New Bacteria Replaces Need For Gasoline

[flatten_the_skyline]

Problems I can see are as follow:

-Recycling trash means that at some point toxic substances from the trash will be enriched. Either in the refinery or in the fumes.
-As long as you don't use trash but plant produce you take a lot of organic matter from the soil without giving it back. It can also make the food crisis worse as soon as it pays more to sell the produce to car drivers than to eaters.

As to hydrogen: Modern battery cells are more efficient than the hydrogen car.

The "abiotic oil thing"

I'm a geologist, and that theory is so stupid they didn't even mention it in lectures - and we even talked about those who still question plate tectonics. Well, we never talked about intelligent Design either, but that isn't such an issue in Germany.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Let's count to days it takes the oil industry to bury this.

 

[Julian_West]

Having worked as a Researcher at the Biorefining Conversions and Fermentations Laboratory at the University of Alberta I would like to point out several flaws with the technology that have not been covered in either this thread nor the sensationalized article:

1) Clostridium is a notoriously bitchy microbe to perform fermentations with. One of the postdocs at the lab had been trying to increase butanol tolerance for many strains of this bacteria and all that he got for his efforts were a lot of reasons to complain;

2) As alluded to above, this process would have to be a fermentation: a process with rigorously controlled temperature, atmosphere, and media. The idea that any old waste can just be dumped into a pot with the microbe is overly simplistic, to get any amount of efficiency there is a significant investment in both equipment and labor; and

3) Pure "Cellulosic biomass" is hard to come by; most of what people call "cellulose" is in fact lignocellulose, a complex matrix of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, the structural polymers used in most plants. Many organisms can degrade and, indeed, thrive off of pure cellulose HOWEVER often half or less of the dry weight of lignocellulosic biomass is actually cellulose. This fact is at the crux of much of the biofuel research that is currently being performed: how can we also utilize hemicellulose and lignin for producing our fuels?

At any rate, if anyone has any questions about the industry I would be happy to give you my best answer!

 

[Liudeius]

Pretty old, I remember this being posted a few months ago.

And NO, the energy "crisis" is not solved, more gas just means more CO2.

Edit: Wow, surprisingly this time there are actually educated posters among the commenters.
Last time this was posted everyone was saving "We are saved" and "no more global warming."

 

[FalloutJack]

Heh heh heh.

NOW who's got who by the balls Middle East?

I think that one's been obvious ever since the U.S. attacked Iraq for no goddamn reason.

But I digress. There's only one proper reaction to this...

[HEADING=1]GREAT SCOTT!![/HEADING]

 

[lRookiel]

There is one main problem with this replacement, and that my fellow escapist readers/writers is Greed.

The only thing that can and will probably stop this incredible thing from happening is the Companies that deal in Oil, gas, electricity etc. harsh, corporate types who will try to bribe, corrupt or even make the people developing the oil replacement disappear so they can stop the process and keep on making money. Bastards......

Tbh i wish and i really do wish that this works and goes into mass production, but it will probably just vanish like the last load of viable attempts to replace oil have done in the past.

Only thing we can do is wait, wait for the planet to run dry and when the oil supply is on its last legs, or when the stuff becomes to expensive to even harvest let alone sell, then and only then, can we move on to things like this, solar power etc.

But in the meantime, lets focus on keeping our planet alive long enough to see that day please? otherwise we all perish.

Death to oil companies already.....

 

[deserteagleeye]

Just a little bit of my hope will go into into this. Not all of it. I've learned not to be so naive because of the big oil companies being assholes with new bio-fuels.

 

[A-D.]

The "abiotic oil thing"

I'm a geologist, and that theory is so stupid they didn't even mention it in lectures - and we even talked about those who still question plate tectonics. Well, we never talked about intelligent Design either, but that isn't such an issue in Germany.

Just quoting you on that for a second there. It is actually true. Oil is renewable. Well that is once we as a species have died off and been laying in the ground for a couple million years, then yeah, new Oil.

In short Oil is the recycled Mass of Dinosaurs and other Lifeforms that existed millions of years ago and we use them to make our silly metalcages move!

But other than that, i dont think this Option is very valid anyway. Bio Fuel has to have some drawback attached, hell with that one i can see a couple, for one, the smell. Ever smelled your own Fart? Or a burned/singed Hair? Now imagine burning your Feces. Now imagine that same thing a thousand times at the same instant. The other Problem is obviously that when you create some kind of bacteria like that, once it gets out (it will eventually) then we're screwed.

Same Reason i dont believe in "Wondercures", no matter how valid and legit they seem. There's always the chance, no matter how small it might be, of something going cataclysmicly wrong and fuck everyone over. That being said, Electric Cars, and by relation those powered by Solar Cells are the way to go, no toxic gases or similar and no fuel that needs to be produced. And the chance of the Sun "drying" up is well..remote, so remote that it would happen in maybe a few billion years.

 

[ImprovizoR]

Until every single drop of oil is gone there will be no replacement. There's too much money involved and those oil pricks don't give a shit about anything other than oil. There are already a lot of better and safer oil replacements. You can make fuel from marijuana. Henry Ford did it. And he said that it's so easy anyone can do it. It's probably why they banned that plant in the first place.

Humanity is stupid, and that's why I despise it. We still fight wars over oil, KNOWING that oil won't last forever. Smart people would embrace all of these oil replacements and push humanity into a new era of unlimited energy.

Then there is just one problem.. Many scientists have went out and said that oil is NOT finite, its abiotic and more or less a product of our earth..

So the Earth keeps producing oil, we are being told that the Earth never produced any oil on its own and thus the prices continue to rise.
False scarcity, just like with diamonds..

Yes, Earth produces oil. But do you have any idea how long it takes Earth to create that much oil? It takes hundreds of thousands of years. We have so many energy replacements that are better than oil in every way.

 

[iniudan]

Could always find its start in replacing ethanol. Ethanol is just a waste of good corn that could be used as food. Instead, keep the corn and toss the leftover stalks to the bacteria for some good ol' butanol.

Actually there is plenty of more efficient way to create ethanol then corn, one of them is a type of grass like plant that I forgot the name.

 

[Foxbat Flyer]

This will end up like the rumour of the engine that runs on water... Apparently there is an engine that is fully functional that runs on water, but it was sold to the highest bidder (Who happened to be an oil/fuel company), and has since been put on a shelf for when we run out of oil... but its just a rumour, so im not sure how much truth in that one...

 

[Julian_West]

The other Problem is obviously that when you create some kind of bacteria like that, once it gets out (it will eventually) then we're screwed.

Perhaps a big misconception about many of these biofuel producing organisms is that that they are actually viable in an unregulated environment (ie outside of the lab). There are several reasons why this is not the case, perhaps most important being that biofuels are a waste product. The organisms that are used to produce these fuels are engineered to spend most of their energy not on reproduction/cell maintenance but, rather, on a compound that is actually TOXIC for the cell (it is bad for it!). When faced with the wild-type organisms they have no chance and are easily outcompeted.

This fact segues well into one of the major disadvantages of many of these techniques: in order to keep the genes that allow for biofuel production all fermentations must be performed in a batch style. This means that every time you want to produce the fuel you have to start with fresh organism and feedstock. Why? because if any point mutations occur that delete your fuel production genes (ie make your organism useless) will also make an organism that is much better at living (ie reproducing). In short, the amount of effort required to continually do this restricts these fuels significantly.

 

[willsham45]

sounds great...although I dought it will ever be allowed to be used, big oil has too much wealth and power to allow something as trivial as a microbe to take away their monopoly.

 

[Julian_West]

This will end up like the rumour of the engine that runs on water... Apparently there is an engine that is fully functional that runs on water, but it was sold to the highest bidder (Who happened to be an oil/fuel company), and has since been put on a shelf for when we run out of oil... but its just a rumour, so im not sure how much truth in that one...

I will assume that you are being serious here, as it allows me to talk about scientific literacy; If you're joking or not please don't take this as a personal insult.

Disclaimer aside, who here has heard of the laws of thermodynamics? If it's been a while or you just plain did not learn them I will give you the condensed version:

If it sounds too good to be true it is

There. Perpetual motion machine? Water-fueled Car? Miracle biofuel? Not according to thermodynamics. You cannot break even in energy. Ever. You always must settle for a loss (often a very large one, see Carnot Cycle). As long as you remember this you will be surprisingly scientifically literate.

Addressing your topic of a water-fueled car, Hess' law states that chemical energy is released by going from a high-energy molecule to a low energy one, the net change in energy can then be harnessed to do work (eg move cars). Water is a "low energy", stable molecule; the only reason petrol-based engines work is that they make this stable molecule (and CO2, another stable molecule) from less-stable higher-energy hydrocarbons. There is no more-stable lower-energy place for water to go.

Returning to the news article, thermodynamics has a special case that we like to use in life science, the 10% rule:

Every time you go up a level in the food chain you only retain 10% of the previous energy

This rule of thumb suggests that the available energy for our microbes is only 1/10 that of the cellulose that we feed it therefore the MAXIMUM amount of fuel we could possibly get is 10% the energy content of the feedstock. In reality, this figure is much lower.

 

[A-D.]

The other Problem is obviously that when you create some kind of bacteria like that, once it gets out (it will eventually) then we're screwed.

Perhaps a big misconception about many of these biofuel producing organisms is that that they are actually viable in an unregulated environment (ie outside of the lab). There are several reasons why this is not the case, perhaps most important being that biofuels are a waste product. The organisms that are used to produce these fuels are engineered to spend most of their energy not on reproduction/cell maintenance but, rather, on a compound that is actually TOXIC for the cell (it is bad for it!). When faced with the wild-type organisms they have no chance and are easily outcompeted.

This fact segues well into one of the major disadvantages of many of these techniques: in order to keep the genes that allow for biofuel production all fermentations must be performed in a batch style. This means that every time you want to produce the fuel you have to start with fresh organism and feedstock. Why? because if any point mutations occur that delete your fuel production genes (ie make your organism useless) will also make an organism that is much better at living (ie reproducing). In short, the amount of effort required to continually do this restricts these fuels significantly.

Which is essentially the Problem. At best it just goes a bit weird for a bit and then it all calms down again. At worst it adapts and evolves. Anything created either by Humans or by nature itself is bound by that probability. There is no evolutionary dead end in the exact sense of the Word. Sure there are Species which have died out, mainly because that their Competition was more or less just better at survival, which is what nature is about really, survival of the fittest. Today, our biggest Threat isnt other Animals, or even we ourselves to each other (granted thats bad too) but Bacteria, Viruses and other microscopic "lifeforms". So us creating something so complex, well its a bit like playing God. And when we try, we generally fuck things up at some Point.

I had a talk with a Friend of mine a while ago about a de-facto Wondercure, basicly a pill that could be engineered to work against every strain of bacteria or virus known and eliminate it. At best it wont see the light of day due to pharma concerns keeping it under their grubby mitts. At worst it has the chance to totally fuck up the entire Human Race. Mass Sterility, Loss of Individualism, "ethnic Solutions" as well are very big factors. You'd have to account for every little Issue, every single possibility no matter how remote so it doesnt outright do more damage that its worth. Physically every Human is about the same, same organs etc, genetically though we have basicly 6 Billion Variations at this point, no matter how small those variations might be.

Im not a Master of Genetics or Biology though so thats to be taken with a grain of salt there, but suffice to say, there is always a chance of something going wrong. And when things go wrong, they can also get really really bad for everyone. Hence the best Solution to fixing the dependancy on Oil is to move to a source of fuel that is de-facto infinite and poses little to no risk at all, even if its not as efficient as fossil fuels might be. Maybe you cant drive at 200 mph anymore when your car is running on solar cells but at least you dont have to pay for fuel all the damn time.

 

[fulano]

DUDE: "Hey man, your car is a piece of shit!"

DOOD: "And guess what's in the tank..."

 

[Julian_West]

Which is essentially the Problem. At best it just goes a bit weird for a bit and then it all calms down again. At worst it adapts and evolves.

Did you read the message that you quoted? What you have written is possible, granted, but what I had written is that we have artificially altered these organisms to be worse at survival than their unaltered counterparts (and the most likely mutation to occur is to return them to their unaltered state); my quote does not support your argument.

 

[A-D.]

Which is essentially the Problem. At best it just goes a bit weird for a bit and then it all calms down again. At worst it adapts and evolves.

Did you read the message that you quoted? What you have written is possible, granted, but what I had written is that we have artificially altered these organisms to be worse at survival than their unaltered counterparts (and the most likely mutation to occur is to return them to their unaltered state); my quote does not support your argument.

Actually i did, perhaps i did misread a part then as i read a different Hypothesis into it. Though if we go by the other Theory that as you pointed out you intended then well. There is not much harm done by it in itself, that being going by the Option of nothing going "wrong" beforehand. If everything goes according to plan, then yes its still quite inefficient, at least in regards to replacing fossil Fuels. My Theory more expanded on the Possibility that it might get "out of the Lab" as it were, which is what i assumed given you quoted that part from me earlier.

Though if we consider likely Mutations to occur then the safest bet to make is that the most likely Mutation is also leading to the worst down the line. We can see this quite clearly with all these scary "end of the world" Diseases we got over the last 20 Years. Granted not like the end of the world happened but the point stands. Maybe im just a bit of a pessimist but i always consider the worst Options first. And by relation of all the things that could go wrong with this aritificially created fuel source, well i think going for something thats already there, if perhaps not as efficient, and working on that instead might be a better idea.

 

[Foxbat Flyer]

This will end up like the rumour of the engine that runs on water... Apparently there is an engine that is fully functional that runs on water, but it was sold to the highest bidder (Who happened to be an oil/fuel company), and has since been put on a shelf for when we run out of oil... but its just a rumour, so im not sure how much truth in that one...

I will assume that you are being serious here, as it allows me to talk about scientific literacy; If you're joking or not please don't take this as a personal insult.

Disclaimer aside, who here has heard of the laws of thermodynamics? If it's been a while or you just plain did not learn them I will give you the condensed version:

If it sounds too good to be true it is

There. Perpetual motion machine? Water-fueled Car? Miracle biofuel? Not according to thermodynamics. You cannot break even in energy. Ever. You always must settle for a loss (often a very large one, see Carnot Cycle). As long as you remember this you will be surprisingly scientifically literate.

Addressing your topic of a water-fueled car, Hess' law states that chemical energy is released by going from a high-energy molecule to a low energy one, the net change in energy can then be harnessed to do work (eg move cars). Water is a "low energy", stable molecule; the only reason petrol-based engines work is that they make this stable molecule (and CO2, another stable molecule) from less-stable higher-energy hydrocarbons. There is no more-stable lower-energy place for water to go.

Returning to the news article, thermodynamics has a special case that we like to use in life science, the 10% rule:

Every time you go up a level in the food chain you only retain 10% of the previous energy

This rule of thumb suggests that the available energy for our microbes is only 1/10 that of the cellulose that we feed it therefore the MAXIMUM amount of fuel we could possibly get is 10% the energy content of the feedstock. In reality, this figure is much lower.

See, they got you into believing that! Damn Conspiracies!!! /jokes

 

[Xman490]

Ever since I heard of archaebacteria (like those in hot springs), I suspected that bacteria could do anything. That idea is not far from the truth.