As part of a National Science Foundation grant program to examine cutting edge ways to make nature work for us, a team of scientists at Iowa State University have been awarded $2 million to unravel how some plants and algae can make hydrocarbons and discover if the genes that govern that process might be isolated.
“These plants are capturing solar energy and creating something that’s chemically identical to petroleum,” said Jackie Shanks, Iowa State’s Manley R. Hoppe Professor of Chemical Engineering, in a statement.
The fact that some plants can make hydrocarbons that are almost identical to petroleum has been known for a long time, but, according to Shanks, the exact mechanisms behind that transformation are still largely a mystery. With the NSF funding, the scientists hope to isolate, characterize and bioengineer a catalyst that creates the plant-based hydrocarbons—which could lead to a revolution in how fuel is produced.
Other companies and researchers have also been working on producing petroleum from plants and microbes. For the last few years startup company LS9 has been designing proprietary microbes that can ferment a product indistinguishable from petroleum. In addition, last year a tropical fungus was discovered that produces diesel-type hydrocarbons naturally and other research has shown that it may be possible to cross the genes from a tree with those of a grass to make a diesel-producing grass.
We’ll see where this goes, but the idea of making something that is indistinguishable from petroleum yet is grown using the power of the sun is certainly enticing for many reasons. Whatever process results from these efforts, it would still have to satisfy the food versus fuel critics before it could gain wide acceptance.
Source: EurekAlert
Image Credit: Iowa State University
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As the quote from Scientific American says ‘everyone knows how to save the world’ ; a planet wide depression and massive birth control.
Well we already have the first one. How long till we start the second?
As the quote from Scientific American says ‘everyone knows how to save the world’ ; a planet wide depression and massive birth control.
Well we already have the first one. How long till we start the second?
As the quote from Scientific American says ‘everyone knows how to save the world’ ; a planet wide depression and massive birth control.
Well we already have the first one. How long till we start the second?
As the quote from Scientific American says ‘everyone knows how to save the world’ ; a planet wide depression and massive birth control.
Well we already have the first one. How long till we start the second?
Good basic research but the energy density will be very low – I doubt it will be useful in the near future.
Not going to fuel your car from your garden or anything like that.
Good basic research but the energy density will be very low – I doubt it will be useful in the near future.
Not going to fuel your car from your garden or anything like that.
Russ, the phrase “indistinguishable from petroleum” leads me to believe that the energy density would be very similar to that of petroleum.
Russ, the phrase “indistinguishable from petroleum” leads me to believe that the energy density would be very similar to that of petroleum.
I ,m reeding up on how oil is formed and find it strange that no one talkes about the massive amuont of solar energy that floats down the river every fall when all the leaves fall of the trees and slowly make it to the ocean and then is covered by a layer of sediment that washes down in the seasonal flood that follows isn’t oil always being formed and can we capture this energy beforehand and speed up the proses.