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Rainforest Fungus Naturally Synthesizes Diesel
- qwph 18y agoThis makes me wonder how many amazing species have been lost through deforestation without us ever knowing what benefits they could have had...
- Chocobean 18y agothat's right: we are no only destroying our environment, we are also destroying the parts of our environment that can help us not to destroy it. Efficiency, thy name is man.
- randrews 18y agoYou're awfully optimistic. Who says that a fungus that makes diesel fuel won't just encourage people to chop down more rainforest so they can make diesel fuel out of it?
- Protophore 18y agoWhy take the effort to chop down trees to make fuel when we already produce enough cellulose from crops (corn stalks, sawdust etc) to make a lot of biofuel? It would be more cost effective to use sawdust from wood mills, corn stalks, etc (things normally seen as waste materials) to make fuel than it would be to go out and chop down trees. Not only would you have to expend a lot of energy to chop down the trees and transport them, but you would have to process them into a more usable form. I doubt it would work well to simply coat an entire tree with a fungus and wait for it to be decomposed. You would want to grind the tree up into smaller bits to increase the surface area the fungus has to grow on .
- randrews 18y agoAssuming you have sawdust and corn stalks. If you're in a part of the world where rainforest is more plentiful than either of those, and you're chopping it down anyway to make farmland...
- mhb 18y agoCan you come to my next party?
- qwph 18y agoThat probably depends on where it is. ;)
- DTrejo 18y agoOil may no longer be a fossil fuel! Now we can all stop feeling guilty. At the same time though, carbon sequestration becomes crucial (assuming this organism's ability to make crude begins to be used commercially). Oh, and don't forget about tighter emission standards, among other things.
- alex_stoddard 18y agoWhy are you worried about carbon sequestration? If you are using plant matter to feed the fungus then the carbon source for the fuel is atmospheric carbon dioxide - "pre-sequestered" carbon, if you will. As I understand it, the issue with fossil fuel carbon emissions is we are releasing ancient carbon dioxide.
- rgrieselhuber 18y agoI'd prefer we left the rainforests alone and focused on other energy sources.
- ggrot 18y agoThe article kinda is lacking technical depth, makes me wonder how sensationalist it is or if there really is something there.
- streety 18y agoThe journal article is available: http://mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/154/11/3319?view=long&pmid=18957585 http://mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/154/11/3319?view...