Posted on 03/02/2011 2:44:33 PM PST by Wonder Warthog
Joule Unlimited has invented a genetically-engineered organism that it says simply secretes diesel fuel or ethanol wherever it finds sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based company says it can manipulate the organism to produce the renewable fuels on demand at unprecedented rates, and can do it in facilities large and small at costs comparable to the cheapest fossil fuels.
Joule's process directly yields hydrocarbons that are fungible with existing diesel infrastructure, unlike the biodiesel product that is produced from algal oil.
Highlights include:
Based on empirical measurements, Joule can directly produce 15,000 gallons of diesel per acre annually, as compared to 3,000 gallons of biodiesel produced indirectly from algae.
The solar-to-product conversion efficiency of Joule's direct, continuous process for producing diesel, ethanol and chemicals is between 5 and 50X greater than any biomass-dependent process, and gains additional efficiencies by avoiding downstream refining.
Joule's combined advances in genome engineering, solar capture and bioprocessing result in photosynthetic conversion efficiency of more than 7% relative to available yearly solar energy striking the ground, many times greater than prior
Here's a fun thought: capture CO2 and cooling water from a coal-fired power plant, and feed it to these little critters....
I hope this works,but if my math is right it would take 15,000 acres to produce 15,000 bbl/day of diesel (say a conventional small oil field development)
Can they do it without being subsidized by the taxpayers?
Yep - and it would be sulfer-free, too.
I suspect that is (one of) the game plan(s).
We've got lots of marginal/desert land available. And this would take way less land than to generate the equivalent amount of ethanol from corn.
US Annual diesel consumption = 64,323,336,000 US Gallons
Divide by 15000 gal/acre
= 4,288,222 acres
divide by 665 acres/mile^2
=6,448 miles square
~a square, 80 miles to a side.
About 2X the size of WSMR.
I haven' specifically looking into that question, but my impression is that thus far they have. Research is apparently being completely funded by venture capital.
Can the bugs live in saltwater?
Certainly, strains of cyanobacteria (which is what this group is using) CAN live in saltwater. Whether these genetically modified ones can do so, I have no idea. I didn't notice any mention of that capability in their publication.
But if you mean "in the wild", I doubt it, as they are tailored specifically for a very high CO2 feed rate and probably would be "outcompeted" by the wild strains in a different environment (aka "the ocean").
??? I'm not familiar with that acronnym. It refers to what??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sands_Missile_Range
Scroll down and look at the picture on the right - it illustrates the sise of WSMR compared to NM. By my calculation, above, all of the diesel needs of the US could be met in an area twice that size.
The reason I asked about salt water is because NM is floatin, literally, on an ocean full of salt water. Fresh water, on the other hand, costs more. A lot more.
AH! I've actually used the same comparison, but didn't connect the acronym to the full name.
"The reason I asked about salt water is because NM is floatin, literally, on an ocean full of salt water. Fresh water, on the other hand, costs more. A lot more.
Well, it depends. I grew up between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers. Lots of cheap fresh water there. In New Mexico, not so much....:^).
But since the "diesel gene trick" is using modified cyanobacteria, I'm sure they could come up with both salt and fresh water versions, since there are cyanobacteria native to both environments.
Another article on here somewhere mentioned subsidies
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