Department of Energy wants to put bacteria to work
The DOE is partnering with the Washington University in St. Louis to sequence the DNA of six photosynthetic bacteria. Funding of $1.6 million is being devoted to the project based on the potential for these bacteria to be a great source of biofuel in the future. The potential exists for microscopic cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) to capture sunlight and then produce clean ethanol via a biochemical process.
The six strains that have been identified are related but come from different environments including Taiwan, India and deep ocean. It is felt that by combining different characteristics from these strains, a more efficient form of metabolised bioenergy can be derived. Cyanobacteria utilise carbon dioxide as their primary cellular carbon source and ferment without the need for added yeast to produce ethanol as is required with regular biomass.
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[Source: Oilgae]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
American Biodieselist 10:26PM (1/08/2007)
"Funding of $1.6 million" is either seed money or just another appalling act of hypocrisy, since algal biodiesel is the one new source of energy that is still believed to be able to replace 100% of all gasoline and petrodiesel, current and future. Lemme see now, the U.S. alone spends $1.2 billion (~20 million barrels @ ~$60 per barrel) or more every single day, and we've only known about this microbiological potential since the 1960's. How does $1.6 million per project compare to $1.2 billion per day? You figure it out.
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