Replacing fossil fuels

[hollus]

...I am just to busy to go over and over again...

We noticed!

Talking of Craig Venter's advance. My understanding is that he is trying to hijack (redesign to a large extent) the cell machinery normally dedicated to produce sugar and eventually ethanol to end up in a more useful molecule than ethanol. Basically finding a shortcut from photosinthesis to fuel. And he might well succeed, he has a good record. Don't expect a full blown industry in 2 or 3 years, though, but a proof of concept in 1 year, a pilot plant in 4, a small industrial project in 7 and a large one in 10 sounds feasible. Fine tuning in biology takes a lot of time. That should mean mass production in 15-25 years? I am all for it.

But... has anyone heard what molecule is he supposed to be getting out of the "sintetic bugs"? I am curious.

By the way, the bugs are roduced in much the same ways molecular biologists have been doing it for the last 10 or 20 years, it is only the DNA that is synthetic, so don't be too scared of the word synthetic.

[autogyro]

That sounds more like the level of potential hollus.
I to am also interested in the actual life form he is manipulating.
However, I hope he is successful as it would be a very important break through if it is possible.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Hollus,
I agree with alot of that, but the time scales are shorter...

Venter himself says we are talking years and not decades before we see a full scale operation going "live". He has said we have all the requirements and their is no tech that needs to be "invented" to make it work shortening the whole process quite dramatically. He reckons he would be dissapointed if nothing was being produced by 2017-8!!!
He has the backing, the means, the brains and also the will to succeed.

I wish him the all the best because, he holds a massive key to all of our futures.
It sounds grandiose, because it is.

[hollus]

Hollus,
He has said we have all the requirements and their is no tech that needs to be "invented" to make it work shortening the whole process quite dramatically. He reckons he would be dissapointed if nothing was being produced by 2017-8!!!

...a small industrial project in 7 (years)...

Well, we agree! We just use different words.

It can't be much faster. While no technology needs to be invented, he is hiding under the carpet a small piece of the puzzle. Nobody in this world knows how design a protein for a purpose from scratch. And modifying the function of an existing protein is like state of the art.. in 5 years from now. You can retarget a protein, but making it efficient at the new task... well that's a different story. I know because I work on that.

So this is probably how it works: He can get any proteins he wants in and out of his synthetic bugs. And he has millions of proteins from many different organisms to choose from. So he will be iterating lots of combinations of proteins to redirect the metabolism to where he wants it.
That process looks surprisingly like designing a F1 car! You design something clever on paper, then you optimize it on a computer (F1 CAD, Venter's bioinformatics). Then you produce it, and like in F1, the lead time for a piece is in weeks. The you test this new piece in the bug, to test whether it works well with all the others (F1 wind tunnel). Figure out what doesn't quite work, modify the protein (or the amount of it) a bit, iterate again. And this for every little piece. It is a slow process.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I agree with those sentiments again,

And yea the wording was different but the idea was the same.
There is no guarantee, but its hugely promising. More so than any other I can think of....

[hollus]

So what molecule is he after?

[hollus]

I found a link roughly describing the process and the possibilities that Venter's process enables.

http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2010/06/can- ... fuels.html

Looks like currently algae are simply used to produce lots of lipids and oils which must be then extracted from the cell by mechancal means and separated from everything else.

I found this passage particularly interesting:

High costs of drying
Drying appears to be such an innocent little thing, you wouldn’t think its cost could amount to anything. You couldn’t be more wrong. Based on the calculations done by the Oilgae team, drying alone could cost upwards of $2 per gallon of algae biodiesel, if we use the traditionally used dryers such as spray dryers. It is likely that a more efficient drying system specifically adapted for making dry biomass for fuel could cost less, but even if one were to assume an 80% reduction, to $0.5 per gallon, the cost is still high!
Trust me, reducing the costs of drying could be a far more critical concern than what we all have assumed so far. Can genetic engineering play any role here?
Well, this was a toughie. I had almost given up trying to find a way where GM could play a role in more efficient drying when my colleague Parkavi Kumar pointed out to what OriginOil claims to be doing – bypassing the entire drying step (or for that matter, harvesting step), by extracting oil from the algae without killing the cells ( http://www.originoil.com/technology/liv ... ction.html ). Wouldn’t it be possible for genetic engineering to evolve algae that have cells less tough than normal so that such a “live extraction” becomes easier? Why not, I exclaimed, why not indeed – after all, we are talking about theoretical possibilities here!


This makes me wonder: if cells could be engineered (this is a technical site!) to continuously release hydrocarbons to the aquaeous medium... would those hydrocarbons spontaneously separate from the water? Then they could cheaply be skimmed from the surface in a relatively pure form, or maybe just distilled.

[xxChrisxx]

My missus is a biologist, and specifically interested in genetics. It's a bit annoying as it does look as though biological systems will end up totally replacing chemistry in the distant future.

It's simply amazing the potential level of manipulation biological systems can have. They have the potential to use programmed cells to create biofuels (oils), or hydrogen. Something to do with minimal genomes.

Not that I understand a word she says, but it all sounds fasinating.

[autogyro]

It sure is interesting Chris but it worries me.
It opens up systems both in biology and human existance that are extremely complex and often fraught with problems when things are tried in the real world.
I would just love to see major progress from such things but I would like to see a little more care, something the 'American Dream' seems to ignore on a fairly regular basis.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Gyro,

Before these ideas go mainstream, they go through the most rigourous of tests.
More than even you can devise

[autogyro]

Would that be similar to the checks they do on oil rigs?

[xxChrisxx]

Would that be similar to the checks they do on oil rigs?

You can check for everything you can think of, there will always be something you can't forsee. This is why accidents must be learning processes.

What they are doing now re: making new DNA to control bacteria like organisms isn't really that dangerous (with their limited scope for evolution and mutation). Especially when you consider that we've already made designer virsuses (Which are infinitely more dangerous than the current experiemnts).

[sknguy]

Oh boy xxChrisxx, it's very dangerous to hold such a blasé attitude toward an environmental catastrophes like the BP oil spill. I happen to appreciate Gyro's opinion. You don't understand that once the manufacturing technology gets into the hands of the "let's make it as cheaply as possible" crowd, sometimes all you can do count the days 'til the next disaster. This kind of technology needs a kill switch, or some other safeguard mechanism. Because you never know who's hands this technology will ultimately rest in.

Anyway, a question on the original topic. If your goal is to replace fossil fuels would there not be a need to also replace current lubrication tech too? I know there's alternative out there, but is there a reasonable replacement for our dependencies in this area?

[autogyro]

synthetic oils and lubricants are available but it is of course the volume needed.
It is much the same with all other products including plastics from oil.
There are alternatives but there is a huge quantity to fill.
Then there is the cost and the unfair and completely biased (against alternatives and the third world) international global greed system and criminal bankers.

[xxChrisxx]

Oh boy xxChrisxx, it's very dangerous to hold such a blasé attitude toward an environmental catastrophes like the BP oil spill. I happen to appreciate Gyro's opinion. You don't understand that once the manufacturing technology gets into the hands of the "let's make it as cheaply as possible" crowd, sometimes all you can do count the days 'til the next disaster. This kind of technology needs a kill switch, or some other safeguard mechanism. Because you never know who's hands this technology will ultimately rest in.

How is it blase to state that you can design and plan against something you can forsee going wrong, but not for something you can't forsee (by definition you can't)?

I'm also of the opinion that the same problem should never occur twice, once you know about it you can figure out how to prevent it.