5 ms·

Bugs produce diesel on demand

60 points by taytus 14y ago

jcr 14y ago
Original Press Source http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_281715_en.html http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_281715_en.html Actual Paper http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/04/17/1215966110.full.pdf http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/04/17/1215966110.full...
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  I thought I had seen it before. It saves the post processing step that the NASA algae experiment had. Still it's an interesting result.
surrealize 14y ago
Amryis produced a drop-in biofuel before this, but this work appears to use a novel biosynthetic pathway.
artichokeheart 14y ago
Did anyone else looking at the front page of HN jump to the conclusion that if this strain or similar of E. coli could be developed to live of human faeces India could become a future bio-fuel giant
- swombat 14y ago
  Yep, I came to post this. But you beat me to it! India, meet your saviour. Soon, the water tables of India will be awash with... er... Diesel? Hmm, not sure if that's that good a solution?...
  - D9u 14y ago
    Regarding India's sewage issue, I wondered why feces isn't used in a methane digestor, or as fertilizer?
- anonymfus 14y ago
  Or Russia, as predicted in "Moscow 2042" by Vladimir Voinovich. Sorry for spoiler.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  Feces are about 2% carbohydrate by weight, a person produces about 0.75 kg/day, and there are 1.3 billion Indians. You could likely create a few thousands of liters of biodiesel daily. There's just not enough free energy.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  Doing the math, as I'd indicated with my earlier post. 1.3 billion Indians generating 0.75 kg feces each per day, comprised of 3.8% carbohydrate, containing 4 kcal/g. Assume that the biofuel process is typical of other trophic levels, and roughly 10% efficient. Fecal energy content is 148,200,000,000 kcal, or 6.2048376e+14 joule, or 172,357 MWh. One tenth of that is 17,000 MWh. Diesel fuel has an energy densigy of 46.2 MJ/kg, or about 0.0128 KWh/kg. 17,000 MWh is 1,324,675 kg of diesel. At 0.832 kg/l, that's 1,592,157 liters. OK, that's a couple orders of magnitude higher than I'd anticipated. It's about 0.0012 liters per person per day. At 5 liters/100km (roughly 50 MPG), it's enough fuel to carry one person 0.026 km. Used in a 40-seat bus, at half the fuel efficiency (that's a very efficient bus, or there are more than 40 people on it, this is, after all, India), it would be good for about 0.5 km of commute. The world ain't gonna run on poop. At least not human poop alone. And even if you could boost the feedstock by some reasonable multiple (say, 2-16x) by including livestock waste, the numbers don't change enough to make it effective except for very, very heavily overloaded short-haul mass transit. References: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_feces_does_one_person_produce_per_day http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_feces_does_one_person_pro... http://www.clinchem.org/content/44/7/1540.full http://www.clinchem.org/content/44/7/1540.full http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densities_ignoring_external_components http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densities...
regularfry 14y ago
I am not a biochemist. Is this doing an end-run around the energy density problem by converting useless hydrocarbons (which already have a lot of energy stored, but not in a usable form), or does this still need an energy source - be that solar, heat, whatever - to provide the energy to be stored in the biodiesel?
mikhailfranco 14y ago
If these processes ever go into production and create cheap fuel, the world will really change. Presumably it will stop oil extraction industries from the top down, i.e. high cost producers first. So tar sands, shale oil and deep water sub-salt are the first to go (Canada, offshore Brazil, ...). Even though Saudi Arabia is the lowest cost producer, it gives a lot of the profits away to the people, in free health services, education, housing, low cost fuel, and, increasingly, in bundles of cash, to reduce dissent. Of course, the extended royal family takes a huge piece of the pie too. The break-even cost of oil to balance current budgets in the GCC states is in the range $80-130, with exception of Kuwait at $55: http://www.businessinsider.com/breakeven-oil-prices-2012-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/breakeven-oil-prices-2012-6 The current price is around $100 for Brent, so it would only take a 25% price fall to put the whole region in recession and turmoil (note Bahrain is under water at the current price). The 'curse of oil' often means there is not much other industry to take up the slack in these economies, although the UAE has done a much better job than Saudi Arabia on that score. If you add recent news stories about deep sea methane hydrate extraction, and fusion research at Lockheed Martin SkunkWorks, the leaders of the world's oil producing nations must be getting just a little bit apprehensive.
- zimbatm 14y ago
  Oil reserves are like a piggy bank of 100k year. These bacterias still need to be fed with sugar. Like corn oil it means you're diverting arable land to produce that. I'm not sure if it's really cheaper to produce in the end.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  There isn't enough AG production to replace existing petroleum demand with biomass derived biodiesel. All of US corn production converted to alcohol, different from the process here but comperable on fuel potential, would only replace 25% of the nation's oil use. We may gain some use from biofuels, but it will be a small fraction of what we've been used to.
kaleidobug 14y ago
Okay, Awesome. Now find something else that will eat up the carbon being released from burning that diesel fuel.
- bcoates 14y ago
  The bacteria will be fed with sugars from crops that pulled carbon out of the air. The whole cycle would produce energy from sunlight without netting out any carbon release. Given that liquid hydrocarbon fuels aren't going away anytime soon (or possibly ever) finding non-fossil sources for them like this is pretty important.
  - junto 14y ago
    And everyone will starve, but will be able to drive to work! :-)
dreen 14y ago
I thought initially I will be able to run my car for free thanks to this piece of shit enterprise presentation software we have that crashes all the time. I need some coffee.
muriithi 14y ago
The most frustrating thing about reading about exciting discoveries is how few of them ever go into 'production' in the near future. -Graphene -AIDS vaccine -Malaria vaccine -Fusion reactors

60 points by taytus 14y ago

jcr 14y ago

Original Press Source http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_281715_en.html http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_281715_en.html Actual Paper http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/04/17/1215966110.full.pdf http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/04/17/1215966110.full...

ChuckMcM 14y ago
I thought I had seen it before. It saves the post processing step that the NASA algae experiment had. Still it's an interesting result.

surrealize 14y ago

Amryis produced a drop-in biofuel before this, but this work appears to use a novel biosynthetic pathway.

artichokeheart 14y ago

Did anyone else looking at the front page of HN jump to the conclusion that if this strain or similar of E. coli could be developed to live of human faeces India could become a future bio-fuel giant

swombat 14y ago
Yep, I came to post this. But you beat me to it! India, meet your saviour. Soon, the water tables of India will be awash with... er... Diesel? Hmm, not sure if that's that good a solution?...
- D9u 14y ago
  Regarding India's sewage issue, I wondered why feces isn't used in a methane digestor, or as fertilizer?
anonymfus 14y ago
Or Russia, as predicted in "Moscow 2042" by Vladimir Voinovich. Sorry for spoiler.
dredmorbius 14y ago
Feces are about 2% carbohydrate by weight, a person produces about 0.75 kg/day, and there are 1.3 billion Indians. You could likely create a few thousands of liters of biodiesel daily. There's just not enough free energy.
dredmorbius 14y ago
Doing the math, as I'd indicated with my earlier post. 1.3 billion Indians generating 0.75 kg feces each per day, comprised of 3.8% carbohydrate, containing 4 kcal/g. Assume that the biofuel process is typical of other trophic levels, and roughly 10% efficient. Fecal energy content is 148,200,000,000 kcal, or 6.2048376e+14 joule, or 172,357 MWh. One tenth of that is 17,000 MWh. Diesel fuel has an energy densigy of 46.2 MJ/kg, or about 0.0128 KWh/kg. 17,000 MWh is 1,324,675 kg of diesel. At 0.832 kg/l, that's 1,592,157 liters. OK, that's a couple orders of magnitude higher than I'd anticipated. It's about 0.0012 liters per person per day. At 5 liters/100km (roughly 50 MPG), it's enough fuel to carry one person 0.026 km. Used in a 40-seat bus, at half the fuel efficiency (that's a very efficient bus, or there are more than 40 people on it, this is, after all, India), it would be good for about 0.5 km of commute. The world ain't gonna run on poop. At least not human poop alone. And even if you could boost the feedstock by some reasonable multiple (say, 2-16x) by including livestock waste, the numbers don't change enough to make it effective except for very, very heavily overloaded short-haul mass transit. References: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_feces_does_one_person_produce_per_day http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_feces_does_one_person_pro... http://www.clinchem.org/content/44/7/1540.full http://www.clinchem.org/content/44/7/1540.full http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densities_ignoring_external_components http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densities...

regularfry 14y ago

I am not a biochemist. Is this doing an end-run around the energy density problem by converting useless hydrocarbons (which already have a lot of energy stored, but not in a usable form), or does this still need an energy source - be that solar, heat, whatever - to provide the energy to be stored in the biodiesel?

mikhailfranco 14y ago

If these processes ever go into production and create cheap fuel, the world will really change. Presumably it will stop oil extraction industries from the top down, i.e. high cost producers first. So tar sands, shale oil and deep water sub-salt are the first to go (Canada, offshore Brazil, ...). Even though Saudi Arabia is the lowest cost producer, it gives a lot of the profits away to the people, in free health services, education, housing, low cost fuel, and, increasingly, in bundles of cash, to reduce dissent. Of course, the extended royal family takes a huge piece of the pie too. The break-even cost of oil to balance current budgets in the GCC states is in the range $80-130, with exception of Kuwait at $55: http://www.businessinsider.com/breakeven-oil-prices-2012-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/breakeven-oil-prices-2012-6 The current price is around $100 for Brent, so it would only take a 25% price fall to put the whole region in recession and turmoil (note Bahrain is under water at the current price). The 'curse of oil' often means there is not much other industry to take up the slack in these economies, although the UAE has done a much better job than Saudi Arabia on that score. If you add recent news stories about deep sea methane hydrate extraction, and fusion research at Lockheed Martin SkunkWorks, the leaders of the world's oil producing nations must be getting just a little bit apprehensive.

zimbatm 14y ago
Oil reserves are like a piggy bank of 100k year. These bacterias still need to be fed with sugar. Like corn oil it means you're diverting arable land to produce that. I'm not sure if it's really cheaper to produce in the end.
dredmorbius 14y ago
There isn't enough AG production to replace existing petroleum demand with biomass derived biodiesel. All of US corn production converted to alcohol, different from the process here but comperable on fuel potential, would only replace 25% of the nation's oil use. We may gain some use from biofuels, but it will be a small fraction of what we've been used to.

kaleidobug 14y ago

Okay, Awesome. Now find something else that will eat up the carbon being released from burning that diesel fuel.

bcoates 14y ago
The bacteria will be fed with sugars from crops that pulled carbon out of the air. The whole cycle would produce energy from sunlight without netting out any carbon release. Given that liquid hydrocarbon fuels aren't going away anytime soon (or possibly ever) finding non-fossil sources for them like this is pretty important.
- junto 14y ago
  And everyone will starve, but will be able to drive to work! :-)

dreen 14y ago

I thought initially I will be able to run my car for free thanks to this piece of shit enterprise presentation software we have that crashes all the time. I need some coffee.

muriithi 14y ago

The most frustrating thing about reading about exciting discoveries is how few of them ever go into 'production' in the near future. -Graphene -AIDS vaccine -Malaria vaccine -Fusion reactors