On 01/05/2008, at 6:26 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >> A: None of the above, because they all contribute to world hunger. > > Agreed. It might be pointed out, though, that it took 1/3rd of the > US corn > crop being devoted to ethanol for the price of food to affect the > lives of > people worldwide. That gives a decent feel for the sensitivity of the > system to rapid changes in demand.
Well, that, plus a 5 year drought in Australia. > > >> Ethanol >> manufactured from atmosphere processing plants powered by solar >> energy is >> the correct answer. > > What about algae the produce large amounts of complex hydrocarbons > per unit > of input sunlight, as the syn biology proposal I mentioned would do. > Granted, it's a tough job as Charlie pointed out, but the price of > equipment for synthetic biology is falling faster than Moore's > law....so > there is at least a reasonable chance that something like this could > work > in 5-25 years. And algae or photosynthetic bacteria breed fast, so evolutionary biology as well as synthetic biology and genetics may have a large role to play. Charlie. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
