GE Microbes Make Ersatz Crude Oil From Many Sources

polymath69 writes "According to The Times Online, genetically modified microbes have been developed capable of turning surplus material such as wood chips, sugarcane, or others, not into ethanol, but into a substance which could substitute directly for crude oil. They claim it could be sold for about $50/bbl, and the production process would be carbon negative."

Why talk

[afidel (530433)]

If they are right then they are instant Billionaires, if the process really worked they would be commercializing it and completely destabilizing OPEC. I'll believe it when I see it and the world will be rejoicing.

Re:Why talk

[ozmanjusri (601766)]

if the process really worked they would be commercializing it and completely destabilizing OPEC.

The process is likely to work, though scaling up may be a problem, but they're very unlikely to have the field to themselves.

There are a lot of companies looking at similar ways of producing fuels. Sapphire Energy [sapphireenergy.com] claims to be able to make 91 octane gasoline directly from sunlight, CO2 and algae.

Many fringe energy sources have become cost competitive with geological oil since it more than quadrupled in price. What will be interesting is how the oil giants respond to this competition.

Re:Why talk

[Savage-Rabbit (308260)]

Many fringe energy sources have become cost competitive with geological oil since it more than quadrupled in price. What will be interesting is how the oil giants respond to this competition.

And the increased viability of alternative fuels seems to be a playing a role in scaring the Saudis [nytimes.com] into ramping up production.

Re:Why talk

[Ihlosi (895663)]

And the increased viability of alternative fuels seems to be a playing a role in scaring the Saudis into ramping up production.

They're not scared. They just want to keep the oil price at a level where it doesn't negatively impact their investments (which, by now, probably exceed the income they have from selling oil by an order of magnitude). They've probably invested quite a bit of their money into alternative energy, too. It's not like they're lacking spending money.

And, heck ... they have (sea-) water, they have space ... they're probably going to stay an oil supplier even after the stuff gets made by algae instead of being pumped out of the ground.

Re:Why talk

[PhotoGuy (189467)]

And the increased viability of alternative fuels seems to be a playing a role in scaring the Saudis into ramping up production.

Wow, I know it's too late to get any mod points so people will read this, but for those who do drill down into replies:

The Saudi's aren't scared, as another poster pointed out. They are merely trying to poke a bit of a hole into the rampant commodity speculation (and likely price manipulation) that has driven the price of oil (and other commodities) to the point where 60% (according to some estimates) of the price is purely due to speculation.

Just like the .COM bubble (and the TV bubble and many other bubbles before it) drove stock prices unreasonably high, the same is happening with oil (and food and other commodities) now. The dollar is weak, creating piss-poor interest rates, so investors are flocking to these commodities. The normal trading prices for oil used to be subject to oversight and regulation (all major trades had to be reported), to ensure that the oil companies couldn't manipulate prices. Enron was key in creating a loophole where oil futures traded on the OTC (over the counter) market were not subject to tracking and oversight. So the oil companies are likely manipulating and driving prices high through that mechanism.

Normally prices are driven by the economics of supply and demand. The Saudi's are effectively calling "bullshit" on the current prices (and unprecedented oil reserves held by the US), by showing they can easily up the supply. Yes, they are looking out for their interests, but if the poke a hole in the price speculation and price manipulation that is going on, the average consumer is going to benefit greatly (at the expense of big oil). They want to sell oil to us, and they know the current price isn't reasonable nor good for business. More power to them. Hopefully the current prices will scare us into more research of alternative fuels. But the reality is that the consumers, businesses, and general economy relies upon oil today, and is being seriously hurt by the oil companies' price manipulation.

And the run-up of world food prices is supposedly due to a similar speculation in food futures (where greedy North American and European investors' commodity speculation is leading to starvation in some countries).

Good article on it, here [rediff.com]. I think I originally came across that via Digg, which seems to be more useful lately than /. Sigh...

Will the oil bubble burst soon? Hard to believe the OTC loophole and other issues will be addressed as long as a man with oil interests, and from a Texan oil family is in the Whitehouse. Talk about a conflict of interest.

Re:Why talk

[heritage727 (693099)]

What will be interesting is how the oil giants respond to this competition.

DMCA takedown notices?

Re:Why talk

[jamesh (87723)]

There is no benefit for the oil companies to develop and market an alternative technology until all the oil is gone.

Are you kidding? If they can make oil using an alternate technology for cheaper than they can get oil out of the ground then there is every benefit. They could _bury_ the competition!

1. Discover alternate technology
2. Sell off existing oil assets while the alternate technology is unknown
3. Pay politicians (using funds from step 2) to outlaw the use of crude oil extracted from the ground.
4. Profit!

Re:Why talk

[Ronin Developer (67677)]

They could _bury_ the competition!

And, if a billion years or so, we might find yet another use for them...as oil.

Re:Why talk

[Usquebaugh (230216)]

If these microbes can produce stuff that is close to crude? Is it possible that nature has microbes that produce crude?

So tell me again what the formula is for buried dinos/plants turning into crude?

Lastly, the companies selling refined oil set the prices and determine the amount left? Obviously, no room for price fixing there then.

Re:Why talk

[wonkavader (605434)]

You're assuming that it costs a lot to get it out of the ground. Prices have to do with

demand -- meaning what the folks with oil think they can get)

supply -- meaning (in this situation, and this isn't the usual meaning) how much oil they've got underneath their country -- when it's gone they're destitute, so they price accordingly

And then there's speculation, which is pushing prices up. But honestly, I don't know where that is in the process.

My point is not "crude actually costs $32 per barrel to get out of the ground" it's "it is certainly possible that crude costs $0.27 per barrel to get out of the ground, though it might be $49.95 to get out of the ground." Most of us don't know what the margins are on oil after extraction.

A process like this MIGHT be cheaper than extraction. It certainly can be cheaper than our purchase price for extracted barrels from the sources we have today. That will drive such prices down.

I LOVE your #3 idea -- if we come up with a system which is carbon neutral and costs only a little more to acquire than drilling, hell yeah, let's make it illegal to drill for oil! If we could force than down the world's throat everyone would win except the people who currently have oil. They would lose big time. I'm ambivalent about that. (Canada's a big producer -- they'd probably go into the manufactured crude business in a big way and it'd be a wash for them. That is, unless it really does cost $0.27 to pump a barrel of crude out of a well.)

NB. I suspect that it DOES cost very little (a few bucks) to pull a barrel of oil out of the ground. It FINDING that oil that cost so much money.

With a new process, oil becomes a SURE THING. That would make the oil companies' profits PREDICTABLE FOREVER. Part of the financial world would love that.

Re:Why talk

[howlingfrog (211151)]

There is no benefit for the oil companies to develop and market an alternative technology until all the oil is gone.

Are you kidding? If they can make oil using an alternate technology for cheaper than they can get oil out of the ground then there is every benefit. They could _bury_ the competition!

Yes and no. It is in the best interests of any one oil company to be the first to switch over to an alternative energy source. But it is also in the best interests of all the oil companies (individually and collectively) for the status quo to continue as long as possible--they control a finite resource, which is destroyed by use and demand for which is increasing.

Essentially, they have two conflicting motives:

1. Be the first mover.
2. Don't move until absolutely necessary

To balance those two factors, the oil companies are playing chicken with each other. I suspect all the major players are in fact doing major R&D on renewable energy. When the price of oil increases to the point (I'm guessing $10-15/gallon) that the masses actually consider changing their habits--when the luxury SUV market is the entire SUV market, when the median distance from people's homes to their workplaces is three miles, when mass transit gets enough passengers to become financially self-sufficient--you'll see the big oil producers all roll out their replacement technologies at once.

Re:Why talk

[Hognoxious (631665)]

There is no benefit for the oil companies to develop and market an alternative technology until all the oil is gone.

Holy false dichotomy, Batman! There's no reason they can't sell both.

If an alternative technology becomes commercially viable the remaining oil reserves become nearly worthless.

Depends how close to crude the substitute is. It may be OK for fuel, but not useless as a feedstock for plastic production. Most oil companies have considerable downstream assets too.

Re:Wrong, its so valuable because it is scarce

[Hognoxious (631665)]

Did I mention something about downstream assets? Well that's the retailing and distribution networks. There's still a good profit to be made there. The mere existence of those chains is a barrier to entry and even if oil can be made in a vat, it'd probably make sense for the manufacturer to sell it via an existing company, rather than build their own duplicate distribution system.

Re:Wrong, its so valuable because it is scarce

[Firethorn (177587)]

Thing is, we're running out of oil that's easy(IE cheap) to extract. If Exxon either developed or bought and commercialized a patented process that produced an analogue to light sweet crude* for $50/barrel, they'd clean up. They'd rather expand and exploit that process than risk billions in new deep off shore oil platforms, which wouldn't be able to pull up oil for less than $50/barrel anyways. Or dealing with other countries where they have to worry about the government of the country nationalizing the rigs.

*I know, it wouldn't be exact, but most of the artificialy generated stuff I've heard about is actually easier to refine into stuff. Heck, as I understand it the oil resulting from thermal depolymerization can pretty much be poured straight into a diesel engine.

Re:Why talk

[oodaloop (1229816)]

the process really worked they would be commercializing it and completely destabilizing OPEC

Saudi Arabia alone produces more than 10 million barrels PER DAY. How on earth do you think these guys are going to compete with, let alone destabilize OPEC overnight? They've got to make some of it before they become "instant billionaires." Sheesh, give em a chance.

Re:Why talk

[Bonobo_Unknown (925651)]

Great! Let's chip the Amazon!

Re:Why talk

[afidel (530433)]

Uh, the GE stands for Genetically Engineered, not General Electric....

Re:Why talk

[SnowZero (92219)]

Yeah, but they both "bring good things to life".

Public perception

[tomalpha (746163)]

<science scare story hat>

Two quotes FTA:

• "...capable of turning surplus material ... into a substance which could substitute directly for crude oil."
• "They start out as industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli..."

E.Coli, usually harmless etc, commonly found in the gut and able to survive brief periods outside it's normal (animal intestine) environment. So if this escaped into the wild, and you accidentally consumed a small amount, would it turn you into crude oil?

</science scare story hat>

No seriously, I can see tabloid newspapers having a field day with this: "Genetic Frankenstein Bugs Ate My Grandmother!"

Re:Public perception

[Ihlosi (895663)]

So if this escaped into the wild, and you accidentally consumed a small amount, would it turn you into crude oil?

Not likely. But it'd probably give you flatulence of unprecedented proportions.

Re:Public perception

[tomalpha (746163)]

Not likely...

True, but since when has rational debate [guardian.co.uk] held sway in the realm of reporting science stories [badscience.net]?

Re:Public perception

[dintech (998802)]

Actually, maybe that's what tubgirl was up to.

You will only shit pure gold ...

[DrYak (748999)]

E.Coli, usually harmless etc, commonly found in the gut and able to survive brief periods outside it's normal (animal intestine) environment. So if this escaped into the wild, and you accidentally consumed a small amount {...}

{...} you will suddenly find OPEC representative knocking at your door, ready to pay you $WADS_OF_CASH for the privilege of processing your toilet's waste !

{...} each time you go to the "throne", you will be literally sitting on a gold mine !

{...} some /.ers tend to pulling numbers out of your ass, you will be pulling millions out of yours !

{...} you will be the living final proof that a turd, given enough polishing, could indeed be a golden turd !

{...} some people pee on their car to unfreeze the keylock on cold morning, you would do it to fill the tank !

etc, ad nauseam.

-----

Ok. Scatological jokes aside : as E. Coli is a comensal bacteria, our body have evolved and got used to have it inside. We naturally have lots of means to control the important and diverse population of bacteria living in our guts - including having an immune system that keeps the bacteria on the "outside" side of the gut and not entering inside the body itself and including already having an amazing amount of bacteria already living there and leaving less free place for new comers.

The only exception if one of the newcomer specie that comes into the gut is producing some toxin (food poisoning is actually due to the toxin, not the bacteria themselves. Often the bacteria don't survive digestion or are already dead to begin with - that's why charcoal and yeast are more efficient than antibiotics to handle them).
This GE bacteria is simply fermenting garbage into something that looks like oil. You may develop a mild diarrhoea, but there aren't horrible self-digesting-into-a-small-pile-of-gunk short-term risks of having oil in your guts, and the usual defences will take care that it all stays in the gut.

Re:Public perception

[by Anonymous Coward]

lab E. coli strains != pathogenic E. coli [wikipedia.org]

I work w/ lab E. coli every day and have never gotten sick from it and I'm sure I've ingested a few of them in my lifetime.

Re:Public perception

[Rosco P. Coltrane (209368)]

Oh yeah, time for Stephen King to right a new book.

He's wronged so many of his last books that it would be a good idea regardless.

Re:Public perception

[Grimbleton (1034446)]

Nah, this story needs some rampant sexual innuendo, pedophilia, and themes that would give serial rapists nightmares. Let's see... Is Piers Anthony in the middle of anything at the moment?

Re:Public perception

[aurispector (530273)]

Tangentially, you may be interested to know that when the post office was going to murder all of us with anthrax and the media was trumpeting on about how Cipro was our only hope, a quick look at a the literature revealed that doxycycline is both 1) equally effective and 2) no longer covered by patent and about a hundred times cheaper.

that's the ideal

[circletimessquare (444983)]

obviously, solar energy is the ultimate renewable energy source

the ideal though is not to store or transmit that eletrically, but chemically (storage density, thermodynamic efficiency, etc)

i'm looking for the guy who turns poor fishermen in the philippines and indonesia (or anywhere access to shallow seas is easy) into the next sultans of brunei:

1. give them a bunch of specailly shaped clear plastic jugs, mini floating stills
2. they put a little gm algae inside the jugs
3. they throw the jugs in the ocean with anchors
4. they come back a month later, pick up the jugs
5. they are processed dockside directly into octane, in a low-tech facility

the guy, or gal, who figures out how to get algae to directly produce octane saves the world from itself geopolitically, environmentally, developmentally. then we have enough breathing room to master fusion

right now, the world is in an energy crunch. we will have more wars, the environment will suffer, there will be more poverty, until we get our act together on a truly large scale renewable energy source. too much renewable energy sources look at so far have been boutique, things that can never scale up

the cheap dig-it-out-of-the-ground era is over. oh of course, there's still more of it to dig out. its just too damn deep, and getting deeper every day, to call it cheap anymore

Re:that's the ideal

[Rosco P. Coltrane (209368)]

obviously, solar energy is the ultimate renewable energy source

Actually, there's already a way to turn solar energy into crude oil : grow plants, bury dead plants deep underground, wait several millions years, extract oil.

You do realize oil *is* solar energy right?

Re:that's the ideal

[jollyreaper (513215)]

Actually, there's already a way to turn solar energy into crude oil : grow plants, bury dead plants deep underground, wait several millions years, extract oil.

This is the society that produced instant oatmeal because people can't wait the five minutes it takes to make it normally. I don't think there will be enough patience to try it your way.

Re:OMFG

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

can i say now that water is wet and get modded informative too?

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the temperature. Water isn't really very wet at, say, 0 degrees Kelvin.

do the math

[circletimessquare (444983)]

assume a 100 gallon specially designed plastic container filled with high efficiency gm algae (speculative) makes a gallon of oil ever 3 months. obviously there are a million factors here, i'm just pegging a random number

now look at a map of the philippines and indonesia

golly thats a lot of shallow seas

Re:that's the ideal

[ozmanjusri (601766)]

Wear a big glove?

Looks interesting, but...

[oodaloop (1229816)]

I don't see anything in TFA about where the difference in input carbon and output carbon goes. I must be missing something. But if it really decreases the amount of carbon we put out, I'm all for it.

There's another problem I see though. More crude. The real problem behind high gas prices isn't a lack of crude, but the lack of refineries. Global production of crude excedes demand by about 2 million barrels per day, but refineries are unable to keep up with demand for gasoline and other by-products. Besides which, we aren't running out of crude anytime soon anyway. By the time we get more refineries online, gas prices will drop, and demand for this kind of alternative "fuel" will drop as well. Until then, they have to figure out a way to refine it using infrastructure that's already maxed out.

Peak oil...

[Savage-Rabbit (308260)]

. Besides which, we aren't running out of crude anytime soon anyway.

Read this. [wikipedia.org] Theoretically we are not going to run out of fossil fuels any time soon. The problem is that we will start to feel the crunch well before we physically run out of oil. The rate of production will start to slow and with economies like China and India growing at the rate they are doing today, demand is going to outstrip vastly out strip supply well within our lifetimes. This is going to have major economic, social and political effects which in turn, sooner or later, is going to drive massive research into alternative fuels and the adoption of these alternatives. The question is really how long before we run out of sources of oil that are so cheaply exploitable that oil and gasoline remain a cheaper option than alternative fuels.

Re:Peak oil...

[oodaloop (1229816)]

Yeah, the old peak oil spectre. Ya know, in the 1920's people thought that we would run out of oil in 20 years. Then there was a glut. People thought we were going to run out of oil in the 1970s. Then there was a glut. The life-index of oil (reserves/production) in 1948 was 20.5 years. In 1973 it was 32.2 years. In 2005 it was 38 years. We are not anywhere near peak oil, nor are we going to begin running out of oil anytime soon, not in our lifetime not in our children's lifetime.

Re:Peak oil...

[The Master Control P (655590)]

Well, except it's happened provably in two places and it's now happening to the world as a whole.

Starting in 1974, oil output from Texas oil fields began declining 4-ish percent per year. Despite the deployment of every available technology and minimal to almost no drilling restrictions, the decline continues. The same thing happened in the North Sea in 2000: Production peaked, and now production there has been falling about 4 to 5 percent per year for 8 years.

At this time, there is virtually no spare capacity in the middle east to pump more oil. Any that they can bring online will go more to covering rapid declines in North Sea output than increasing supply. The Saudis were hoping to increase production by about 1.2 million barrels/day this year, and it looks as if they'll be doing damn well to get another 500 thousand; We're looking at a loss next year.

The peak is real and most likely imminent.

Re:Looks interesting, but...

[ozmanjusri (601766)]

What's the waste?

Cell walls tend to make up between 15 and 30% of the dry mass of an organism.

The composition of it depends on what type of organism they use. Plant cells would result in cellulose waste, yeast cells, protein and chitinous material, bacteria would most likely be polysaccharides or lipids.

Re:Looks interesting, but...

[Ihlosi (895663)]

When a commodities trader buys oil contracts, he's part of the demand, even though he has no intention of consuming the oil.

Solution to the current bubble: When the contract becomes due, pull up to the trader's office with a tanker truck and flood the building with the crude. That'll teach'em not to speculate.

If?

[DeanFox (729620)]

If they are right then they are instant Billionaires, if the process really worked they would be commercializing it and completely destabilizing OPEC. I'll believe it when I see it and the world will be rejoicing.

Oh they're right and they will be billionaires but not instant. They've been working on this for years, invested 10's of millions of dollars and took huge risks. The American way (and dream). They're planning their first production sites within 2 years.

This technology has been around for awhile although biofuels usually produce ethanol. Just a molecular side chain away from what these guys came up with. They get 1 barrel from 40sq feet of space. At our current rate of 143 million barrels a week it would take 205 sq miles of manufacturing plants to satisfy our current needs. About the size of Chicago. Probably about the same square footage it you total up all the Walmarts. Very doable.

They got us here in spite of all the government roadblocks. IMHO we would have got here a lot sooner if we hadn't laughed Gore off the stage and I suspect progress will increase exponentially when Obama takes over.

-[d]-

Sounds like OILIX

[Kamineko (851857)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OILIX [wikipedia.org]

Snake? Snake?! SNAAAAAAAAKE?

Could be $50/bbl...

[6Yankee (597075)]

...but when the real thing's $140 and you've all those development costs to recoup, why not charge $120 for the bug-crap variety?

I doubt we'd see this at $50 for a good while, not until it drags the price of real oil down to similar levels anyway.

What if it's released into the ocean?

[GayBliss (544986)]

If some of this bacteria finds its way into the ocean or any other body of water, would we have a perpetually expanding pool of oil that can't be stopped?

I didn't see anything in the article about whether or not this bacteria is capable of reproducing on its own. Hopefully it can be controlled in some way.

Article dangerously unclear

[The Master Control P (655590)]

Does their microbe create a crude oil substitute or does it create gasoline/diesel substitute? Because there's a giant difference. A crude oil substitute would have to have an assay remotely compatible with "real" crude if you're not going to end up synthesizing everything else.

Do the bacteria excrete asphalt (although this is less an issue with the heavy crude they're getting now being full of the stuff)? Or the lightweight components of crude? Or kerosene?

Now I'm not saying this wouldn't be an impressive move, and if it can help take up some of the vehicle fuel slack long enough to move to alternatives then great, but we have to be realistic. Take away crude oil and you have to slip another synthesis step in before almost every industrial process to replace the molecules that were nearly ready-made in oil. And since a lot of it will be synthesizing molecules from scratch, it'll suck a /huge/ amount of energy from one source or another.

Better than crude oil, actually.

[jcr (53032)]

Crude oil often has contaminants like sulphur, which this process can simply leave out.

-jcr

The latest in a long line...

[Herger (48454)]

There are a number of biomass-to-fuel technologies in the prototype to production stage, many of which have been featured on Slashdot in the past. Here's a sample:

Changing World Technologies (http://www.changingworldtech.com/) -- high-pressure non-catalytic conversion of biomass to Diesel fuel -- prototype online in Missouri
Range Fuels (http://www.rangefuels.com/) -- cellulose -> syngas -> blended alcohol -- proven, 20-million-gallon/year plant under construction in Soperton, GA
AlphaKat (http://www.alphakat.de/) -- biomass/plastics -> Diesel fuel via metal-catalyzed high-temp, high-pressure reaction. Plants under construction across Europe
MagneGas (http://www.magnegas.com/) -- sewage(!) -> natural gas + surplus heat via electrolytic conversion -- you can buy or rent a working production unit from their web site

I note that all of the above use a high-temperature, high-pressure reaction process to produce fuel. The GE process has the advantage over the first three in that it can handle water better than the first three processes above (IIRC, most Fischer-Tropsch type plants have a low tolerance for water in the reaction vessel, which is bad for biomass conversion unless you spend energy to dry it first. E.g. AlphaKat says their process doesn't work with more than 12% water by weight). The other major advantage is that fermentation typically occurs under more gentle and manageable conditions, i.e. near room temperature, near atmospheric pressure and aqueous rather than solvent/metal-catalyst based. However, the down side of their process is that it's not self-contained and not truly carbon-negative unless you use plant biomass as a feedstock, though if you grew algae in an adjacent tank you could probably use that as your feedstock and harvest CO2 from the air. Actually that would be an ideal solution because you could genetically tune your algae to have a specific composition and tune your fermenter bacteria/yeast to efficiently break down your algae. Hopefully that will be in the next phase of this project. Though we'll probably have to make do with catalyst- and pressure-converted biomass until these guys can perfect their process.

Re:Great

[BarneyL (578636)]

Indeed, wouldn't it be terrible if everyone stopped sending their wood chips and grass cuttings to the starving in the third world and started turning them into oil instead.

Re:Great

[oodaloop (1229816)]

Insightful, huh? TFA, and even TFS, clearly say they won't be using crops, but agricultural waste.

Re:Everlasting Lightbulb?

[oodaloop (1229816)]

Not likely. Oil companies need crude. International oil companies only hold about 8% of worls reserves; they are captial rich and resource poor, being limited mostly by poor host country infrastructure, quotas, and production capacities. If this new crude is available at $50/barrel, why wouldn't they buy it? They've been diversifying for years, getting into solar, natural gas, wind, and other industries.

Re:So genetically modified has stopped being evil

[niceone (992278)]

Well, this is a bit different. As the article says these organisms live in sealed vats, they are not out in the environment like GM crops. There is a chance of them escaping, but that's still different from deliberately releasing billions of GMOs into the wild.