Source: Engadget, Timesonlline UK
I don’t know whether this good news or bad news. Is this innovation or abomination? Bugs that make oil?
Everyone is eager to find some type way to cure our dependence on oil. But bugs? Is has to be something real dangerous toxic sh*t that happens inorder for this to work. Read the story below:
Like the beginning of every great science fiction movie, experts claim that they’ve discovered a cure for our fuel-dependency woes that only requires an army of genetically modified bacteria… that eat wheat straw and excrete crude oil. You read that right: scientists have created bugs which are able to snack on woodchips or sugar cane and produce waste in the form of easily malleable oil.
Not only are the buggers capable of creating a byproduct which can quickly be refined into fuel for vehicles, but scientists say the process is carbon-negative — it outputs less carbon than is required to produce it. Director of the project — dubbed LS9 — Greg Pal says that barrel prices could run as low as $50, and that the company plans to have a commercial facility producing the crude in 2011.
And as for the potential threat of world-destroying attack from the mutant feeders? Says Pal, “We’re putting these bacteria in a very isolated container: their entire universe is in that tank. When we’re done with them, they’re destroyed.”
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