Synthetic Biology For Natural Fuel 245
CoolBeans writes "Making ethanol is easy. Making enough ethanol to fill every gas tank in a developed country is tricky. The Department of Energy has promised $125 million to the Joint BioEnergy Institute, a team of six national labs and universities that will be run like a startup company. They intend to create new life forms that are optimized for alcohol production. The genes of crops that produce large amounts of cellulose will be tweaked to improve the yield per acre and to increase drought and pest resistance. Microbes that produce sugar from cellulose and ethanol from sugar will be built for speed and efficiency." The article mentions as an aside that earlier this year, "the energy giant BP gave $500 million to Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley lab, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for similar alternative energy research. That gift will fund the Energy Biosciences Institute, which will operate separately from the JBEI." So UC Berkeley and LBL are both participating in two separate energy-biotech research programs.
Why Ethanol? (Score:5, Interesting)
Plus there's some incentive to clean up eutrophicated bodies of water this way because, hey, that's profit floating on the top!
Answers (Score:5, Insightful)
1) we have the infrastructure to use it immediately.
2) It's not corrosive or particularly toxic.
3) unlike algae it's grown by agricultiure so Archer Daniels Midland can get their cut of the pie.
the latter is probably the most defining reason.
But I think ethanol may be the wrong ticket. Obviously corn ethanol is a bad idea. But even cellulosic ethanol may be a bad idea.
two reasons:
1) Now matter how you produce it, evenif a miracle in effciency happened, at the end of the process any ethanol produced is going to be dissolved in water. Drying it out is going to eat the efficiency.
2) Cellulose and Ligno-cellulose is desinged by trees to be indigestible and energetically inaccessible. If it were easy to digest the bacteria and termites would have eaten the whole forest a long time ago. Trees would not be huge cellulose containers. That should be a clue.
Now it is true that man made enzymes can in some instances beat natural ones by an order of magnitude of more. But this is one place where nature has had a lot of different creatures all working on the same problem independently for quite some time.
One the other hand it's almost commerically viable now. So we only need maybe a factor of ten improvement to open up wide spread production. However then other scaling issues will raise their heads. Farmland will be used. in many case it will be existing farm waste, but in others, say poplar trees, it will be for non-edible products. And if we try to open up new farmlands to compensate then were back to having a water budget problem.
Algae making diesel would seem to bypass a lot of these problem. It can be grown off croplands, in many cases using sea water or brackish water. And it's easy to separate the oils from the water. the product has a higher energy value than Ethanol per volume and per weight. And it does not produce as much toxic waste in the production process (ethanol uses acid treatment and produces loads of crap to dispose of).
Re:Answers (Score:4, Informative)
We've got the infrastructure to distribute diesel fuel directly - and existing diesel engines can run on high quality commercial biodiesel with no modification at all; you can treat such biodiesel exactly like traditional diesel fuel.
I guess diesel fuel is a bit more toxic than ethanol, but it's nothing we haven't been dealing with for a very long time.
This is the main reason, and it's a big mistake to let them turn subsidized food into fuel inefficiently. The algae to biodiesel process takes *no* food land and produces much higher energy density fuel through a much more efficient process.
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That said, they DO produce some nasty emissions. Even though it'd be carbon-neutral, diesel exhaust is rather unpleasant.
I imagine that we'll end up settling on biodiesel being used in some markets, and ethanol in others. Of course, if the costs of production are the same (or comparable), biodiesel will win out, simply because of its gre
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In the long-term, who knows? If ultracaps can get us 240 miles and then only require 6 minutes to recharge for another 240 miles, I think that would do it. Hell, 40 miles on a 6 minute charge would meet the needs of many commuters and soccer moms.
Most days I commute less than 15 miles round-trip, so if I could get 40 miles on an 8-hour charge, a plug-in hybrid would be fine for me. If it was cheap enough, I'd buy one now.
Re:Answers (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the Prius' that are being modified as plug-in hybrids will last for 50-60 miles on one charge and then switch over to hybrid "mode" after that. So you can stay off petrol for your everyday commute, and switch to a still fuel efficient "hybrid mode" when you want to go skiing or hiking for the weekend.
There was some stat listed on Google's site that said if every car in the world was switched to a plug-in hybrid, the current grid could power 82% of those cars. I'm not sure of the accuracy of that statement, but at the very least we know that the cars won't switch to plug-in hybrid over night. I think the infrastructure of the utility companies could grow to support that need over time. No matter what "solution" we choose it will take time to be adopted by the general public. If the utilities start ramping up now (being more efficient etc..), we might be able to support a world of plug-ins just fine.
Last point. I'm not sure about your "energy efficiency won't work in SUV's" statement. I actually just got done test driving a Ford Escape (SUV) Hybrid edition this weekend. I had no problems with it's power output at all. I even took it up a 4-5% grade and it handled the climb with ease. (Averaged 40MPG for the trip too... not shabby for an SUV)
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Point three, I suspect you are absolutely dead on. The whole Ethanol as Fuel culture revolves around agribusiness getting their slice of the pie, whether or not Ethanol is worth crap as a fuel or not.
Wh
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Cars running directly on cellulose? (Score:2)
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If I can't get an all-electric vehicle when my Civic craps out, I'll be looking for a diesel-electric hybrid.
Nothing but diesels? (Score:2)
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you didn't even read the damn headline did you, you twat. they are developing new non food varities of plants to produce, corn wasn't even mentioned you idiot.
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Seriously, why? Why bother with all this expensive "synthetic biology" or (worse) growing and using perfectly good corn to make something that's less effective than gasoline when you can just grow an imperial fuckton of algae, render them down for biofuel, and use that? Carbon neutral, and you get something more akin to good ol' diesel fuel than ethanol.
We are doing that. Why not do this too? Why carry all your eggs in one basket? Besides, you make it sound like biofuel from algae is easy. I know people who work in this field and the fact is that algae don't contain enough convertable lipids to make harvesting biofuel from them viable at large scales. There are people working to engineer strains of algae with a higher lipid content, but it will probably take at least as much engineering as what this project proposes.
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Saying we should "just grow [...] algae" for fuel is a lot like saying to hell with building new roads, we should just build flying cars...
There have been numerous and extensive attempts to make use of algae... It has never worked out. There's tremendous potential there if we can figure out how to make it work, but so far, nobody has.
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There was a report a few months ago harping on about bubbling the factory exhaust from smokestacks through algae water, which seemed to have an explosive growth effect on the algae. I recall none of the actual facts, other than a) it cleaned the bad stuff out of the smokestack exhaust before pumping it into the air (a good thing), and b) the algae just loved it and grew like wildfire (which is also good.)
The substantiation o
Re:Why Ethanol? (Score:4, Funny)
Algae and carbon neutrality (Score:2)
More information (Score:4, Informative)
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also a great way to bypass laws on selling alcohol to minors. IE pump it all into their gas tanks, just cause they got a keg tap in the tank.
Any money for biodiesel? (Score:5, Interesting)
While I don't have the background to really comment or hold an opinion one way or another, I just think it's a mistake to look too hard for "one solution" that we need to put all our money and hopes in. We need to be looking all over the place, and we need to realize that the final solution might not involve all the cars in the country running on the same fuel. There might be certain fuels that are preferable in certain regions or for certain types of vehicles, and although it might fundamentally alter the transportation network and your ability to drive one vehicle anywhere, that might not be a terrible outcome.
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On what planet is an incompatible fuel with a slightly higher yeild "a much more realistic alternative"? You believe we should force everyone across the country to throw away their old cars and trucks, buy new ones with diesel engines, so that we can provide just slightly more fuel?
Neither option is a long term solution... it's just an effort
Any money for electricity? (Score:2)
Fully electric cars are very realistic. For a brief period, they were done commercially. But it's politically improbable to restart that program. Oil companies don't want too many new competitors--or classic publicly-funded competitors--selling fuel, and car companies don't want too many new companies selling cars...
Hydrogen still requires refining and pumps, so it doesn't bother the oil cos. so much. And it still has to be burned, so it doesn't bot
Forcing a wholly incompatible fuel on everyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is not as if ethanol is magically "compatible" with the majority of cars already on the road. My car won't take E10 let alone something with a significant ethanol component.
There are no magic fixes. All solutions will take time to have an impact and no
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We would if we had the capacity to produce a significant amount of crops/biodiesel to the point that it would be economical to export it. But we are decades away from being able to produce enough to meet our own needs. If we had a scientific break through that allowed us to economically produce huge quantities of biodiesel without starving our population, we'd be more than happy to compete with OPEC.
I have ethanol in m
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I just think it's a mistake to look too hard for "one solution" that we need to put all our money and hopes in.
Unless that solution is solar power. You don't have to look too hard to see that all the other (as long as we're confined to Earth) methods are basically indirect use of solar energy.
Why biodiesel is a harder sell... (Score:2)
It's not so much ADM alone that's the problem. They probably don't care whether you make ethanol or corn oil out of their corn. I'm sure they'll
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Re:Any money for biodiesel? (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, the new BMW 123d hatchback/coupé just announced now offers a 200 ps (197 bhp) dual-turbo turbodiesel engine that gives the car true high performance, yet can get around 40 mpg in normal limited-access motorway driving in the 100-120 km/h (62-75 mph) range. With today's new emission controls, that same engine could probably meet even the stringent EPA Tier 2 Bin 5 emission standard for automobile engines; the new Euro 5 emission rules will be similar to this EPA standard.
Sometimes I wonder.... (Score:3, Insightful)
With Ethonal BP can make money with its current infrastructure, keep positive press about their company, and develop alternatives that will never truly be able to replace fossil fuels.
Re:Sometimes I wonder.... (Score:4, Interesting)
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BP is taking advantage of the political benefits of ethanol as transportation fuel. Politicians are winning over votes of corn growers by inflating the price of their crop and making them feel useful in solving a national problem. BP is positioning itself with this important constituancy with a huge advertizement campaign. I want to rip out my hair every time I see that ignorant farm kid talking about powering crap and growing it back in a year.
Learn a little bit about how agriculture works an
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Well, ultimately it's a form of hedging their bets. They get a huge tax writeoff for all the research, which is useful when oil companies are making profits that would make 19th century robber-barons feel guilty, and at the same time grabbing up as many patents and experts as they can in alternative fuels so that -- heaven forbid -- one should be developed that truly replaces their core market, th
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you can't just turn the sun on when you need it is the first problem, 2nd is the fact the batteries requried are highly toxic and the 3rd is the cost only just breaks even over the life of the solar cells - hardly a cost effective solution.
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*** depending on the technology used, toxic materials might be involved in the manufacture of ultracaps, but since they effectively never wear out, it's a one-time cost and it completely contained in the manufacturi
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As to bio-diesel.....has anyone ever tried to start a engine when the gas tank is filled with congealed pig fat on a brisk winter morning in Alaska?
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Yeah, but if it costs half as much per end unit of energy as solar cells, it's still more cost effective. Solar cells DO wear out after time. Bacteria is self reproducing.
With Ethonal BP can make money with its current infrastructure, keep positive press about their company, and develop alternatives that will never truly be able to replace fossil fuels.
Solar panels, while a good
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theres more too (Score:2, Informative)
Why a grant?? (Score:2)
*I don't see why it should be. The energy market is so large, there seems like more than enough incentive for innovation.
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Grants are already quite competitive but let's try some numbers.
Let's say that it take $1 million to achieve a particular milestone and that there are 10 organizations that each have a roughly equal chance of achieving the milestone first. In order to provide adequate incentive, the payout for the prize will have to be $10 million (plus a risk premium - but we
Not quite (Score:2)
1) The reward in your scenario is not merely the $1 million. It is $1 million + the value of the media coverage + the value of the IP.
2) In the grant scenario, you're assuming omniscience on the part of the grantor. $1 million spent will only yield $1 million in research if:
- The grantor spends $0 determining the best organization
- The grantor is 100% successful
3) You're a
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That is, after all, today's topic.
If the reward is high enough, you could compel someone to develop the most useless of devices. You are correct, though, that you can greatly reduce your out-of-t
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Well, in practice it can be quite difficult to reward innovation in a meaningful way. The current practice is for the government to impose artificial monopolies (patents, copyrights, etc.) but it's difficult to determine in a natural way how severe the monopoly should be.
Should the monopoly last 10 years or 100 years? S
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The founder of the competition may set any terms it is legally authorized to set. These terms will contain, among other things, what, if any, rights the winner has to the IP. If the total reward package is sufficient, someone will pursue it hard enough to accomplish it. If not, the founder will end up reconsidering its offer.
Thus, even if you wish to reserve the IP for the public domain, you can still take advantage of competitive forces by sweete
So, umm... (Score:2)
(seriously - I love the idea, but you and I both know it's gonna happen...)
As a (partial) tangent, what safety measures are they looking to put in place to prevent some sort of biological 'oopsie' that may have unintended (read: "Bad") consequences?
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I imagine they'll use the same safeguards with the sawgrass for ethanol that they do with Monsanto's new varieties of corn. [sardonic grin]
(Anyone dare imagine what would happen if Monsanto's "terminator" gene spread to more natural varieties of corn? I mean other than patent violations...)
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Creating life (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hemp is already best suited for this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hemp is already best suited for this (Score:5, Funny)
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You can't even get pseudoephedrine in legit cold medicines in my home state without signing papers, simply because of homemade meth. How are you going to convince governments like this to legalize growing hemp for fuel, or any other practical use, when it can always be used for the recreational use?
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Reference other than cypress hill ?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Brazil, anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Making ethanol is easy. Making enough ethanol to fill every gas tank in a developed country is tricky.
So...Brazil [wikipedia.org] isn't a developed country? 40% of the gas used by *cars* comes from Ethanol [wikipedia.org] (they actually import oil because of diesel and petrochemical needs.) They do it with cane sugar.
The reason we don't have cheap ethanol, and why corn prices are skyrocketing, is because corn is almost *the* worst way to make ethanol. Corn, however, is what the midwest does, and only what the midwest does. The earliest primaries are in...guess where...the midwest (well, not so much any more, thank god.) The government forks over billions to farmers and farm corporations because it buys votes. Corn is what livestock are fed, not grass. High fructose corn syrup, which is quite bad for you (compared to regular sugar) is in damn near everything because it's cheaper than sugar (which, incidentally, is price fixed. Sugar is *dirt* cheap on the world market, but to protect a fairly small contingent of sugar farmers in the US, the feds price-control it.)
By the way, Bush's favorite line is "reducing our foreign dependency on oil." Guess what? We already get our oil from a rather diverse group [doe.gov], and half of our oil comes from domestic sources.
Last fun fact. Think your Prius is helping with that pesky foreign oil "problem", or (laughs) that you're "fighting terrorism"? Think again. Transportation only accounts for less than one percent of US oil consumption. [doe.gov]
Natural Gas != Oil (Score:2, Informative)
That link that you gave is not for oil, but rather natural gas.
While it is true that many people do not realize that transportation is only one part of the pie with gas consumption, it is far more than 1%. According to this link [wri.org], in 1998 it was 24%. While it is true that items such as power generation use more oil than transportation, a Prius or two still does help.
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Next you'll be pointing out problems with the global warming lobby and then where will we be.
No, I like my
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A country full of Priuses for people going to and from work would make a difference. I still think rechargeable electrics will eventually win.
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Er, no, it isn't.
See the full list of developed/advanced countries. Do you see Brazil? [wikipedia.org]
To double check, we can look in terms of per capita PPP GDP [cia.gov]. Brazil is $8,800, while Australia is $33,300, France is $31,100, Germany is $31,900, Italy is $30,200, and Japan is $33,100.
To cross-check the GDP numbers, let's consider transportation and communications development, data from the 2007 World Almanac and Book of Facts. There are 80 personal vehicles per 1000 people in Braz
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Max efficiency (Score:2)
It's only in the last 5~10 years that any serious research was done towards creating bacteria that is useful/economical on an industrial scale. I think there is one or two companies that have viable commercial products already on the market.
I imagine the future of those lines of research will d
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It's only in the last 5~10 years that any serious research was done towards creating bacteria that is useful/economical on an industrial scale.
Ever heard of beer?—or cheese?
Clarification? (Score:2)
Incidentally, I don't believe beer and bacteria mix well. Beer needs yeast.
Call me crazy, but... (Score:2)
Genetic engineering (Score:5, Funny)
My brother in law is optimized for alcohol consumption. Perhaps they could just reverse his genetic code.
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not a good long term option. (Score:2)
I thought the whole point of environmentally friendly fuel was to reduce carbon emissions. Ok so ethanol burns cleaner its still carbon based. Correct me if i'm wrong here. Why aren't we trying to invest in feasabel ways to produce hydrogen or some other truly clean burning fuel ?
Re:not a good long term option. (Score:4, Informative)
Just like nearly every other system on the face of the Earth, it's just another way of using solar power.
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Ethanol works without having to change out the entire system. In the end, it's probably going to be a combination of things that replaces gasoline.
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Excellent... (Score:3, Funny)
That's perfect, seeing as how I'm optimized for alcohol consumption
Damn! (Score:3, Funny)
Damn! And here I am built for consuming ethanol with speed and efficiency! And not even a microbe, either.
There's a Taco Bell joke in there somewhere... (Score:2, Funny)
Hype 2.0 (Score:2)
Oh no! That might put some slaves out of a "job" (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oh no! That might put some slaves out of a "job (Score:2)
Personal transportation is progressive (Score:2)
So, funding research into affordable alternatives to gas
Why not sugarcane? (Score:2)
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Sugarcane cultivation requires a tropical or subtropical climate, with a minimum of 600 mm (24 in) of annual moisture.
Last I checked, not much of the U.S. had a tropical or sub tropical climate. This is funding research for plants that can actually be grown in the U.S.
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Wow, imagine the possibilities (Score:2)
Let me say this, once and for all . . . (Score:2)
We can make petroleum already... (Score:2)
We can already make petroleum in the lab, in fact these guys are already doing it:
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/apr/anything-oil [discovermagazine.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anything_into_oil [wikipedia.org]
This book details how the peak oil theory is false, and that oil is abiogenic:
Black Gold Stranglehold: Myth of Scarcity and Politics of Oil by Corsi and Smith
(available at Amazon)
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really? so why does alochol have a much high octane rating and is the fuel of choice for high performance cars?
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Higher octane gasoline has a slightly lower energy content. It is needed in high performance cars as it burns in a more controled maner.
Pure alcohol fuels do not have any octane by definition. They are rated with an octane rating that is related to the ability to burn in an internal combustion engine without having preignition problems(knocking/pinging).
Current gasoline does not have the amount of octane the "label" would seem to indicate.
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