Comments on: Holy Shit! This Critter May Just Save The World. And the ICE

By: Redbarchetta

Redbarchetta — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:28:54 +0000

Ronnie Schreiber Life has a way of getting past the obsticals we place in front of it. Bacteria have been evolving for billions of years before us and will continue to millenia after we are dust. They are easily the most resiliant adaptable organism on the planet(and probably in the universe) and the origin of all life on the planet. Opening pandoras box to get a quick fix of energy would by typical for the human ego, wouldn’t it suck if the planet went back to it’s original first life form because we thought we were so smart. telrbm1 may end up not being that off.

Maybe my crohns will be good for something after all since it kills those bacteria in my gut thinkiing they are hostile.

By: AJ

AJ — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:22:50 +0000

crackers :
December 21st, 2008 at 8:36 am

Europeans will never use it. They will call it “genetically modified fuel” and refuse to allow it into the EU.

LOL!

By: Brett Woods

Brett Woods — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 09:10:52 +0000

So if this bug gets out my septic tank will be full of gasoline?

By: RogerB34

RogerB34 — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 01:42:51 +0000

Why bother with the eating plants part. Toilet directly into the gas tank. Stand overnight and presto – high test.

By: reclusive_in_nature

reclusive_in_nature — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:52:16 +0000

How will we have a future of neutered, gutless cars and trucks if this becomes a viable solution??!! Oh wait, we still have CAFE…..

By: Michael Ayoub

Michael Ayoub — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:33:33 +0000

Quick! Get the anti-bacterials!

By: IronEagle

IronEagle — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:17:17 +0000

Cute little fella isn’t he? I wish my cats pooped bio diesel for the CRD Liberty.

By: Ronnie Schreiber

Ronnie Schreiber — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:15:24 +0000

telrbm1,

Typically that kind of dystopian horror story is prevented by engineering the microorganisms to need trace nutrients not widely found in nature. Simply put, they won’t be able to survive in the wild.

The obstacles to scaling up these processes are significant enough that worrying about superbacteria escaping into nature and causing global disaster is more science fiction than anything else.

By: grifonik

grifonik — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:11:22 +0000

Perhaps the Matrix IS real!?

By: telrbm1

telrbm1 — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:31:56 +0000

This was a fun read. I laughed so hard. Thank you. I like your writing style.

I can envision, in man’s efforts to find a quick fix to the world’s energy problems, engineering a bug that produces gasoline so efficiently that they consume all of the biomass on Earth. A world devoid of all complex life forms, with gasoline oceans!

By: Ronnie Schreiber

Ronnie Schreiber — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:36:54 +0000

Robert Frankfurter,

How do you feel about Norman Borlaug?

By: Ronnie Schreiber

Ronnie Schreiber — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:31:43 +0000

A group of researchers from the University of Montana State has discovered that a type of fungi, called Gliocadium roseum, that can make gaseus biodiesel from vegetal waste.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/11/05/tree-fungus-makes-gaseous-biodiesel-to-kill-its-enemies/

By: Ronnie Schreiber

Ronnie Schreiber — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:28:15 +0000

For centuries, bacteria were used the same way to make ethanol, hooch, or Taittinger champagne.

Bzzzzz! Wrong Answer!

While some bacteria do in fact produce ethanol, whiskey and wine are made with yeast, not bacteria.

By: Detroit-Iron

Detroit-Iron — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:11:00 +0000

What is the little guy’s “carbon footprint”?

By: RedStapler

RedStapler — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 15:26:30 +0000

Still interesting.

I think the odd science article is ok, as long as we don’t turn into Green Car Congress and worship every press release from R&D land.

By: Richard Chen

Richard Chen — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 15:00:03 +0000

The bacteria inside the gut of termites are very good at making cellulosic methane, but it remains to be seen whether or not this can be commercially exploited. Also, a recently discovered fungus from Patagonia craps out stuff that’s been dubbed mycodiesel.

Homebrew?

By: Robert Frankfurter

Robert Frankfurter — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 14:38:25 +0000

“Supersize me” leaves its traces and scars on societies – no doubt

By: minion444

minion444 — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 14:33:07 +0000

Taco Bell equals Sunoco Super Premium!

By: Durishin

Durishin — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 14:27:42 +0000

@mr. Frankfurter,

I believe that crackers was being facetious.

Personally, I can’t wait until they unionize.

By: chuckgoolsbee

chuckgoolsbee — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 14:26:40 +0000

“This is significant in the production of gasoline and even jet fuel.”

Last I checked Jet Fuel was closer to Diesel than it is to gasoline, so making it from a “bio” source is relatively simple already.

–chuck

By: Robbie

Robbie — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 14:14:23 +0000

It may not be wise for TTAC to start listing this type of “news”. These type of miracle cures to our oil problem are announced on a daily basis on the internet…

By: Robert Frankfurter

Robert Frankfurter — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 13:48:29 +0000

crackers :
December 21st, 2008 at 8:36 am

Sorry to say that this is not so.
Under heavy US and GAT pressure the EU had given in to allow most of the genetical altered food, additives and especially animal feed into the EU. Only a few countries hold that barrier – but as they are harassed by legal means, chances are that this tiny last clean bastions will be also broken soon. “McJunk everywhere”

If that is wise – we certainly find out.

The USA will not win a lot but Europe with, in some areas, a highly diverted, refined & specialized bio-environment may lose a lot.

By: crackers

crackers — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 13:36:26 +0000

Europeans will never use it. They will call it “genetically modified fuel” and refuse to allow it into the EU.

By: Robert Frankfurter

Robert Frankfurter — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 12:03:56 +0000

Nothing new.
Theoretically this very method (to copy in a laboratory how bacteria produced oil from rotten cellulosis aeons ago) method is known & proven since many, many years.
The problem that fuel cannot be produced that way in commercial feasible quantities and in reasonable time (if you dont have a few million years to wait for the product) lingers on.

By: Robert Frankfurter

Robert Frankfurter — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 11:37:08 +0000

On the Universität für Bodenkultur Wien
University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna studies are going on for years to get to a similar solution with specialized (gene-technically altered) fungi growing a bacteria that is eating cellulosis and emits petroleum similar products.
Works in minimum quantities if you throw a machine the rough size of Cuperino behind.