Recent Comment
Share
A biotechnology company based in Boulder, Colorado has discovered a way to engineer E. coli to convert sugar into acrylic acid - a major component in paints, diapers and adhesives - in place of petroleum. This new process produces 75 percent less CO2 emissions than the petroleum-based process.
OPX Biotechnologies is a start-up company that is engineering bacteria to make industrial chemicals and renewable fuels. This new E. coli-based process they've developed is actually cheaper than the petroleum-based process and if just one commercial company adopted the bacteria-based process, 500,000 fewer barrels of petroleum would be consumed per year.
The company has been testing the technology at a pilot plant, but plans to have a commercial plant built by 2014 that could produce 100 million pounds of acrylic. The company has received a $6 million grant from the DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy as well as over $22 million in venture capital.
The company is also working on a process that converts CO2 and hydrogen into diesel fuel.
via MIT Tech Review
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by Ronald Brak, September 22, 2010
-
- +0
-
-
written by Asaf Shalgi, September 22, 2010
-
- +0
-
-
written by Peter, September 23, 2010
Do you really believe that purchasing a new 'green' gadget to charge your iPod from solar energy, or a new hybrid auto or a technology which competes with food production is going to help?
The only action which would have any hope of a positive planetary outcome is rapid depopulation, but who is going to go there? The best we can hope for is that antibiotic resistant 'superbugs' and other emergent pathogens gain exponential traction in the population.
-
- +0
-
-
written by Ronald Brak, September 23, 2010
-
- +1
-
-
written by Peter, September 24, 2010
-
- +0
-
-
written by Lindros, September 26, 2010
-
- +0
-
-
written by b, July 10, 2011
-
- +0
-
-
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Already we have a situation of energy production competing with food production as a result of ethanol, now another technology competing with food production is here.
Unlike ethanol manufacture which can consume cellulose stock as raw material (and hence can use agricultural wastes) here is a technology which requires sugar, ie food grade input.
The world's excessively high population is the true root cause of resource pressure, this technology is going to do nothing to address it except perhaps cause even more hardship to those whose lives are currently most at risk.
The future is looking grimmer by the day.