> Renewable Energy from Engineered Microbes This has been done. Amyris [1], among those that survived the effort, and JBEI from a quasi-academic approach [2].

> Renewable Energy from Engineered Microbes This has been done. Amyris [1], among those that survived the effort, and JBEI from a quasi-academic approach [2]. From first principles, it just is not a good business proposition to compete to synthesize from scratch one of the very cheapest of commodities. Fuels, by volume, are one of the least expensive chemicals one can buy. The biological technology exists, but competing against a few hundred million year's energetic headstart is just not economically viable (unless oil goes above a few hundred a barrel). The same technology can produce fragrances, medicines, dyes, etc, all which go for hundreds of dollars a liter, or one could produce ethanol which goes for less than a hundred dollars a barrel. And so that's why companies like Zymergen tend to not produce fuels, even though they easily could. [1] https://amyris.com/products/fuels/ https://amyris.com/products/fuels/ [2] https://www.jbei.org/ https://www.jbei.org/