Cynobacteria to produce ethanol?

[Queso]

check this out!

 

http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/147

[Govind]

Its good to know. Th best part is CO2 will be the 'fuel' to generate this ethanol...which will in turn be used as a fuel....releasing CO2...all of which will again be consumed by this system! ...Thus keeping the CO2 concentration constant in the atmosphere!

 

Indeed...innovative technologies such as these...are the need of the hour..when it comes to dealing with the global climate change..and global warming.

[InfiniteNow]

Interesting idea, but what if we need to stop the bacteria? What then?

 

It reminds me of having a problem with mice, so you bring in cats. Then, you have problem with the cats, so you bring in wolves. Then you have problems with the wolves, so you bring in... :cat:

 

 

There was a recent gathering where this work was presented:

 

Session: #47 - Biological Conversion of Biomass to Fuels and Chemicals (TB008)

 

 

Metabolic Engineering of Cyanobacteria for Bioenergy Production

This research addresses one of the pressing national priorities in the United States: seeking bioenergy for the reduction of America's oil addiction. By using fossil fuels as energy sources, we are facing several problems, such as reduced fossil fuel resources; America's dependence on foreign oils; environmental pollutions and the global warming effect, etc. Development of renewable energy is rapidly embraced by our society and industry to meet the energy growth and emission reduction goals. Bioethanol has recently surged to the forefront of renewable fuels technology. It is thus a valuable alternative of fossil fuels. Most of the current ethanol production is from the fermentation of starch crops. This method suffers from some significant obstacles in the establishment of ethanol as a major player in the fuels market. Energy production from agricultural crops has been found to not to be cost-effective and energy-efficient. It also raises environmental concerns due to its emission of hazardous air pollutants and volatile organic compounds, and CO2 to the environment. The competition of energy vs. food will cause further shortage of the world grain supply and damage to the food security.

We have developed an integrative biological and engineering approach to construct novel cyanobacterium Synechocystis strains for direct conversion of sunlight and CO2 into ethanol. We have successfully transformed the pyruvate decarboxylase (pdc) and alcohol dehydrogenase II (adh) genes from Zymomonas mobilis into Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. Our preliminary studies have confirmed that it is feasible to create such ethanol producers from cyanobacterial systems. We are continuing our effort to optimize our ethanol production approach so that it may topple the global dependence on fossil fuels. It is found that the photosynthetic cyanobacteria can be redesigned for highly efficient ethanol production by the combination of gene transformation, strain/process development and metabolic modeling/ profiling analysis. Our goal is to create a sound and sustainable method to reduce the cost of ethanol production to the point that the ethanol production is competitive to utilization of fossil fuels.

[donno]

A hectare pond of marine phytoplankton CCMP647 (Pleurochrysis carterae) can produce 15,000 to 80,000 liters of vegetable oil a year. Only about 6,000 liters of palm oil can be squeezed out of a hectare a year.

 

CCMP647 is a marine phytoplankton that has high oil content - about 50% of mass. This strain is readily available from CCMP, a US culture collection organization.

 

It can grow up to 50 % lipid. It doubles in about 2-3 days. Initial field trials have been few with this strain, but some of the trials appear to suggest that this strain can outcompete other invaders.

[Qfwfq]

These are all good ideas, I agree they might be better than land crops for ethanol. One good idea would be do quit doing things that have been knocking out photosynthetic plankton from this planet's oceans. Here's a good page on cyanobacteria.

[FrankM]

Food crop costs are escalating because subsidies make it profitable to use them to produce ethanol. Using non-food crops can reverse this.

 

Switchgrass Ethanol Yields Large Net Energy Gain