Potentially exciting news:
“Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.”
He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs – very, very small ones – so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.
Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV next to us. Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls “renewable petroleum”. After that, he grins, “it’s a brave new world”. . .
What is most remarkable about what they are doing is that instead of trying to reengineer the global economy – as is required, for example, for the use of hydrogen fuel – they are trying to make a product that is interchangeable with oil. The company claims that this “Oil 2.0” will not only be renewable but also carbon negative – meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.
(Via Instapundit.)
This would be terrific news if it worked out. Of course, this isn’t the only way to make artificial petroleum; for over eighty years it’s been possible (via the Fischer-Tropsch process) to make oil from coal, natural gas, or (in principle) biomass. (South Africa manufactures most of its diesel fuel that way.) The question is whether the process is cost-effective enough to compete with conventional oil wells.
Still, this work sounds like it has two advantages over the Fischer-Tropsch process. It generates petroleum, which could be used in our existing infrastructure. And, there’s the environmental advantage of making fuel from agricultural waste rather than coal or natural gas.
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