E Coli making petroleum in your gut. That is Monsanto thinking.
Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hello George
>Well if the bacteria is e-coli, I guess the feedstock could be shit?
I know that's among the things they live in, but is it what they eat?
What are these guys culturing these engineered bacteria in? What do
they propose to produce this GMO gasoline from? It seems so typical
of the sloppymindedness of the desperate search for a pain-free
replacement for heroin, um, fossil fuels, that nobody says and nobody
thinks to ask.
Anyway e-coli is a pathogen as it is, I suppose we have all the usual
(worthless) assurances of how safe the GMO version will be, along
with all the usual safety tests and precautions you'd expect with a
new pathogen that's to be used on a wide enough scale to support
current and future US energy waste (in other words none at all).
Eg.:
http://www.safe2use.com/ca-ipm/01-02-05-report.htm
GM Bacteria could destroy all life on earth - Report
Best
Keith
>George Page
>Sea Breeze Farm
>Vashon Island, WA USA
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Keith Addison
>Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 1:06 PM
>To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Fwd: The biofuel of the future could well be gasoline
>
>What's the feedstock? What do the bacteria live on? Or do they live on
>nothing?
>
>Best
>
>Keith
>
>
> >Wednesday, August 01, 2007
> >
> >Making Gasoline from Bacteria
> >
> >A biotech startup describes how it will coax petroleum-like fuels
> >from engineered microbes within three to five years.
> >By Neil Savage
> >
> >Better biofuel: Stephen del Cardayre, a biochemist and LS9's vice
> >president for research and development.
> >Credit: Saul Bromberger and Sandra Hoover
> >Related Articles:
> >. A Better Biofuel
> >4/3/2007 . Building
> >Better Biofuels
> >6/6/2007 . Biofuels:
> >Beyond Corn
> >6/21/2007
> >The biofuel of the future could well be gasoline. That's the hope of
> >one biotech startup that on Monday described for the first time how
> >it is coaxing
> >bacteria into
> >producing hydrocarbons that could be processed into fuels like those
> >made from petroleum.
> >LS9, a company based in San Carlos, CA, and
> >founded by geneticist George Church, of Harvard Medical School, and
> >plant biologist Chris Somerville, of Stanford University, had
> >previously said that it was working on what it calls "renewable
> >petroleum." But at a Society for Industrial
> >Microbiology conference on Monday, the company began speaking more
> >openly about what it has accomplished: it has genetically engineered
> >various bacteria, including E. coli, to custom-produce hydrocarbon
> >chains.
> >To do this, the company is employing tools from the field of
> >synthetic biology
> >to modify the genetic pathways that bacteria, plants, and animals
> >use to make fatty acids, one of the main ways that organisms store
> >energy. Fatty acids are chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms strung
> >together in a particular arrangement, with a carboxylic acid group
> >made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen attached at one end. Take away
> >the acid, and you're left with a hydrocarbon that can be made into
> >fuel.
> >"I am very impressed with what they're doing," says James Collins,
> >co-director of the Center for Advanced
> >Biotechnology at Boston University. He calls the company's use of
> >synthetic biology and systems biology to engineer
> >hydrocarbon-producing bacteria "cutting edge."
> >In some cases, LS9's researchers used standard recombinant DNA
> >techniques to insert genes into the microbes. In other cases, they
> >redesigned known genes with a computer and synthesized them. The
> >resulting modified bacteria make and excrete hydrocarbon molecules
> >that are the length and molecular structure the company desires.
> >Stephen del Cardayre, a biochemist and LS9's vice president for
> >research and development, says the company can make hundreds of
> >different hydrocarbon molecules. The process can yield crude oil
> >without the contaminating sulfur that much petroleum out of the
> >ground contains. The crude, in turn, would go to a standard refinery
> >to be processed into automotive fuel, jet fuel, diesel fuel, or any
> >other petroleum product that someone wanted to make.
> >Next year LS9 will build a pilot plant in California to test and
> >perfect the process, and the company hopes to be selling improved
> >biodiesel and providing synthetic biocrudes to refineries for
> >further processing within three to five years. (See
> >"Building Better
> >Biofuels.")
> >But LS9 isn't the only company in this game.
> >Amyris Biotechnologies, of
> >Emeryville, CA, is also using genes from plants and animals to make
> >microbes produce designer fuels. Neil Renninger, senior vice
> >president of development and one of the company's cofounders, says
> >that Amyris has also created bacteria capable of supplying renewable
> >hydrocarbon-based fuels. The main difference between the companies,
> >Renninger says, is that while LS9 is working on a biocrude that
> >would be processed in a refinery, Amyris is working on directly
> >producing fuels that would need little or no further processing.
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