A group of scientists from both the public and private arenas has announced that they’ve successfully engineered a microbe that contains all the bits required to turn raw plant matter directly into diesel without any refinement or intermediary steps required.
The microbe is a modified strain of E. coli (that’s right, the same type of bugger that’s responsible for some nasty gut infections) that has been enhanced to produce tailor-made diesel molecules, alcohols and waxes directly from hemicellulose—one of the main components of plants. Not only can the microbial products be used for fuel, but the team is also setting their sights on directly producing environmentally-friendly—and industrially-necessary—surfactants, solvents and lubricants.
The researchers, including collaborators from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), employees from next-gen biofuel company, LS9, and scientists from UC Berkeley, have published their results in the January 28th issue of the prestigious and well-respected scientific journal, Nature—which gives some idea of how important this research is.
Apparently, the successful experimentation shows that the process can be altered to also produce substances that can be directly substituted for gasoline
LS9 has been working on this method for a number of years now—their slogan being “The best replacement for petroleum is petroleum.” The fuels made in this process are different from your standard biofuels in several key ways. They are essentially straight substitutes for the diesel and gasoline that you currently put in your car, which means no modifications necessary and that your brand new high-mileage diesel can run a 100% blend.
“It’s a nice milestone in the field of biofuels, and it has a lot of promise for actually being commercialized,” James Liao, a metabolic engineer and synthetic biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told the journal Nature.
Although LS9 has made some major breakthroughs on their own, it took the collaboration with this new multi-institutional team to jump the last hurdle. In the end, the research team made more than a dozen genetic modifications to the E. coli. The major modifications included short-circuiting the microbe to produce large fatty-acid molecules and giving them the ability to convert these molecules directly into fuels and other chemicals. In order to make the process more efficient and able to use a large variety of plant materials, the researchers also inserted genes that allow the modified E. coli to produce enzymes for breaking down hemicellulose
Source: EurekAlert!
Image Credits: JBEI
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If this is to become “real” and move to production — I sure as heck hope that they have built in a *failsafe* to keep this little bug from spreading in the wild!
That would make a good thing into a very bad thing…
Sincerely, Neil
If this is to become “real” and move to production — I sure as heck hope that they have built in a *failsafe* to keep this little bug from spreading in the wild!
That would make a good thing into a very bad thing…
Sincerely, Neil
I really want to know the answer to this question:
Shouldn’t we be afraid that these microbes get free and turn our world into a puddle of desiel?! Isn’t this a sci-fi movie waiting to happen?
Patrick
I really want to know the answer to this question:
Shouldn’t we be afraid that these microbes get free and turn our world into a puddle of desiel?! Isn’t this a sci-fi movie waiting to happen?
Patrick
This sounds similar to an intersting approach that Sapphire Energy is working on. It has engineered a strain of algae that produces an oil that has the “same chemical composition as gasoline and will be completely compatible with the existing refining, distribution and fleet infrastructure,” to quote its Web site. “Not ethanol, not biodiesel. Renewable gasoline.”
http://www.sapphireenergy.com/
For both,the challenge will be scaling it up to meaningful quantities, given the gazillions of barrels of oil we burn every year.
This sounds similar to an intersting approach that Sapphire Energy is working on. It has engineered a strain of algae that produces an oil that has the “same chemical composition as gasoline and will be completely compatible with the existing refining, distribution and fleet infrastructure,” to quote its Web site. “Not ethanol, not biodiesel. Renewable gasoline.”
http://www.sapphireenergy.com/
For both,the challenge will be scaling it up to meaningful quantities, given the gazillions of barrels of oil we burn every year.
Having these microbes run free in nature is one concern for sure… but why isn’t anybody talking about CO2 emissions and global warming ? ? Although this might be an interesting mid-step, do we really need to keep putting gazillions of CO2 into the atmosphere, be it from renewable biofuels ?? I’m not sure either that this would be a carbon neutral process, at least the article says nothing about that.
Marc P.
Having these microbes run free in nature is one concern for sure… but why isn’t anybody talking about CO2 emissions and global warming ? ? Although this might be an interesting mid-step, do we really need to keep putting gazillions of CO2 into the atmosphere, be it from renewable biofuels ?? I’m not sure either that this would be a carbon neutral process, at least the article says nothing about that.
Marc P.
What if this got loose and started converting all the CO2 and water into diesel? Well, at least diesel has a lower freezing point, because our world would get a heckuva lot colder than it is now. But, we can light our furnaces a lot easier by collecting the diesel rainfall.
What if this got loose and started converting all the CO2 and water into diesel? Well, at least diesel has a lower freezing point, because our world would get a heckuva lot colder than it is now. But, we can light our furnaces a lot easier by collecting the diesel rainfall.
I used to get really excited about biofuel breakthroughs. But if you run the numbers, the earth’s capacity to produce biomass that we can responsibly convert to biofuel is only like 3% of our current energy needs. It’s still useful, but it not the cure it’s made out to be.
“The best replacement for petroleum is petroleum”, makes for a cute slogan. It’s literally true if we assume petroleum is the best we can do, but it’s not feasible.
<a href=”www.wattzon.com/pdfs/GamePlan_v1.0.pdf”[Study]
I used to get really excited about biofuel breakthroughs. But if you run the numbers, the earth’s capacity to produce biomass that we can responsibly convert to biofuel is only like 3% of our current energy needs. It’s still useful, but it not the cure it’s made out to be.
“The best replacement for petroleum is petroleum”, makes for a cute slogan. It’s literally true if we assume petroleum is the best we can do, but it’s not feasible.
<a href=”www.wattzon.com/pdfs/GamePlan_v1.0.pdf”[Study]
The e.coli bacteria can only thrive in the conditions found in your intestines or the intestines of other mammals. While they can survive for a while outside of a digestive system, they eventually die unless they are kept at body temperature and pH similar to what they require.
I suppose that if you swallowed some of these e.coli, you might get sick from the diesel that they released in your intestines so you should probably not eat this stuff. Other good advice, don’t drive drunk and don’t stick sharp objects in your eye.
The e.coli bacteria can only thrive in the conditions found in your intestines or the intestines of other mammals. While they can survive for a while outside of a digestive system, they eventually die unless they are kept at body temperature and pH similar to what they require.
I suppose that if you swallowed some of these e.coli, you might get sick from the diesel that they released in your intestines so you should probably not eat this stuff. Other good advice, don’t drive drunk and don’t stick sharp objects in your eye.
Strange it always seem to take a few years before we can see results?
Strange it always seem to take a few years before we can see results?
This is surely a milestone, I wish the researchers success. We will be listening to hear more from this research.
This is surely a milestone, I wish the researchers success. We will be listening to hear more from this research.