Craig Venter's CO2 eating bacteria

[tinrobot]

A Bug to Save the Planet

Genome pioneer Craig Venter wants to make a bacterium that will eat CO2 and produce fuel.

No one would accuse Craig Venter of harboring humble ambitions. In 2000 he decoded the human genome faster than anyone else—and he did it more cheaply than a well-funded government team. More recently he's set a new goal for himself: to replace the petrochemical industry. In a Maryland lab, he's manipulating chromosomes in the hopes of creating an energy bug—a bacterium that will ingest CO2, sunlight and water, and spew out liquid fuel that can be pumped into American SUVs. NEWSWEEK's Fareed Zakaria spoke to Venter about the brave new world of biologically based fuels.

More here : http://www.newsweek.com/id/140066/page/1

[MidwestTransplant]

1. Better get a food tester

[Taverner]

2. I was just going to say, Cheney won't be happy

[eleny]

3. This is one of those miracle fuel stories I feel I can trust

k&r

[glitch]

4. Well, it would be nice.

But every time I read one of these stories I think of Ice-9. I can't help it, it just pops into my mind.

Blast you Kurt Vonnegut!

(If only I'd had 24/7 tv coverage of your death to help me process my grief I'd probably be over the whole fear of Ice-9 by now.)

[pscot]

6. I had the same reaction

Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.

[tavalon]

5. Notice how everyone is flipping backwards and sideways to avoid facing the inevitable

We will have to radically change our lifestyles and no amount of technological stop gap is going to keep that from being an absolute eventuality. Live beyond one's means and eventually the bill collector comes. Global climate change and Peak Oil have teamed up to be our bill collectors for the 21st century.

[tinrobot]

7. One of the solutions to the inevitable is renewable

Yes, we will have to change our lifestyle, but switching to renewable energy is a big part of that change.

[Nederland]

8. Inevitable?

I've been hearing about the "inevitable" change to our lifestyles that is just around the corner for decades now. I used to believe it, but now I've come to realize the truth: optimists tend to predict the future more accurately than pessimists because they are the ones that create the future.

[SnowGoose]

9. He'll be playing catch-up

There has already been a lot of work in this area. Most of the processes grow microbes and then harvest the organisms to distill out the oils. A more interesting approach has been developed by Algenol, that uses cyanobacteria, salt-water, CO2 and land unsuitable for agriculture to produce ethanol.

http://www.algenolbiofuels.com/default.html

This is the one I'm watching. Ventner is obviously a brilliant person, but there are other brilliant people already out ahead of him.