Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol | Hacker News Reader

Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol

timesonline.co.uk

46 pointsprakash12 comments

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Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=217889

Maybe URLs with empty query strings should be stripped of '?' before posted.

Should be: "scientists fund bugs that eat waste..."

Actually "entrepreneurs fund bugs that eat waste..."

The fact that the company claims

"if LS9 used Brazilian sugar cane as its feedstock, its fuel would probably cost about $50 a barrel. "

it appears they are relying on long-term extremely high gas prices. Isn't sugar cane the most energy rich of the ethanol inputs? If so, then using agricultural waste (as they say they plan on doing), will likely cost a lot more than $50/barrel.

Even if it currently would cost $1000/barrel, it's still worthwhile to pursue as an alternative to drilling.

Greater efficiency can come in later iterations. Immediately, at any price, it's more carbon-responsible and less politically volatile.

This is exciting stuff!

Oil is already at >$130/barrel. $50/barrel would mean less than half the price. The only thing they're relying on is that, long-term, oil doesn't see a halving of its price.

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html is a wonderful resource.

Alternative to drilling = no need to drill in wildlife preserves. [good]

Alternative to drilling = main money-maker of middle east going to be eliminated (good for us, bad for people living there). [bad]

Alternative to drilling = global warming problems going to worsen because oil-user companies (car companies etc...) will have less incentive to become more efficient. I just hope that this "carbon negative" statement they made is not a pr-ploy [ugly]

That thought hit me too, but actively growing new crops will take out at least as much carbon as the bugs produce (nihil ex nihilo fit).

The problem with fossil fuels is that it takes lots of carbon that was safely tucked away and reintroduces it into the ecosystem.

The problem is that drawing energy out of crops is very inefficient. Plants are very good at generating the complex organic molecules we need to ingest in order to survive, but pretty inefficient when we just want lots of energy.

We need safer/cleaner nukes, in my opinion, and electric cars/planes + maglev trains for mid-distance transport. Nukes provide bridge energy during this probably permanent oil problem; better solar should be the ultimate destination.

Hmf. My bugs have created seg-faults, memory leaks, etc., but never oil. I suck.

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