Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#61

Post by peatmoss » Mon, May 30, 2016, 7:24 PM UTC

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…

Agreed, though I kind of like the idea of replacing carbon positive fuel with carbon neutral fuel. If we overproduced fuel--thus sequestering carbon--we could go some way toward cleaning up at least some of our carbon mess. That would reduce some of the anthropogenic stresses on ecosystems rather than allowing them to collapse. We need to get our shit together with respect to the environment, but if we can stave off catastrophe for a while, I think we're in better shape.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#62

Post by peatmoss » Mon, May 30, 2016, 7:27 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #60

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…

This won't reduce atmospheric CO2.

It does if you use it to produce more fuel than is consumed.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#63

Post by ommunist » Mon, May 30, 2016, 7:31 PM UTC

Carbon-neutral bioreactors. Very interesting and extremely useful research. Who shall own that DNA strain and control dissemination of technology?

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#64

Post by ommunist » Mon, May 30, 2016, 7:32 PM UTC

_xnmw wrote: post #42

amelius wrote: post #17

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.

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

Not strict enough. Genes are the subject of biological evolution, including human genes. But ideas are memes, and are subject of cultural evolution. These are two very different evolutions.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#65

Post by ommunist » Mon, May 30, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

danielharan wrote: post #53

kbutler wrote: post #51

500L CO2 per day, to make 2kwh of electricity (per day) That's approximately as much CO2 as a person breathes out in a day ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#Human_physiolog... says about 1 kg, which works out to about 560L CO2 http://www.umsl.edu/~biofuels/Energy%20Meter%20labs/How%20mu... ) So yes, it provides a little bit of power, and no, it isn't likely to scale up to planet-wide CO2 reductions - one…

You're comparing completely different things. It depends first on what is done with the ~1kg of CO2 captured. If humans get their carbon from sources that are removed from the air, we don't have a net addition.

Strictly speaking, fossil fuels are carbon removed from the air, just a long time ago.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#66

Post by bertiewhykovich » Mon, May 30, 2016, 7:44 PM UTC

riprowan wrote: post #46

biomcgary wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While there are certainly conditions in which these bacteria might thrive, their inbuilt inefficiency -- secreting large quantities of energy-rich alcohol -- suggests that, in their current form, they'd be relatively easy to outcompete. They don't seem to have any particular advantage in an environment where their unique characteristics are not beneficial -- and very few environments would seem to fit that bill.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#67

Post by steffenfrost » Mon, May 30, 2016, 7:52 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #37

amelius wrote: post #17

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.

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 acro…

If this is so, then why can invasive species wreak havoc in an ecosystem?

http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/5-invasive-species-you-should...

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#68

Post by tener » Mon, May 30, 2016, 8:27 PM UTC

Very cool, except first you need to get the hydrogen. For that I believe he is planning to use the "artificial leaf" he has invented previously.

Problem is, while the bacteria can reproduce on their own, the leafs won't. They are made from silicon so probably similar tech to regular solar cells. This can be likely a limiting factor here.

Still interesting news.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#69

Post by myrryr » Mon, May 30, 2016, 9:02 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #59

shaqbert wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydrogen fuel is indeed really difficult to manage. The Hindenburg accident come to mind, or the weight problems of fuel cell cars...

It's the smallest molecule there is. It's really difficult to contain. It will leak out of steel containers while embrittling the metal. However it's not necessary to use pure hydrogen as vehicle fuel. Alcohol or other hydrocarbons can be used directly in a fuel cell to produce electric power, or be burned in an more traditional combustion engine.

Helium is the smallest molecule. H2 is quite a bit bigger.

Re: Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

#70

Post by rosser » Mon, May 30, 2016, 9:25 PM UTC

steffenfrost wrote: post #67

jerf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 acro…

If this is so, then why can invasive species wreak havoc in an ecosystem? http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/5-invasive-species-you-should...

Because those species are sinking the extra resources into out-competing the local flora a/o fauna, and successfully displacing them. That's kinda a definitional characteristic of an "invasive species".