bacteria that eat waste and produce biofuel.

vincenzo1975

you probably heard about this already, i was just wondering what your opinions were.

http://www.nextnature.net/?p=2495

They are actually going into production as we speak. 20 billion gallons to be produced by 2020.....

http://www.amyrisbiotech.com/news_042308.html

Tzetze

It's fascinating stuff. Definitely the way of the future. Watched a TED vid recently on the same topic. Craig Venter talks about creating synthetic life (and tweaking their genome to different fuel/waste combinations).

It holds huge promise for the future of the environment. Watched another vid on TED about mushrooms where the speaker mentioned the fact that fungii feed off radiation. Technologies like these could hopefully be the path to being able to reprocess some of our most toxic wastes.

eVeNtInE

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vincenzo1975

yes I did, I wanted two very different takes on it to be honest.

Tzetze

I see Ventner's company is still trying to pursue it's first patent on one of it's synthetic bacteria. Whenever the first patent comes through (to whoever it may be), it'll be a huge landmark occasion. Opens up a whole can of ethical worms.

r3nu4l

Indeed, bioremediation is not new in any way. We've been using bacteria and yeast to mop up toxic waste for a long time now. The idea of using organisms to create biofuels is just the latest development and Craig Venter's idea for synthetic chromosomes is intriguing and brilliant. Hopefully it will work out

I'd like to see a compost bin that produces both compost and biofuel! That would be cool!