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Hmmmm....so bacteria breathes in CO2 to make fuel....so we can burn the fuel and release the CO2 back in the atmosphere?
Not to take away anything from this impressive scientific achievement but this application is just depressing.
Any mechanism to capture CO2 emissions is a huge win for the environment. What is missing is an assessment of cost. If this is economically feasible at some point in time in the future, then goodbye oil and coal. Open question is how to ensure these bio-engineered organisms don't seep into the environment and trigger some unintended consequences. There needs to be some kill switch in there as well.
The headline, while accurate, doesn't really describe the breakthrough here. In itself, it's not surprising that sunlight, hydrogen from water and CO2 could be put together to make biomass. That's pretty much what plants (and many natural bacteria) do already. The novel aspect of these bacteria is that they apparently do the job 10x more efficiently than natural organisms.
> The novel aspect of these bacteria is that they apparently do the job 10x more efficiently than natural organisms. This makes me wonder why this solution was not found by evolution directly.
Any mechanism to capture CO2 emissions is a huge win for the environment. What is missing is an assessment of cost. If this is economically feasible at some point in time in the future, then goodbye oil and coal. Open question is how to ensure these bio-engineered organisms don't seep into the environment and trigger some unintended consequences. There needs to be some kill switch in there as well.
My tinfoil hat is buzzing. What happens when this bacteria is released in our lakes and oceans?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The novel aspect of these bacteria is that they apparently do the job 10x more efficiently than natural organisms. This makes me wonder why this solution was not found by evolution directly.
Because evolution is random, and not directed. 10x efficiency is what you get when you really have a designer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The novel aspect of these bacteria is that they apparently do the job 10x more efficiently than natural organisms. This makes me wonder why this solution was not found by evolution directly.
Because evolution is random, and not directed. 10x efficiency is what you get when you really have a designer.
>But if hydrogen from the leaf can combine with CO2 to make alcohol fuel, the fuel can be used the way diesel is now. Hmmmm....so bacteria breathes in CO2 to make fuel....so we can burn the fuel and release the CO2 back in the atmosphere? Not to take away anything from this impressive scientific achievement but this application is just depressing.
This is carbon recycling, basically. Recycling is better than producing/discarding/producing, right?
Any mechanism to capture CO2 emissions is a huge win for the environment. What is missing is an assessment of cost. If this is economically feasible at some point in time in the future, then goodbye oil and coal. Open question is how to ensure these bio-engineered organisms don't seep into the environment and trigger some unintended consequences. There needs to be some kill switch in there as well.
My tinfoil hat is buzzing. What happens when this bacteria is released in our lakes and oceans?