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Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

forbes.com

31–40 of 94 posts

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My tinfoil hat is buzzing. What happens when this bacteria is released in our lakes and oceans?

They die. The bacteria are dependent on a constant stream of hydrogen gas at higher concentration than typically found on earth. They simply cannot compete with any other organism outside of the reactor for which they are designed.

Scenario: Mixing in the chamber isn't complete, after a few generations, bacteria that can survive in a low H environment continue to breed. Worker forgets to purchase reactor before maintenance, bacteria escapes. Hilarity ensues.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#32
post #21

>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.

The application you've described isn't depressing.

Carbon dioxide is a normal element in our atmosphere. Burning biofuels isn't a problem because the world's ecosystem is used to processing the levels of carbon dioxide that exist in current circulation.

The problems that come from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere happen when you alter the levels of carbon dioxide faster than the ecosystem can react. This happens when burning fossil fuels on a large scale because it leads to adding more carbon dioxide into standard circulation. As there isn't a proportional increase in plant life ready to absorb this increase the carbon dioxide can have negative impacts on our environment, such as ocean acidification.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#33
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because evolution is random, and not directed. 10x efficiency is what you get when you really have a designer.

Evolution isn't designed, but it also isn't random. It's just directed by survival, which isn't always best served by maximum efficiency in specific functions like this one.

[deleted]

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#35
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My tinfoil hat is buzzing. What happens when this bacteria is released in our lakes and oceans?

It dies because there is no hydrogen to consume ?

How do we know it won't adapt before then, as have thousands of other types of bacteria?

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#36

Yay. Now we don't need plants to reduce the greenhouse gas CO2. We just need to turn loose this bacterium and build an economy around alcohol fuels. No need for systems thinking that involves the environment when we can create a bacterium which is more efficient in one aspect of the environment it is replacing. So long as we can extend this reductionist framework to provide us with the nitrogen we need. And the globa…

The Simpsons is already way ahead, with a similar scenario (lizards getting rid of the menacing pigeon population) : SKINNER Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend. LISA But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards? SKINNER No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards. LISA But aren't the snakes even worse? SKINNER Yes, bu…

Well, it goes without saying, of course the "Simpsons Already Did It". :)

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#37
post #17

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.

It's 10x more efficient for human purposes. It's not a 10x more efficient mechanism in general. Evolution has no need to produce 10x more rather energy-expensive molecules than it needs, so it doesn't produce bacteria that do that.

Which is also the answer to everybody else wondering about what happens if this gets into the biosphere. Well, have you ever been walking in a relatively natural forest area and come across the sad sight of a natural clearing being totally dominated by wild broccoli plants? No, you never have, because broccoli is completely incapable of outcompeting any natural plant. Broccoli's genes put way too much energy into producing that big beautiful edible bit that all of its competition puts into offense and defense. Similarly, the answer to the question of what happens to bacteria that pours its energy into producing alcohol while its competition is pouring its energy into producing offspring is that if you blink, you'll miss the death of the alcohol-producing bacteria. They're not going to take over the ecosystem. In energy terms you probably stand a better chance of seeing broccoli sweep the meadows of the world than having this bacteria survive in the wild.

(And when I say broccoli, I mean something like what you'd buy in the store. Not merely a rapid reversion to its historical ancestor, which could actually happen, but actual proper broccoli.)

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#38
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because evolution is random, and not directed. 10x efficiency is what you get when you really have a designer.

Evolution isn't designed, but it also isn't random. It's just directed by survival, which isn't always best served by maximum efficiency in specific functions like this one.

I think what he meant was that each individual mutation is random. There isn't someone intelligently deciding what the next batch of mutations should look like.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#39
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because evolution is random, and not directed. 10x efficiency is what you get when you really have a designer.

Evolution isn't designed, but it also isn't random. It's just directed by survival, which isn't always best served by maximum efficiency in specific functions like this one.

Evolutionary changes occur by random mutation and, in sexual reproduction, by random genetic mixing. Whether or not those changes are successful is governed by survival, but it's not directed by survival. Survival doesn't choose specific evolutionary changes with a goal of increasing survivability.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#40
post #29

This announcement is about a year old. I'm not sure why Forbes is covering it like it's news.

When Harvard Professor of Energy Daniel G. Nocera announced he was working with bacteria last year, other scientists cautioned it would be difficult to achieve a productive level of efficiency. At the time, Nocera was aiming for 5 percent efficiency—about 5 times better than plants. This month at the University of Chicago, he announced his bug converts sunlight ten times more efficiently than plants.

This increase in efficiency is presumably the novel part of Nocera's latest announcement and upcoming paper.

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