Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 31, 2016, 3:19 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #87

pfarnsworth wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Evolution has no need to produce 10x more rather energy-expensive molecules than it needs, so it doesn't produce bacteria that do that. You don't seem to understand natural selection. The idea of evolution producing something that an organism "needs" is akin to saying that God decided that the organism "needed" it and changed its genes. The theory of natural selection is a completely passive process. For every gene…

> You don't seem to understand natural selection. The idea of evolution producing something that an organism "needs" is akin to saying that God decided that the organism "needed" it and changed its genes. I'm pretty sure he understands it fine, and is just using shorthand that makes it easier to describe. There exists no approximation of a fitness function in nature that selects for this output because it's not effic…

Post by pmyjavec » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 10:24 AM UTC

dTal wrote: post #2

It sure sounds promising, but it'd be good to see some more efficiency numbers. All there is in the article is this: "A one-liter reactor full of Nocera’s bacteria can capture 500 liters of atmospheric CO2 per day, he said. For every kilowatt hour of energy they produce, they’ll remove 237 liters of CO2 from the air." By my reckoning that works out to about 80 watts, continuous. Solar irradiance is roughly a kilowatt…