With tensions building worldwide and the future of oil supplies more uncertain today than ever before, it may be time to look into alternatives to fuel creation. And scientists at LS9 have developed a method of fuel production that does just that. Remember E. Coli, that bacteria we're all supposed to fear from meat? Well it might just be welcomed back a bit differently with LS9 in the lab. It may actually save the fuel industry.
E. Coli, the single cell bacteria that so commonly reaches headlines only accompanied by the words "outbreak" or "tainted" may be showing up with another qualifier, "miraculous." And it's nothing short of miraculous what this company has been promoting since news of its creation reached the public in 2008. But in 2011 the world is a different place. And it may warrant even more exploration into just how seriously this alternative technology can be implemented. Will we soon be living in a world where fuel is grown rather than drilled from the Earth?
The genetically modified E. Coli was first developed not in a lab, but in a garage where the company's vice president and chief biochemist Stephen del Cardayre discovered the bacteria could be engineered to transform sugar into oil after being digested by E. Coli. And the E. Coli itself is now finding itself more welcome than before in the labs of entrepreneurs.
But alternative fuels have been in the media before often with the suggestion that they may require great deals of modification to the average consumer's engine, an unprecedented and revamped infrastructure to handle the fuel, and among other things an increased cost that will make adopting them even more painful than most apocalyptic peak oil suggestions.
In an interview with CNN in 2008, Cardavre said the fuel created was ready for consumption and was nothing more than standard diesel engines. He then went on to say that the fuel could convert anything from wood chippings to convert to fuel. But the problem then was the same as the problem today. Although it could technically create working diesel, it would take quite a while before the stuff actually would become viable.
And so it seems we have the power struggle of the future panning out. The question is not simply can you make a better mousetrap, but can you make a better mousetrap for less? And with fuel being the mousetrap with the most scientists working on it at the moment, it seems cost is the foremost thing on everyone's mind. But if we can find a fuel that is efficient and cost effective, it may change the globe as we know it.
Scientists earlier this year announced that they could manufacture a synthetic fuel for a cost at half of fuel prices in the United States today. The UK company, Cella Energy says the oil could change the world in the coming years in the event of a fuel crisis.
