Blue Cameleon wallpaper. Not all cameleons can change color, but none of them can actually change to this shade of blue. One of the physical traits possessed by some cameleons, and often neglected, is their prehensile tail. Few lizards can use their tail to grasp.
Recently, scientists reported a significant step toward that futuristic goal: an engineered strain of the gut bacterium Escherichia coli that can make a diesel-like mixture of hydrocarbons.
The researchers, at South San Francisco-based biotech company LS9 Inc., created their biological hydrocarbon factory using genes from water-dwelling blue-green algae that naturally make tiny amounts of the fuel. They transplanted the genes into E. coli and, with a few more genetic tweaks, adjusted the bug’s metabolism so it churned out 100 times more fuel than the algae did.
The finding, published in the journal Science, is the company’s second announcement this year of a bacterium with fuel-production abilities.
Viewed from a purely scientific perspective this is fascinating news. It is the real world implications that are cause for concern. Further on in the article,
Emeryville, Calif.-based Amyris Inc. uses engineered yeast to convert sugar into a molecule called farnesene that can be used as a diesel substitute.
…In 2008, Amyris opened a pilot plant in Brazil, where sugar cane is cheap and plentiful, and last month began testing its fuel in six buses in Sao Paulo. It is working toward commercialization in 2011, Newman said.
Actually sugar cane is not cheap. It takes quite a bit of land, water and nutrients to produce. In addition is the value lost due to destruction of forests and wetlands. Our fossil fuels are in fact time and nature’s engineered biofuels. They just took millions of years to produce. The new biofuels look as though they will need plenty of water, land and something like hectare sized petri dished to make. This doesn’t mean a new biofuel such as LS9’s is not economically or environmentally feasible, only to proceed with caution in regards the real costs.
Stanford’s New Solar Cells Are The First to Produce Electricity From Both Light and Heat
Using readily available materials, a team of engineers has come up with the first solar technology to combine photovoltaic and thermal electricity generation.
Called “photon enhanced thermionic emission,” or PETE, the process uses cesium to more than double existing systems’ efficiency levels. PETE devices could be easily incorporated into existing solar collection systems, and they’re cheap to boot.
You”l hear more about celebrity scandals today then you will about this extraordinary breakthrough. people still get most of their news from the broadcast media and they don’t do science and technology very well. A phenomenon not completely the media’s fault. They broadcast what draws the highest number of viewers, which in turn makes their advertisers happy. On with the critical look at the PETE technology. They used gallium nitride in their prototype because of its chemical properties – resistance to high temperatures and brittleness. Gallium nitride can be produced in quantity, but it still relatively expensive and toxic. The somewhat good news is they hope to use gallium arsenide ( already in use in circuits and other household products). Still the gallium itself is rare compared to silicon ( also used for circuits). The arsenide is poisonous, but used in crystals for things like solar cells not very reactive to the environment. Direct ingestion would be the biggest issue, but even then not much would be absorbed. On the other land raw quantities, in say a damaged solar array, could leech into the water supply. This should be viewed in light of the fact we’re surrounded by substances that are potentially toxic. The big issue here for green energy remains costs. Being something like a solar array upgrade, the cost picture and thus the ease of adapting PETE, shows some amazing potential for producing a leap in solar energy efficiency.
tangledwing 