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Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

forbes.com

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Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#41

Post by formula1 »

amelius wrote: post #17
Turing_Machine wrote: post #10

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.

Its possible that they consume at such a fast rate that it would likely consume faster than the world can produce

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#42

Post by _xnmw »

amelius wrote: post #17
Turing_Machine wrote: post #10

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.

Strictly speaking, an invention designed by evolved humans is a product of evolution.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#43

Post by SpacemanSpiff »

jeffwass wrote: post #16
JustUhThought wrote: post #12

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…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9yruQM1ggc

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#46

Post by riprowan »

biomcgary wrote: post #24
staticvar wrote: post #22

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.

Are there not hydrogen rich microzones (volcanic fissues? atmospheric layers?) where these might thrive?

I'm not actually worried about bugs taking over the world. But we ought to avoid hand-waving away possible unintended consequences, because that tends to be how we get ourselves into environmental problems in the first place.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#47

Post by evunveot »

smaili wrote: post #3

FWIW, “This isn’t solving your CO2 problem,” he said. ”I’m taking CO2 out of the air, you burn it and you put the CO2 back. So it’s carbon neutral. I’m not going to reverse 400 ppm of CO2. But you’re not going to use any more stuff out of the ground.”

I think he's selling it short. Imagine if all 1 billion+ cars used this fuel instead of diesel/gasoline. Even if all the carbon ultimately ends up as CO2 again eventually, at any given moment there would be a whole lot of it temporarily sequestered in fuel tanks. The "base load" of atmospheric CO2 would be lower.

I don't know enough chemistry or climate science to estimate whether the amount of carbon in ~5 billion gallons of alcohol-based fuel, when removed from the atmosphere, would have a significant effect on climate change. But it sure seems like a lot of carbon.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#48

Post by riprowan »

abhi3 wrote: 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 biosystem can handle almost any amount of fuel-burning and release of CO2 from fuels that came from the biosystem. In that regard, burning is like recycling.

The problem is that we pump CO2 from outside the biosphere (from deep underground) into the biosphere.

This technology could eliminate the need to move CO2 from underground into the biosphere, without having to completely revamp our existing infrastructure. If this is possible, it would be a gigantic win for the environment.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#49

Post by riprowan »

My guess is that the chief obstacle will be political: this has the potential to hit the most powerful people in the world directly in the pocketbook

He's probably going to India probably because there is more political will there to allow this thing to continue.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#50

Post by karmajunkie »

rmchugh wrote: post #9
shaqbert wrote: post #7

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.

He states that the purpose is not carbon capture but energy production, as all carbon consumed will be released upon combustion.

wouldn't take much to sequester it instead of merely burning it. then the net is carbon negative.
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