mining it from deposits millions of years old and adding it to the atmosphere.

Why don't people get this??

[Bay Boy]

4. Gee, I'm sorry that...

...I'm so stupid.

[kestrel91316]

5. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Playing stupid about this sort of thing is a common RW ploy.