Venter/Exxon deal reaction, future of syn bio energy production.
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Joseph Jackson
Jul 22, 2009, 10:49:35 PM7/22/09
to DIYbio
Reactions are coming in now to the $600 million investment of Exxon in
partnership with Venter's start up, Synthetic Genomics.
Overview here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/blog/energy/renewables/energywise/bioengineering-algae-for-fuels
"Venter and Synthetic Genomics, along with Exxon Mobil, could add a
much-needed boost to the prospect of using algae instead of more
conventional feedstocks for the production of biofuels. Indeed, the
possibility that algae can be harnessed in this way is about the only
reason to hold out much hope that biofuels will ever provide the world
with large amounts of renewable transportation fuel that is
environmentally benign to produce.
Let me try to defend that brash statement. For argument's sake,
consider the production of biodiesel, a gallon of which can run a car
virtually the same distance as a gallon of petroleum diesel. To keep
things concrete, let's also say that the target is to have all of the
diesel used as transportation fuel in the United States be biodiesel--
according the Energy Information Administration, that's about 45
billion gallons a year. (Keep in the back of your mind, too, that this
is but a small fraction of the gasoline Americans use: some 141
billion gallons a year.)
If you made all that biodiesel from, say, rapeseed oil, how much land
would it take? For that you need to know that an acre of rapeseed can
generate about 100 gallons of biodiesel a year. So the math is simple:
It would take 450 million acres--about a fifth of the all the land
area in the United States. This is roughly equal to all the cropland
in this country (406 million acres, according to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture).
And that just satisfies the need for diesel fuel; it does nothing to
put a dent in the petroleum used to make gasoline.
How environmentally friendly would it be, after all, to double the
area under cultivation? Replacing vast areas of fallow farmland and
forests with monoculture would be a high price to pay for making the
use of diesel in our cars and trucks be carbon neutral.
And it probably wouldn't even do that, if you account for the carbon
released from the soil in process. This argument is well quantified by
Joseph Fargione of the Nature Conservancy and four colleagues in a
report last year in the journal Science.
So what's an environmentally conscious biofuel advocate to do? One
answer is to look for a feedstock that provides many more gallons per
acre.
Which brings us back to the possibility of using algae. These single-
celled organisms grow much, much faster than more familiar plants,
allowing perhaps several thousand gallons of biodiesel to be produced
from each acre. That's almost two orders of magnitude better than
rapeseed. So, in theory, it would be possible to satisfy U.S. needs
for diesel fuel using a reasonable amount of real estate. Indeed, you
can even imaging displacing the petroleum used for gas this way
without sacrificing too great a fraction of U.S. land.
The problem is that nobody has yet figured out how to turn algae into
fuel economically.
Closed bioreactors, in which you can control the growing conditions,
would be terribly costly at the scale required. Shallow open ponds are
a lot cheaper, but they are susceptible to being taken over by algal
species other than the one was intended to be grown. Researchers ran
into this problem in the 1980s when they set up demonstration
facilities for growing algae as part of the U.S. Department of
Energy's Algal Species Program.
Here's where I suspect that modern biotechnology can give this
enterprise a real boost. Maybe molecular biologists will be able to
engineer an oil-rich algal species that grows happily under conditions
that would kill off the competition--say, a Monsanto-approved "Roundup
Ready" species of algae that can thrive in water laced with this
herbicide. Okay, maybe Roundup is too nasty to want to spread over an
area the size of a small state. But perhaps some other tactic can be
used, say, the absence of a key nutrient that only the genetically
engineered species can compensate for. "
On the environmentalist side people are already upset about the BP-
Berkeley partnership for 500 million (I talked to some Berkeley
students when visiting campus last week and they had negative
perception, but hey, they are Berkeley students!!!)
http://www.foe.org/friends-earth-reacts-exxon-synthetic-genomics-deal-develop-novel-algae-biofuel
"
In general, while it is promising to see the oil industry investigate
alternative sources of energy production, investing in biofuels is not
necessarily sustainable or "green." Biofuels, if anything, are a
short-term way to transition us from using fossil fuels to more long-
term, truly sustainable sources of energy like wind and solar power.
The oil industry invests heavily in these new types of biofuels
because it is the easiest way for them to stay in business and
guarantee their place in the energy market. Many of these oil
companies are making steep investments in synthetic biology because
they can literally own the very microorganisms that aim to produce
fuel because of the current patentability of DNA. If synthetic
biology proves successful, Big Oil will not only own the fuel itself,
but own the very life form that produces it.
The biofuel industry is currently facing a shift from conventional,
first-generation biofuels to so-called advanced biofuels as it becomes
more clear that corn-based ethanol and soybean biodiesel are neither
ecologically, socially or economically sustainable. Advanced biofuels
-- algae, synthetic biology, cellulosic -- are still being researched,
and it is still uncertain whether many of these potential fuels will
be sustainable. However, each of these types of biofuel will require
a massive amount of plant material. This means that some sort of
plant will have to be mass produced and harvested, which corporate
agribusiness has demonstrated is unsustainable, and even then it is
estimated that we cannot produce enough biomass to meet current fuel
demand projections.
Exxon is one of the dirtiest companies that exist today. It is
amazing that they were the biggest global warming deniers, yet today
they are the latest Big Oil company to be investing in alternative
energy technologies. We need to see if this is purely a public
relations stunt -- will they spend the same amount of money
advertising this investment as the investment itself? Are they
investing in any truly "green" technology such as wind or solar? The
jury is out."
Finally, on MIT tech review there were some interesting comments
especially this musing on a DIY approach for your swimming pool or
something. Feasibility highly questionable but certainly fits with my
preference and vision for what the future energy economy should look
like--hint, not Venter and Exxon owning everything!
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23039/
"Algae's grow in water (fresh or Salt), with simple sunlight and can
be augmented with CO2 for more rapid growth. The stuff isn't dried to
pull out the oils (lipids) for Biofuel.
You could probably flood some of the Mojave Desert or Death Valley
areas with brackish water, dump in some starter cultures for these
genetically engineered algae's, pipe in some CO2 using the nations
network of oil pipelines for transporting sequestered CO2 and let the
stuff grow wild.
All you would have to do is collect the pond scum that developes
periodically and refine it somehow.
What some really smart guy needs to do is develop a DIY kit for
homeowners to brew up their own and make the American Dream a reality
by allowing each of us to be self sufficient.
The comment about spending $100 on cleaning up the family pool is
interesting in that you could probably install your pond in your back
yard and grow your own fuel per se is not that far fetched. It depends
on how aggressive these algaes can grow. Like Genetic Corn seed, you
buy your starter cultures from some "algae" supplier and farm your own
goo.
Anybody have a picture of what an Algae Refinery Looks Like? Scale one
down and have Popular Mechanics draw up some plans for a weekend
warrior project."
partnership with Venter's start up, Synthetic Genomics.
Overview here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/blog/energy/renewables/energywise/bioengineering-algae-for-fuels
"Venter and Synthetic Genomics, along with Exxon Mobil, could add a
much-needed boost to the prospect of using algae instead of more
conventional feedstocks for the production of biofuels. Indeed, the
possibility that algae can be harnessed in this way is about the only
reason to hold out much hope that biofuels will ever provide the world
with large amounts of renewable transportation fuel that is
environmentally benign to produce.
Let me try to defend that brash statement. For argument's sake,
consider the production of biodiesel, a gallon of which can run a car
virtually the same distance as a gallon of petroleum diesel. To keep
things concrete, let's also say that the target is to have all of the
diesel used as transportation fuel in the United States be biodiesel--
according the Energy Information Administration, that's about 45
billion gallons a year. (Keep in the back of your mind, too, that this
is but a small fraction of the gasoline Americans use: some 141
billion gallons a year.)
If you made all that biodiesel from, say, rapeseed oil, how much land
would it take? For that you need to know that an acre of rapeseed can
generate about 100 gallons of biodiesel a year. So the math is simple:
It would take 450 million acres--about a fifth of the all the land
area in the United States. This is roughly equal to all the cropland
in this country (406 million acres, according to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture).
And that just satisfies the need for diesel fuel; it does nothing to
put a dent in the petroleum used to make gasoline.
How environmentally friendly would it be, after all, to double the
area under cultivation? Replacing vast areas of fallow farmland and
forests with monoculture would be a high price to pay for making the
use of diesel in our cars and trucks be carbon neutral.
And it probably wouldn't even do that, if you account for the carbon
released from the soil in process. This argument is well quantified by
Joseph Fargione of the Nature Conservancy and four colleagues in a
report last year in the journal Science.
So what's an environmentally conscious biofuel advocate to do? One
answer is to look for a feedstock that provides many more gallons per
acre.
Which brings us back to the possibility of using algae. These single-
celled organisms grow much, much faster than more familiar plants,
allowing perhaps several thousand gallons of biodiesel to be produced
from each acre. That's almost two orders of magnitude better than
rapeseed. So, in theory, it would be possible to satisfy U.S. needs
for diesel fuel using a reasonable amount of real estate. Indeed, you
can even imaging displacing the petroleum used for gas this way
without sacrificing too great a fraction of U.S. land.
The problem is that nobody has yet figured out how to turn algae into
fuel economically.
Closed bioreactors, in which you can control the growing conditions,
would be terribly costly at the scale required. Shallow open ponds are
a lot cheaper, but they are susceptible to being taken over by algal
species other than the one was intended to be grown. Researchers ran
into this problem in the 1980s when they set up demonstration
facilities for growing algae as part of the U.S. Department of
Energy's Algal Species Program.
Here's where I suspect that modern biotechnology can give this
enterprise a real boost. Maybe molecular biologists will be able to
engineer an oil-rich algal species that grows happily under conditions
that would kill off the competition--say, a Monsanto-approved "Roundup
Ready" species of algae that can thrive in water laced with this
herbicide. Okay, maybe Roundup is too nasty to want to spread over an
area the size of a small state. But perhaps some other tactic can be
used, say, the absence of a key nutrient that only the genetically
engineered species can compensate for. "
On the environmentalist side people are already upset about the BP-
Berkeley partnership for 500 million (I talked to some Berkeley
students when visiting campus last week and they had negative
perception, but hey, they are Berkeley students!!!)
http://www.foe.org/friends-earth-reacts-exxon-synthetic-genomics-deal-develop-novel-algae-biofuel
"
In general, while it is promising to see the oil industry investigate
alternative sources of energy production, investing in biofuels is not
necessarily sustainable or "green." Biofuels, if anything, are a
short-term way to transition us from using fossil fuels to more long-
term, truly sustainable sources of energy like wind and solar power.
The oil industry invests heavily in these new types of biofuels
because it is the easiest way for them to stay in business and
guarantee their place in the energy market. Many of these oil
companies are making steep investments in synthetic biology because
they can literally own the very microorganisms that aim to produce
fuel because of the current patentability of DNA. If synthetic
biology proves successful, Big Oil will not only own the fuel itself,
but own the very life form that produces it.
The biofuel industry is currently facing a shift from conventional,
first-generation biofuels to so-called advanced biofuels as it becomes
more clear that corn-based ethanol and soybean biodiesel are neither
ecologically, socially or economically sustainable. Advanced biofuels
-- algae, synthetic biology, cellulosic -- are still being researched,
and it is still uncertain whether many of these potential fuels will
be sustainable. However, each of these types of biofuel will require
a massive amount of plant material. This means that some sort of
plant will have to be mass produced and harvested, which corporate
agribusiness has demonstrated is unsustainable, and even then it is
estimated that we cannot produce enough biomass to meet current fuel
demand projections.
Exxon is one of the dirtiest companies that exist today. It is
amazing that they were the biggest global warming deniers, yet today
they are the latest Big Oil company to be investing in alternative
energy technologies. We need to see if this is purely a public
relations stunt -- will they spend the same amount of money
advertising this investment as the investment itself? Are they
investing in any truly "green" technology such as wind or solar? The
jury is out."
Finally, on MIT tech review there were some interesting comments
especially this musing on a DIY approach for your swimming pool or
something. Feasibility highly questionable but certainly fits with my
preference and vision for what the future energy economy should look
like--hint, not Venter and Exxon owning everything!
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23039/
"Algae's grow in water (fresh or Salt), with simple sunlight and can
be augmented with CO2 for more rapid growth. The stuff isn't dried to
pull out the oils (lipids) for Biofuel.
You could probably flood some of the Mojave Desert or Death Valley
areas with brackish water, dump in some starter cultures for these
genetically engineered algae's, pipe in some CO2 using the nations
network of oil pipelines for transporting sequestered CO2 and let the
stuff grow wild.
All you would have to do is collect the pond scum that developes
periodically and refine it somehow.
What some really smart guy needs to do is develop a DIY kit for
homeowners to brew up their own and make the American Dream a reality
by allowing each of us to be self sufficient.
The comment about spending $100 on cleaning up the family pool is
interesting in that you could probably install your pond in your back
yard and grow your own fuel per se is not that far fetched. It depends
on how aggressive these algaes can grow. Like Genetic Corn seed, you
buy your starter cultures from some "algae" supplier and farm your own
goo.
Anybody have a picture of what an Algae Refinery Looks Like? Scale one
down and have Popular Mechanics draw up some plans for a weekend
warrior project."
Bryan Bishop
Jul 22, 2009, 11:03:00 PM7/22/09
to diy...@googlegroups.com, kan...@gmail.com, diytrans...@googlegroups.com
On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 9:49 PM, Joseph Jackson wrote:
> Reactions are coming in now to the $600 million investment of Exxon in
> partnership with Venter's start up, Synthetic Genomics.
> Reactions are coming in now to the $600 million investment of Exxon in
> partnership with Venter's start up, Synthetic Genomics.
For almost a year now I have been working on an algae biofuel project
with a professor at the local university. However, the project is not
allowed to use synthetic biology or any genetic engineering, and
selective optimization (via directed evolution) is generally frowned
upon. Given the chance, I would of course be much more interested in
engineering a way to kindly ask the algae to give up their lipids
through membrane channels, instead of going through these many, many
list of different ways of processing the algae (ultrasound, expellers,
lasers, nanobars, hexane, etc. etc.). One particular subproject has
been the design of a way to extract the algae with only using a pump
and a peculiar channel geometry (I've been hacking away at a simulator
for a while now). Anyway, maybe one day (soon) I'll get the balls to
quit and go open source.
Joseph Jackson
Jul 22, 2009, 11:15:34 PM7/22/09
to DIYbio
Reactions are coming in now to the $600 million investment of Exxon in
partnership with Venter's start up, Synthetic Genomics.
partnership with Venter's start up, Synthetic Genomics.
Meredith L. Patterson
Jul 23, 2009, 7:27:05 AM7/23/09
to diy...@googlegroups.com
On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 2:49 AM, Joseph
Jackson<joseph....@gmail.com> quoted some other dude:
> You could probably flood some of the Mojave Desert or Death Valley
> areas with brackish water, dump in some starter cultures for these
> genetically engineered algae's, pipe in some CO2 using the nations
> network of oil pipelines for transporting sequestered CO2 and let the
> stuff grow wild.
Jackson<joseph....@gmail.com> quoted some other dude:
> You could probably flood some of the Mojave Desert or Death Valley
> areas with brackish water, dump in some starter cultures for these
> genetically engineered algae's, pipe in some CO2 using the nations
> network of oil pipelines for transporting sequestered CO2 and let the
> stuff grow wild.
What's with the hate on for Death Valley? This is the second time in
as many days that I've seen a proposal for putting it underwater.
(Different mailing list.)
It may be terribly inhospitable to humans, but Death Valley actually
has some amazing biodiversity, including several species that don't
live anywhere else. The Badwater snail, Assiminea infirma, inhabits
the springs at the edge of the salt flats. Think about that for a
moment: an *entire species* with a habitat maybe a few hundred square
meters in size, tops.
Not Joseph's fault -- he was citing someone else -- but, really, no
one needs to go around destroying unique desert environments to
harvest algae.
Somewhat relatedly, I've been thinking for a few years that it would
be cool to figure out how to harvest algae from the blooms in the Gulf
of Mexico and at other river deltas. Fertilizer from all the farms
along the Mississippi gets swept into the gulf, algae consume it and
proliferate, and you end up with nasty water, fewer fish and more
jellyfish. If we could figure out an economical way to skim off some
of that algae and turn it into biofuel, it would help to rehabilitate
the gulf environment *and* provide fuel.
I was thinking about autonomous robots with something like baleen to
skim up the algae and bring it back to, say, a disused drilling
platform that acts as home base -- the Roombas of the sea -- but
that's just one idea.
Cheers,
--mlp
Dick Gordon
Aug 1, 2009, 8:30:51 PM8/1/09
to DIYbio
You might want to do the calculations for our solar panel approach,
which at least is amenable to your dream: “homeowners to brew up their
Ramachandra, T.V., D.M. Mahapatra, Karthick B. & R. Gordon (2009).
Milking diatoms for sustainable energy: biochemical engineering versus
gasoline-secreting diatom solar panels [invited]. Industrial &
Engineering Chemistry Research 48(19, Complex Materials II special
issue, October), http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ie900044j.
Yours, -Dick Gordon
which at least is amenable to your dream: “homeowners to brew up their
own and make the American Dream a reality by allowing each of us to be
self sufficient”. See:
Ramachandra, T.V., D.M. Mahapatra, Karthick B. & R. Gordon (2009).
Milking diatoms for sustainable energy: biochemical engineering versus
gasoline-secreting diatom solar panels [invited]. Industrial &
Engineering Chemistry Research 48(19, Complex Materials II special
issue, October), http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ie900044j.
Yours, -Dick Gordon
JonathanCline
Aug 2, 2009, 11:23:53 AM8/2/09
to DIYbio
On Aug 1, 7:30 pm, Dick Gordon <dickgordon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> See:
>
> Ramachandra, T.V., D.M. Mahapatra, Karthick B. & R. Gordon (2009).
> Milking diatoms for sustainable energy: biochemical engineering versus
> gasoline-secreting diatom solar panels [invited]. Industrial &
> Engineering Chemistry Research 48(19, Complex Materials II special
> issue, October),http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ie900044j.
Since your paper isn't publicly viewable, perhaps you could summarize
> See:
>
> Ramachandra, T.V., D.M. Mahapatra, Karthick B. & R. Gordon (2009).
> Milking diatoms for sustainable energy: biochemical engineering versus
> gasoline-secreting diatom solar panels [invited]. Industrial &
> Engineering Chemistry Research 48(19, Complex Materials II special
> issue, October),http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ie900044j.
the conclusion?
## Jonathan Cline
## jcl...@ieee.org
## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
########################
Dick Gordon
Aug 3, 2009, 8:03:25 AM8/3/09
to DIYbio
August 3, 2009
Dear Jonathan,
Here’s the abstract. Would be glad to send preprint PDF on request to
DickGo...@gmail.com:
Ramachandra, T.V., D.M. Mahapatra, Karthick B. & R. Gordon (2009).
Milking diatoms for sustainable energy: biochemical engineering versus
gasoline-secreting diatom solar panels [invited]. Industrial &
Engineering Chemistry Research 48(19, Complex Materials II special
issue, October), http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ie900044j.
In the face of increasing CO2 emissions from conventional energy
(gasoline), and the anticipated scarcity of crude oil, a worldwide
effort is underway for cost-effective renewable alternative energy
sources. Here, we review a simple line of reasoning: (a) geologists
claim that much crude oil comes from diatoms; (b) diatoms do indeed
make oil; (c) agriculturists claim that diatoms could make 10-200
times as much oil per hectare as oil seeds; and (d) therefore,
sustainable energy could be made from diatoms. In this communication,
we propose ways of harvesting oil from diatoms, using biochemical
engineering and also a new solar panel approach that utilizes
genomically modifiable aspects of diatom biology, offering the
prospect of “milking” diatoms for sustainable energy by altering them
to actively secrete oil products. Secretion by and milking of diatoms
may provide a way around the puzzle of how to make algae that both
grow quickly and have a very high oil content.
Dear Jonathan,
Here’s the abstract. Would be glad to send preprint PDF on request to
DickGo...@gmail.com:
Ramachandra, T.V., D.M. Mahapatra, Karthick B. & R. Gordon (2009).
Milking diatoms for sustainable energy: biochemical engineering versus
gasoline-secreting diatom solar panels [invited]. Industrial &
Engineering Chemistry Research 48(19, Complex Materials II special
issue, October), http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ie900044j.
(gasoline), and the anticipated scarcity of crude oil, a worldwide
effort is underway for cost-effective renewable alternative energy
sources. Here, we review a simple line of reasoning: (a) geologists
claim that much crude oil comes from diatoms; (b) diatoms do indeed
make oil; (c) agriculturists claim that diatoms could make 10-200
times as much oil per hectare as oil seeds; and (d) therefore,
sustainable energy could be made from diatoms. In this communication,
we propose ways of harvesting oil from diatoms, using biochemical
engineering and also a new solar panel approach that utilizes
genomically modifiable aspects of diatom biology, offering the
prospect of “milking” diatoms for sustainable energy by altering them
to actively secrete oil products. Secretion by and milking of diatoms
may provide a way around the puzzle of how to make algae that both
grow quickly and have a very high oil content.
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