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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re:Why talk

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

Public perception

<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

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

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

You will only shit pure gold ...

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

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

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?

that's the ideal

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

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

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.

Looks interesting, but...

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...

. 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...

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...

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.

If?

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]-

Could be $50/bbl...

...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.

Re:Great

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

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

Re:Everlasting Lightbulb?

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.