Monday, June 16, 2008
Silicon Valley (TNR) - LS9, a Silicon Valley-based firm, has managed to bioengineer microorganisms that eat organic waste material and excrete crude oil.
By genetically modifying yeast or E. Coli bacteria, the company's engineers have created strains that consume organic waste material, such as wood chips or wheat stalks, and produce crude oil as their waste.
The company claims that the process is carbon-negative, meaning that, plant to the exhaust pipe of your car, the plants and bugs that eat them take more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than the refining process and the exhaust of the vehicle the fuel is ultimately burned in put into it.
The company is still in the testing stages, but the technology shows promise. LS9 hopes to have a demonstration plant open by 2010. Replacing the United States' entire weekly fuel consumption would require a facility covering over 200 square miles, and it remains to be seen how economically viable this is in the long term, though the company estimates that the oil they produce could be manufactured at a cost of around $50USD per barrel.
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