Gasoline Excreting Bugs?
Score one for science. LS9, a company in Silicon Valley, has modified single-cell organisms that start out as industrial yeast or non-pathogenic strains of E. coli to excrete a substance that is almost pump-ready. Apparently crude oil is only a few molecular stages removed from the fatty acids that are normally produced by yeast or E. coli during the fermentation process. This makes it easy to modify the yeast or E. coli to produce crude oil during fermentation. Anything that can be broken down into sugars can be fed to the single-cell organisms. LS9 would ideally like to use agricultural waste to feed the organisms instead of using food crops currently being consumed by the bio fuels industry. Greg Pal, a senior director of LS9, says: “Our plan is to have a demonstration-scale plant operational by 2010 and, in parallel, we’ll be working on the design and construction of a commercial-scale facility to open in 2011.”
Perhaps in the not-so-distant future we’ll all be powering our cars with bug crap… Full story.
