Me too.
A U.S. biotech company called Joule Unlimited has engineered a genetically adapted E. coli bacterium that feeds on carbon dioxide and poops liquid hydrocarbons – diesel fuel, gasoline, jet fuel.
The breakthrough technology promises to deliver unlimited quantities of liquid fuel at an energy-cost equivalent of US$30 per barrel of crude oil.
Joule says it now has “a library” of fossil-fuel organisms at work in its Massachusetts labs, each engineered to produce a different fuel. It has “proven the process” has produced ethanol (for example) at a rate equivalent to 10,000 U.S. gallons an acre a year. It anticipates that this yield could hit 25,000 gallons an acre a year when scaled for commercial production, equivalent to roughly 800 barrels of crude an acre a year.
It sounds pretty freakin’ sweet, but I will keep my skeptic hat on until the process becomes a commercial, problem-solving reality. There are just too many things that could go “wrong” when everything’s at stake for traditional oil companies.
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