Scotty beam me up, there is no intelligent life down here!!
Though I guess life finds a way
Well its good that we know evolution doesn't exist so we wont have to worry about this man made bio product adapting.
Unless God wills it, OFC...
Would be much better if they could make it 2 Stage:
1) CO2>>some rather safe substance, but not Fuel
2) In a highly controlled(Vats) environment, Some rather safe substance>>>Fuel
I'm just wondering if this microbe dies when released into the atmosphere, or if it has the potential to cause widespread extinction via removing CO2 upon which plant life depends.
I'm just wondering if this microbe dies when released into the atmosphere, or if it has the potential to cause widespread extinction via removing CO2 upon which plant life depends.
I know of no way to guarantee that it couldn't happen. You could cause a mutation such that multiple nutrients were needed for it to survive, however bacteria do have sex after a fashion and normal e. coli could donate genetic material which would fix that. E. coli have one circular chromosome and can do a whole bunch of neat stuff.
I doubt these microbes would be that successful in the wild. They waste a huge amount of energy in producing the fuel instead of producing more microbes. I think the lab is more interested in protecting the microbes from outside species than protecting the outside species from the fuel producers.
Why introduce inefficiencies into the system? That makes no sense at all.
BTW Moonbeam is right, there needs to be substantial safeguards built into the system. Last thing we need is bacteria sex making them viable outside the lab.
To prevent them from escaping into the Wild.
We prevent them from getting into your system with pasteurization. You don't have to turn milk into something else then back to milk.
Lab development vs commerical use have a bridge that requires crossing.
Scaling up to handle productin may be a serious issue
This is a modified version of an organism that already exists. No one made anything "from scratch".Indeed. These organisms already exist somewhere in the wild and haven't spread to destroy the earth. At least I'm fairly certain we're not gods yet that can create organic life from scratch.
, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent
lolwut?
Come on man, you must know that's a stupid point.
Call me cynical but allow me to translate. A company about to go public with an IPO which is highly secretive because they a full of shit just came out with the ole infinite energy bromide and wants you to buy so they can retire on a island in the Caribbean.
"Them" being bacteria. There have been outbreaks of tuberculosis and e. coli from raw milk so pasteurization was employed. The same process can be used to sterilize what these bacteria produce. Heat is applied to fuel all the time so it's not like anything is going to blow up. Of course there are other ways to accomplish this. There's no technical challenge here.
I see what you were getting at, the Fuel containing/or not the e-coli wasn't my concern. The Process itself was an open air(I believe)pool. My concern was the bacteria escaping and begin creating pools of Fuel in the Wild. The 2 Stage process I suggested would lower that risk by only releasing a harmless, although probably inconvenient, affect in the Wild.
The second stage would be far more contained....
....ah wait a minute, perhaps I have the Process(Open Air) wrong. They'll certainly have to take precautions, even in a large contained complex, but as long as it's not Open Air, one stage should be fine.