There is a whole sector of biofuels devoted to various interesting microorganisms -- some that have also been genetically engineered - to harness them in order to produce chemicals, including fuels and important pre-curser chemicals (Butanol being one)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24085385 Microalgae are another group of photosynthetic autotroph of interest due to their superior growth rates, relatively high photosynthetic conversion efficiencies, and vast metabolic capabilities. Heterotrophic microorganisms, such as yeast and bacteria, can utilize carbohydrates from lignocellulosic biomass directly or after pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis to produce liquid biofuels such as ethanol and butanol. Although finding a suitable organism for biofuel production is not easy, many naturally occurring organisms with good traits have recently been obtained. From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 3:22 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The situation at Fukushima appears to be deteriorating On 26 February 2014 12:05, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: On 2/25/2014 2:52 PM, LizR wrote: On 26 February 2014 11:18, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: On 2/25/2014 1:23 PM, LizR wrote: The great thing about using an energy grid is you can plug in new components (i.e. different types of generators - nuclear etc) and everything continues to work the same way downstream. This is why I'm keen on the idea of extracting CO2 from the air and making petrol, if possible. No change is required to the energy infrastructure, as there would be with say hydrogen or electric cars, but it's carbon neutral. We'd get a closed cycle in which the atmosphere was just a temporary reservoir for the materials needed to make the fuel. Presumably we'd eventually be able to extract CO2 at a rate that even reduced the amount of GHGs in the air. That's essentially what the research on hydrocarbon producing algae and bacteris is trying to do. Well, that's good. I wonder if there is any more efficient way of doing it (or do we have to wait for nanomachines which can grab passing molecules and stick them together?) Dunno, but nano-machines are what algae and bacteria are - and self manufacturing to boot. So I'd try for some genetic engineering to improve their efficiency, rather than trying to make nanobots from scratch. Yes. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
