The world of synthetic oil has moved a long way forward in a short space of time. Maybe due to concerns over climate change but just as likely driven by the price of oil, at least until recently, and by the prospect of making a lot of money as well as a lot of oil.
Synthetic oil is not new, originally produced from animal fats, including (unbelievably today) from whale blubber on a massive industrial scale. During World War II, Germany used a coal distillation and hydrogenation process that successfully produced high-octane fuel. South Africa survived the apartheid worldwide embargo by using their enormous coal reserves and produced their own oil this way. Today, India, the US and China are actively looking at doing the same thing. The process is unlikely to be carbon-friendly at all, maybe better than Alberta Tar Sands oil, but not by much.
The future probably doesn’t lie in the pursuit of coal derived oil, nor carbon-intensive dirty oil from tar sands, but it might be swimming on the top of those scummy ponds or even in your own stomach. Algae and bacteria are some of the most active and prevalent plant and animal species to live on the planet. They’ve been around for countless millennia, and will remain long after we have destroyed the planet, but in the meantime they might just offer the possibility of taking some carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere or at least slow down the amount we are putting into it.
Let’s take a look at some of the options that are already being worked on.
First-generation biofuels use food (corn, soy, palm, sugarcane) which have hydrocarbons in their sugars, starches and oils that are extracted by fermentation or by making trans-esters from the organic oils. These are neither energy efficient, nor sustainable, nor price efficient without major subsidies and have their own adverse effect upon food prices.
Second generation biofuels use cellulosic materials such as non-edible parts of food stocks (corn stalks, husks, etc.) as well as from non-food plants such as switchgrass and jatropha. There is even a process to use wood chips to make bio-diesel while using the leftover carbon rich residue for fertilizer, and this process is claimed to be carbon negative.
Third generation biofuels are produced from algae that produce thirty times as much oil as any soy or plant based feedstock grown on agricultural land. These algae can be grown in any location, but ideally in areas of warmth, sun and brackish water. In fact, they can be used to purify water and produce oil at the same time.
Fourth generation biofuels are produced by using microbes, genetically altered, that digest woodchips or wheat straw and the digestive byproduct is hydrocarbon rich. These microbes have been genetically ‘tailored’ to produce certain types of hydrocarbons that are almost direct substitutes for petroleum. They are claimed to be lower in carbon and sulfur content than regular fossil fuels and the overall energy and carbon emission process is claimed to be almost carbon neutral.
One such fourth generation biofuel researcher is Gregory Pal, a senior LS9 director who now directs his Silicon Valley company efforts at making sustainable oil, which they have called Oil 2.0 (in deference to software release updates). LS9 use a genetically modified E-coli bacteria that normally lives in the lower intestines of warm-blooded animals; and they claim that their oil production processes are also carbon negative. Some well known technology investors, such as Vinod Khosla, of Sun Micro-system fame, are behind LS9 and their E-coli mini oil-refineries.
Amyris is another biotech company, helped along by the Gates Foundation some years ago to make cheaper anti-malarial drugs, pursuing their own bio-engineered fuel production. Currently using sugar cane as feedstock for their algae, they aim to produce bio-diesel and jet-fuel substitutes.
Since the World consumes around 3,600,000,000 US gallons of oil a day, the sooner these third and fourth generation biofuels start being used on a commercial scale, perhaps the better. There are sure to be hundreds of questions surrounding the use of genetically engineered bacteria and algae; and thousands of problems to solve before actually being able to produce new Oil.2 at anything like the volumes needed to replace fossil fuels.
The holy biofuel grail may fall to yet another bio-engineer, Craig Venter, famous for being one of the first to map the human genome, has his Synthetic Genomics company researching genetically engineered organisms that can feed on carbon dioxide and produce oil too.
At the very least, algae and bacteria may help offset fossil fuel use, hopefully digesting some of the unwanted waste, including even the carbon dioxide emitted from coal power plants. The company that first gets to commercial scale production at reasonable costs of around $50 a barrel, are likely to be the new Sheiks of world oil, the saviors of global climate change and immortalized in world history, as well as become very wealthy.
However, reducing consumption of all forms of fuel should be pursued just as vigorously as research to find replacements.
Resources
LS9 Inc.: www.ls9.com
Amyris Fuels Inc.: www.amyrisbiotech.com
Synthetic Genomics Inc.: www.syntheticgenomics.com
Trevor Williams is a University of Victoria Mechanical Engineering PhD candidate specialising in renewable energy, power grid modelling and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. He has a bachelors in Aeronautical Engineering, a Masters in Management Science and over 23 years international experience in the space industry, having worked on Earth observation and telecommunications satellites.
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written by sameera , September 01, 2009