Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

[wayiwalk]

Re: Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

To flatter with imitation (Far Side):

etc etc etc..... (cut out to not waste space)


Actually since SS is talking about square cm, and your number is square meters, the result is pretty close.

The error must lie elsewhere.

An additional downside would be if they could get create such an organism, containing it would be essential. Can you imagine what a mess would be made if these cells were set free in lakes, rivers, etc?

Even as someone with limited "environmentalist" tendencies I would have some fear of the potential damage that could cause.

[c1ue]

Re: Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

They did raise $30M in Apr 2010, so apparently their story was convincing enough to their investors to get that far.

Well, Facebook has received $200M, LinkedIn received over $75M, the Muskmobile company received $105M, etc etc.

Funding doesn't mean anything - with the right 'interested parties' and a good story, anything can happen.

I skimmed their patent (#7,785,861 Hyperphotosynthetic Organisms) -- amazingly complex, apparently involving the potential incorporation of hundreds of genes from multiple organisms. Of course there is undoubtedly a big leap between having something working in the lab and scaling it out, and costs can easily escalate -- although they certainly appear to have given that subject considerable thought.

As I noted - it isn't that any component doesn't exist.

It is that to put all of this in a single celled organism is extremely non-trivial.

An additional downside would be if they could get create such an organism, containing it would be essential. Can you imagine what a mess would be made if these cells were set free in lakes, rivers, etc?

Even as someone with limited "environmentalist" tendencies I would have some fear of the potential damage that could cause.

True, but this is actually probably less of an issue. While this organism could live anywhere, it would likely not be able to survive in competition with other organisms not hampered by the gigantic cellular overhead of having to produce biodiesel - unless it mutated to take advantage of its output as a poision or something similar. Again, assuming it can even work!

[Starving Steve]

Re: Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

My point is that solar only works when the sky is clear, and the atmosphere is dry, and the date is near the summer solstice, and the latitude is very low, and the time of day is near solar noon. Then, and only then, you would be able to reap 1 to 1.5 calories per square centimetre per minute. Please be certain that there are no trees or other things such as buildings to block the exposure of your solar panels. Please be certain that you can then store the power and transmit the power with rare-Earth metals. Please be certain that your solar panels and your solar-electric storage and your electric transmission and are 100% efficient.

For the last 30 days, the Vancouver Island Health Authority had me in hospital for mental examinations to even try to tell the truth about solar-electric and what is going on with the eco-bunch, not just here on Vancouver Island but worldwide. (See my blog.)

For bio-diesel, you are up to the same problem: There is not much energy in solar to begin with. So you need vast tracts of land, and water, and a desert climate, and a low latitude, and solar noon, and clear sky, and dry weather, and years of time, and the summer solstice, and 100% efficiency, and no costs, and ............................., etc.

Yes to the nanny government: I took my medications!

[Master Shake]

Re: Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

Steve,

I’m all for ramping up the nuke program, drill-baby-drilling, development of our nat gas (although there seem to be some pretty serious issues with groundwater contamination with fracking), and building dams. I don’t see why that precludes developing alt energy sources.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

Steve,

I’m all for ramping up the nuke program, drill-baby-drilling, development of our nat gas (although there seem to be some pretty serious issues with groundwater contamination with fracking), and building dams. I don’t see why that precludes developing alt energy sources.

+1

[dcarrigg]

Re: Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

Where do you get the E. coli from? In the article they talk about gen enginered cyanobacteria, i.e. blue-green algae.

A previous article named E. Coli. Now it's cyanobacteria. The Globe and Mail has posted a correction since then. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1871149/

The most damning thing here:

http://bostonherald.com/business/gen...icleid=1319842

All of that takes time and energy,” said Sims, noting that Joule’s technology produces more power than the fossil energy that it consumes. “We’re not aware of any biofuel that can make that claim.

Either he's saying that it consumes fossil energy, or he's saying that it violates the laws of Thermodynamics.

Good luck fighting thermodynamics.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

I don't think most of the world has the luxury of time to enjoy at this point. The experiments with "bio-diesel" should have begun 40 years ago.

To dig-out of this mess, it means drilling, fracking and drilling, ocean-floor drilling, huge dams for hydro-electric power, big atomic power plants, natural gas-fired power plants, up-graded oil from tar sands, coal-to-synthetic oil, whatever you can get from dams to harness the power of tides in the sea, and whatever you can get from wind-farms in certain locations ( e.g, the North Sea by Europe, and Mongolia in Asia, and the Great Plains of North America).

In America, the approval process should be five minutes. President Obama needs to write Executive Orders from the White House to enforce five-minute approvals of power projects. Otherwise, the best approach to surviving this would be to sail-away in a sail-boat to the South Pacific, and wave good-bye to this inflationary disaster.

[bill]

Re: Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

To dig-out of this mess, it means drilling, fracking and drilling, ocean-floor drilling, huge dams for hydro-electric power, big atomic power plants, natural gas-fired power plants, up-graded oil from tar sands, coal-to-synthetic oil, whatever you can get from dams to harness the power of tides in the sea, and whatever you can get from wind-farms in certain locations ( e.g, the North Sea by Europe, and Mongolia in Asia, and the Great Plains of North America).

In America, the approval process should be five minutes. President Obama needs to write Executive Orders from the White House to enforce five-minute approvals of power projects. Otherwise, the best approach to surviving this would be to sail-away in a sail-boat to the South Pacific, and wave good-bye to this inflationary disaster.

here ya go SS
http://www.ifandp.com/article/0010033.html

Canada: Progress, but at what cost?

under Featured . Markets March 4th, 2011 by Dr Samuel Fenwick
Dr Samuel Fenwick takes a look at Canada’s energy sector and how it may be affected in the coming years by the changing nature of the global economy and issues across the border.

Currently, Canada’s electricity generation mix is as follows: 60% hydro, 18% coal, 14% nuclear, 6% natural gas, 3% other. This corresponds favourably to that of the US, which is vastly more reliant on coal-fired power stations. However, the carbon intensity of Canada’s overall economy has been rising in recent years, due to the growth of the oil sands sector, which in 2009, were producing 1.3mbpd boe on average and are expected to rise to 2.4mbpd by 2015, according to International Energy Agency (IEA) projections, while conventional oil production is expected to rise from 3.2mbpd to 3.8mbpd over the same period. The IEA estimates that while improvements in extraction techniques will reduce the extra CO₂ released from using oil-sands derived fuel from 50kg/bbl to 40kg/bbl by 2035, this will still generate additional emissions of around 60Mta, compared to the country’s current total emissions of around 550Mta.
This trend is already putting pressure on the Canadian government, given its failure to meet internationally-agreed targets under the Kyoto Protocol and is likely to play a key part in the drive towards the further decarbonisation of the country’s power sector. One issue that could well cause a headache for the oil sands industry is the potential for further volatility in the oil markets. Back in early 2009, oil sand expansion projects were the first to be shelved, due to their higher costs and their reliance on the US as a major source of demand. Indeed of the 22 oil projects suspended for at least 18 months or canceled over the October 2008 – September 2009 period, 15 were Canadian oil sands developments. Now with oil prices having recovered from their 2009 lows at an aggressive pace, there is the danger that another price crash could be on the horizon. On the other hand, should the Middle East’s ability to export oil be called into question by the current unrest, investment in the oil sands sector will likely rise, even if the resulting spike in oil prices triggers another recession in the US.
Another sector expected to benefit from the rise in global energy demand is Canada’s coal industry, which like it’s US cousin is increasingly looking to serve the growing Asian market. The Coalspur Mines Ltd has started a feasibility study for a US$331m coal export project, with the aim of developing a mine capable of producing 9Mta of thermal coal, in Alberta, which will ship its coal via rail to the Ridley export terminal near Prince Rupert in BC, over 500 miles away. The mine is expected to start producing in 2014.
While the oil sands are a boon to Canada's economy and provide the US with increasingly valuable security of supply, their carbon emissions are a political and environment issue that will not go away.

Certainly, unlike many of the world’s developed economies, Canada’s position as a net energy exporter, coupled with its formidable and diverse resource base, means that it has little to fear in terms of energy security. As already mentioned, the major challenges are likely to come from the country’s commitment to reduce CO₂ emissions by 20% by 2020 compared to 2006 and the drive towards greater use of renewables to unlock greater value from its fossil fuel resources, in a manner similar to the programmes currently underway in the Middle East, as exemplified by Abu Dhabi’s Masdar initiative. Although the country’s emission goals are relatively modest compared to those currently being pursued by the EU, they will still require significant changes to how Canada uses and produces its energy.
Recent modelling work performed by Mack Jaccard and Associates for the Canadian government’s “Climate Leadership, Economic Prosperity” report, suggests that the country would need a carbon price of CAD100/st by 2020 to meet the targets, while those put forward by Alberta would require a provincial carbon price of around CAD150/st by 2020. This is in comparison to around the CAD40/st required for the EU’s more ambitious targets, due in part to higher Canadian population growth and the recent addition of former Eastern bloc countries to the EU, which have seen a dramatic reduction in their carbon emissions since 1990, due to the fallout from the breakup of the Soviet Union on heavy industry.
The prospects for power

In the longer-term, the power sector will also have to respond to the challenges posed by new nuclear build and the potential electrification of the transport sector. The IEA expects the proportion of variable renewables in Canada’s electricity generation mix to hit 11% by 2035, substantially below the 22% predicted for the EUA, but only slightly less than the 12% forecast for the USA. Part of the rationale behind these forecasts most likely stems from Canada’s high use of hydropower, which reduces the incentive for massive investment in other forms of renewables, due to its ability to deliver cheap baseload, low-carbon, power and the lack of a price signal for carbon emissions. However, in the long-term, water levels in Canada are predicted to drop by over two metres, while the river flow rate is expected to fall by 50%. Both changes will be triggered by drier summers and increased summer evaporation rates. Managing this transition will be vital to the success of those utilities that currently rely on hydropower such as Ontario Power Generation.
Given the prospect of reduced water resources, nuclear and wind power appear to be strong contenders for making up the short-fall. The country’s nuclear power industry benefits from some of the world’s best uranium resources and thanks to Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL), Canada has all the know-how required for new nuclear build in its domestic market. AECL has a continuous fuel cycle programme and its advanced Candu reactor (ACR) which is a Generation III+ 1200MW heavy water design, has already completed phase 2 of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s (CNSC) pre-licensing review. Installed nuclear reactor capacity is expected to grow at an average rate of 2.3% over the 2007-15 period. However, there are some reasons for caution. The Darlington nuclear power plant in Ontario, to which the province is looking to add two new reactors, had an initial price tag of around CAD7bn, but this rose to over US$14.4bn by the time it began service in the early 1990s, admittedly due in part to political interference. In addition, while Candu reactors in China have been commissioned 42 and 112 days ahead of schedule, there are fears that in the long run, their high maintenance costs can prove problematic for their owners. An example is the refurbishment of AECL’s reactor at New Brunswick’s Point Lepreau, which began in 2008 and still have help to be completed, putting AECL at risk of litigation from the province to the costs incurred from lost output.
Nonetheless, there are some important reasons for Canadian provinces to buy Canadian. The country’s nuclear industry employs around 30,000 workers and has export sales of US$1.5bn. By choosing AECL over a foreign developer, much of the capital spent on future nuclear power projects would be retained in Canada’s economy. Greater domestic demand for new reactors, could result in improved economies of scale for AECL, improving its position in the increasingly competitive international market for nuclear reactors.
Candu reactors also use unenriched uranium and could potentially use thorium, reducing proliferation issues and potentially giving them entry to the Indian market. According to AECL’s 2010 Annual Report, it together with Chinese partners have made major progress “in assessing the technical and commercial viability of a new build thorium-capable CANDU reactor. An expert panel appointed by the China National Nuclear Corporation recommended that China consider building two CANDU units to take advantage of these unique alternative fuel capabilities, including thorium and recovered uranium.”
Overall, the future of the Canadian power industry looks positive, given that the IEA is predicting the country’s electricity generation to increase at a rate of 1.4% a year over the 2006-30 period. Total energy consumption held steady in 2009 and rose by 1.15% in 2010,
Ontario's push for renewables is causing complaints in some quarters, given that utilities have been pushing for higher electricity rates to fund their investment programmes.

Ontario: going for green

One of the more interesting controversies to hit Canada’s power sector of late is the level of support for renewable energy in Ontario. Under a 20-year plan, wind and solar installations are expected to receive CAD23bn in subsidies, which could prompt a 46% increase in power rates for consumers over a five-year period. The province released a long-term energy plan in November, in which set out the goal of investing CAD87bn in nuclear, wind, solar, hydro and biomass power over the next 20 years, of which CAD14bn will be spent on wind farms. Ontario added close to 300MW of new wind power capacity in 2010 and it now has around 1600MW of installed capacity, out of the nation’s total of 4155MW. Part of the plan calls for the elimination of all coal-fired power plants within the province by 2014 and total renewable energy capacity is expected to hit 10.7GW by 2018. This year will see the completion of over 500MW new renewable energy projects in Ontario, including projects from Quebec-based Renewable Energy Systems Canada and Spain’s Acciona Energia. Canada’s total installed wind capacity grew by 22% in 2010, to 4055MW, while solar power capacity rose to just 245MW. However, this represents impressive growth given that just 95MW had already been installed prior to the start of the year.
Looking ahead, the Independent Electricity System Operator has predicted in its latest 18-month outlook that around 1700MW of new generating capacity will be commissioned in Ontario, over the December 2010 to May 2012 period, together with the required transmission and distribution infrastructure improvements. Of this figure around 1000MW is projected to come from renewable resources, which would take the province’s total grid-connected renewables to almost 2200MW. At the same time, a further 1400MW of distributed renewable power sources, such as roof-top solar panels will be added, bring the total distribution connected figure to around 2100MW. Last autumn, four coal-fired units were taken off the grid, without compromising reliability and under the provincial government’s long-term energy plan, a further two units, at the Nanticoke generating station will be shut down this year.
In terms of nuclear investment, Ontario’s long-term energy plan calls for CAD33bn to be spent on building two new reactors and refurbishing 10 existing ones. However, this hardly seems fair value compared to the US$14bn price tag for building the four reactors at Darlington. There are also concerns that the final bill could be much higher, given the tendency of nuclear power projects to rack up considerable overruns and unfavourable economics which contributed to the demise of Ontario Hydro and the CAD30bn it racked up in debt, prior to its closure. In total, Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) is expecting that the province will see the addition of 1700MW of new capacity between December 2010 and May 2012, of which, almost 1000MW will be in the form of renewables. Less impressive, is its projection that power demand will be flat this year, before rising by just 0.6% YoY in 2012.
Ontario has also been in the news of late, thanks to a study from Jan Carr, Greg Baden and Lucia Tomson, that has suggested that it has subsidised power exports to other provinces and the US, amounting to CAD1bn since 2006. This has occurred due to the fact that exports are not legible for a “global adjustment” that is levied on power purchased by domestic consumers, allowing energy traders to sell power bought at below cost at a healthy mark-up. According to Tomson, while Ontario has historically been a net energy importer, in recent years it has exported around 3.5 times as much electricity as it has imported, while Carr, make the point that this trade has probably cost Ontario rate payers around US$250 each over the past five years. A related issue that has attracted ire in some quarters is the fact that sometimes, when the supply of electricity in the province exceeds demand, the effective price of exports becomes negative. However, as provincial Premier Dalton McGuinity, has pointed out, this has to be seen in context. Although CAD6m of electricity was given away in 2010, CAD300m was earned for Ontario in electricity exports.
One further fly in the ointment is the fact that the province’s use of coal for electricity generation rose by 28% in 2010, despite plans to phase out coal-fired power plants. However, IESO maintains that coal use was still 45% lower than it was in 2008 and is roughly a third of what it was in 2003, when the liberal provincial government first took office. Part of the controversy comes from claims from the Ontario Clean Air Alliance that given the size of the province’s electricity exports, the additional power wasn’t needed. However, according to IESO, hydropower output dropped significantly last year due to lower water levels and this combined with high summer temperatures helped drive demand for coal-fired power. The Thunder Bay Generating Station is currently being converted to run on natural gas instead of could and this process is expected to be completed by the end of 2014.
Another key development took place last year, with the signing of a 26 year CAD2bn contract between Quebec and Vermont, in which power generated from Quebec’s hydropower facilities will be sold to Vermont at slightly higher than domestic prices. It is hoped by Canadian IPPs that this will help pave the way to a greater presence in the lucrative US markets, which are seeing strong demand for clean energy, thanks to state renewable energy standards. However, there is a formidable barrier in the way, in the form of transmission limitations. Without significant expansion of North-South transmission capacity, such a dream is unlikely to be realised and at around CAD1m for 1 mile of transmission line, it certainly won’t come cheap. Another issue is that much of the push for renewables in the US is coming from the hope that such industries could provide a boost to employment, creating political resistance against a greater Canadian presence in the market.
Despite the costs involved, the benefits of a more extensive transmission network are beginning to create support for investment in cross-province systems, as witnessed by plans for improving the connections between Saskatchewan and Manitoba, to take advantage of Manitoba’s hydropower plants and expected demand growth in Saskatchewan. However, such plans are still some years off, although a working group was established in March 2010, with a view to developing projects capable of boosting transmission capacity between the two projects by around 150MW, compared to the current emergency capacity of 100MW.
In the long term, solar power is expected to contribute significantly to both the country’s energy mix and employment, with a study from the Canadian Solar Industries Association predicting that it will reach grid parity within 15 years and will be employing 47,300 people, with the vast majority producing and installing PV systems. In the meantime, much will depend on the strength of government incentives. Ontario’s raft of incentives, including a feed-in-tariff scheme is particularly appealing and has prompted rapid take-up of solar power. However, the IEA envisages that PV will play only a limited role in the growth of renewables in Canada, with wind power responsible for the vast majority, followed by biomass. This makes sense, given that Canada’s predominantly northern latitudes are not as suited to solar power as the deserts of Nevada and Arizona, coupled with its vast forests and low population density. Another factor that needs to be considered is how Canada can develop its heating sector. Due to the country’s cold winters, its heating demand per capita is higher than even that of Russia at around 2.3toe/person.
Canada's reliance on hydropower means that its power sector is less carbon intensive than that of the US. It's extensive use has created an incentive to develop more extensive East-West power transmission links.

Over in British Colombia, BC Hydro appears to have ambitious expansion plans. It is looking to invest US$6bn in overhauling its infrastructure, including over US$1.5bn in improvements to its hydropower plants and a US$200m upgrade of Vancouver’s city centre transmission system. However, these plans, possibly in combination with the financial impact of electricity purchases from independent power producers, have forced to request a 27% increase in residential power rates over a three year period. In BC Hydro’s defence, the electricity rates in the province are currently among the lowest in North America. The company has recently implemented a cost reduction strategy which is expected to generate savings of CAD78m between 2010-11 and 2011-12, including US$25m in savings expected to realised in 2011-12 for the integration of the BC Transmission Corporation.
BC Hydro could benefit from a proposal to strengthen East-West power grid links across Canada, to prevent a reoccurrence of the severe blackout that in 2003 that affected much of central Canada and the northeastern US. The case for action is further strengthened by the fact that roughly 95% of all Canadian hydropower capacity can be found in five provinces spanning the country from east of west. Such a project would serve to connect excess peaking potential hydro generation from Quebec and Manitoba with excess baseload power from Ontario, which is currently short of peak generation. BC Hydro is also looking to build the 215 mile long Northwest transmission line, which raises the tantalising prospect of further projects linking the province’s transmission network to that of southeast Alaska.
After you….

At the national level, one of the trickier issues facing the government is that of greenhouse gas regulation. There are two main factors making this particularly troublesome. The first is the need to keep largely in line with US policy and the second is the varying carbon intensity of Canada’s provinces, further compounded by as already mentioned, the growing contribution from oil sands projects. Alberta, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan are heavily reliant on coal-fired power plants and stand to be adversely affected should tighter rules come into force. In contrast, Ottawa is looking to bring rules into force from 2015, that would require the replacement of such plants with ones using less-polluting technology.
A further complication is that the US Environmental Protection Agency appears to be moving rapidly forward with its plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, while at the same time, Republican lawmakers are looking to curtail its powers, due to fears that the costs involved will further undermine US competitiveness on the global stage. The basic thrust of EPA policy is to require major emission sources such as power plants to use the best available technology to reduce their emissions but this picture is complicated by carbon capture and storage, which has yet to be fully demonstrated at a large scale. The formidable challenges associated with the development of such projects were recently brought into sharp focus by the failure of a CAD270m project, which was launched with great acclaim back in May 2009 by the Saskatchewan and Montana provincial and state governments, after Ottawa turned down a request for CAD100m in funding. The project was originally intended to test a variety of different methods for post-combustion carbon capture.
Another sign that Canada’s environmental credentials will continue to hang in balance, comes from the decision to reduce Environment Canada’s spend on annual climate change and clean air initiatives by 59% to CAD99m from CAD240. It is thought that such a harsh series of cuts could compromise the government’s plans to unveil new industrial regulations by the end of the year. Clearly then, as with its southern neighbour, Canada has and in all likelihood continue to cede the ground to other nations, when it comes to leading the fight against climate change.

[rabot10]

Re: Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

Anyone that does not hope it works is either stupid or an idiot, Steve which one are you in?


U have always been an Idiot in my book btw. Steve look idiot up in the dictionary

[Starving Steve]

Re: Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

Just checking the Wikipedia for the words: solar constant, the value given is 1.96 calories per square centimetre per minute. That is the strength of the Sun's radiation at the orbit of Earth. So, to collect the radiation, you stick a plate at a 90-degree angle to the Sun's radiation, and this plate must by outside the Earth's atmosphere.

On Earth, in the real world where people live, the solar constant is much lower, and the constant is diminished by dust and humidity, obstructions, and low sun angle, etc. All of this counts. Real world, at St. Paul, Minnesota in summer, we rarely observed a solar radiation above 0.85 calories per square cm per min. Only when two thunderheads reflected sunlight down to the grass, both at the same time, did the solar radiation rise significantly, even going above the output of the Sun at the orbit of the Earth in space..... Being a moron, I did observe things and wonder to myself. And then I began to ask questions after class, and discuss the observations of solar radiation with other students and the teacher.

Plants on Earth are very good at converting solar radiation into plant tissues. Those plant tissues hold chemical energy. But you can not go above the output of the Sun; so starting with 0.85 calories per square cm per minute, you need lots of time for the plant to grow and make new plants that grow. You need both time and square centimetres, and water. At St. Paul, Minnesota in early summer, you need fields of plants to grow tall, and then you can convert the plants to biodiesel and capture the energy of early summer once locked-up in plant tissues.

The bottomline is that you can not go above the output of the Sun in your biodiesel. It's what I call the Law of Zero.
The Law of Zero is that anything multiplied by zero is ZERO. So your solar energy efforts with diesel will require vast amounts of time and vast areas covered with plants.

For me, I'd rather waste my time picking-up pennies off of the street. But either way, pick-up pennies or growing biodiesel in Minnesota, the mosquitos will eat you alive and winter is on its way.

[c1ue]

Re: Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

A research project which illustrates the challenge of sunlight to hydrocarbons: note here there are 2 different organisms at work.

Other items of note:

1) The feedstock in is CO2. Thus a CO2 source must be provided for significant output.

2) The present output is a ketone - which can be cracked into hydrocarbons but this is a non-trivial exercise.

To my understanding, combustion of hydrocarbons generally creates ketones, thus the conversion process is a literal chemical reversal of combustion.

3) Ketones are things like solvents: acetone as a common example.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/2...ss/#more-36885

From the University of Minnesota:
U of M researchers close in on technology for making renewable “petroleum” using bacteria, sunlight and carbon dioxide
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (03/23/2011) —University of Minnesota researchers are a key step closer to making renewable petroleum fuels using bacteria, sunlight and carbon dioxide, a goal funded by a $2.2 million United States Department of Energy grant.

Graduate student Janice Frias, who earned her doctorate in January, made the critical step by figuring out how to use a protein to transform fatty acids produced by the bacteria into ketones, which can be cracked to make hydrocarbon fuels. The university is filing patents on the process.

The research is published in the April 1 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Frias, whose advisor was Larry Wackett, Distinguished McKnight Professor of Biochemistry, is lead author. Other team members include organic chemist Jack Richman, a researcher in the College of Biological Sciences’ Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, and undergraduate Jasmine Erickson, a junior in the College of Biological Sciences. Wackett, who is senior author, is a faculty member in the College of Biological Sciences and the university’s BioTechnology Institute.

“Janice Frias is a very capable and hard-working young scientist,” Wackett says. “She exemplifies the valuable role graduate students play at a public research university.”

Aditya Bhan and Lanny Schmidt, chemical engineering professors in the College of Science and Engineering, are turning the ketones into diesel fuel using catalytic technology they have developed. The ability to produce ketones opens the door to making petroleum-like hydrocarbon fuels using only bacteria, sunlight and carbon dioxide.

“There is enormous interest in using carbon dioxide to make hydrocarbon fuels,” Wackett says. “CO2 is the major greenhouse gas mediating global climate change, so removing it from the atmosphere is good for the environment. It’s also free. And we can use the same infrastructure to process and transport this new hydrocarbon fuel that we use for fossil fuels.”

The research is funded by a $2.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-energy (ARPA-e) program, created to stimulate American leadership in renewable energy technology.

The U of M proposal was one of only 37 selected from 3,700 and one of only three featured in the New York Times when the grants were announced in October 2009. The University of Minnesota’s Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment (IREE) and the College of Biological Sciences also provided funding.

Wackett is principal investigator for the ARPA-e grant. His team of co-investigators includes Jeffrey Gralnick, assistant professor of microbiology and Marc von Keitz, chief technical officer of BioCee, as well as Bhan and Schmidt. They are the only group using a photosynthetic bacterium and a hydrocarbon-producing bacterium together to make hydrocarbons from carbon dioxide.

The U of M team is using Synechococcus, a bacterium that fixes carbon dioxide in sunlight and converts CO2 to sugars. Next, they feed the sugars to Shewanella, a bacterium that produces hydrocarbons. This turns CO2, a greenhouse gas produced by combustion of fossil fuel petroleum, into hydrocarbons.

Hydrocarbons (made from carbon and hydrogen) are the main component of fossil fuels. It took hundreds of millions of years of heat and compression to produce fossil fuels, which experts expect to be largely depleted within 50 years.
###
In press at the Journal of Biological Chemistry
Purification and Characterization of OleA from Xanthomonas campestris and Demonstration of a Non-decarboxylative Claisen Condensation Reaction*

1. Janice A. Frias,
2. Jack E. Richman,
3. Jasmine S. Erickson and
4. Lawrence P. Wackett¹

+ Author Affiliations

1. 
   
   From the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics and BioTechnology Institute, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota 55108

1. 1↵ To whom correspondence should be addressed: Dept. of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, 140 Gortner Laboratory, 1479 Gortner Ave., University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108. Tel.: 612-625-3785; Fax: 612-624-5780; E-mail: wacke003@umn.edu.

Abstract

OleA catalyzes the condensation of fatty acyl groups in the first step of bacterial long-chain olefin biosynthesis, but the mechanism of the condensation reaction is controversial. In this study, OleA from Xanthomonas campestris was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified to homogeneity. The purified protein was shown to be active with fatty acyl-CoA substrates that ranged from C₈ to C₁₆ in length. With limiting myristoyl-CoA (C₁₄), 1 mol of the free coenzyme A was released/mol of myristoyl-CoA consumed. Using [¹⁴C]myristoyl-CoA, the other products were identified as myristic acid, 2-myristoylmyristic acid, and 14-heptacosanone. 2-Myristoylmyristic acid was indicated to be the physiologically relevant product of OleA in several ways. First, 2-myristoylmyristic acid was the major condensed product in short incubations, but over time, it decreased with the concomitant increase of 14-heptacosanone. Second, synthetic 2-myristoylmyristic acid showed similar decarboxylation kinetics in the absence of OleA. Third, 2-myristoylmyristic acid was shown to be reactive with purified OleC and OleD to generate the olefin 14-heptacosene, a product seen in previous in vivo studies. The decarboxylation product, 14-heptacosanone, did not react with OleC and OleD to produce any demonstrable product. Substantial hydrolysis of fatty acyl-CoA substrates to the corresponding fatty acids was observed, but it is currently unclear if this occurs in vivo. In total, these data are consistent with OleA catalyzing a non-decarboxylative Claisen condensation reaction in the first step of the olefin biosynthetic pathway previously found to be present in at least 70 different bacterial strains.
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http://www.favstocks.com/u-of-m-rese...fuels/2438749/

Ketones are mostly hydrogen and carbon with one oxygen; they are compounds with the structure RC(=O)R’, where R and R’ can be a variety of atoms and groups of atoms, and feature a carbonyl group (C=O) bonded to two other carbon atoms. Some ketones could be used directly as fuels. Others can be cracked by catalysts to make a fuel. Aditya Bhan and Lanny Schmidt, chemical engineering professors in the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering, are turning the ketones into diesel fuel using catalytic technology they have developed. (Bhan and Schmidt are also part of the ARPA-E project, investigating the conversion of the bio-hydrocarbons into gasoline and diesel fuels.)

[dcarrigg]

Re: Biodiesel from photosynthesis?

A research project which illustrates the challenge of sunlight to hydrocarbons: note here there are 2 different organisms at work.

Other items of note:

1) The feedstock in is CO2. Thus a CO2 source must be provided for significant output.

2) The present output is a ketone - which can be cracked into hydrocarbons but this is a non-trivial exercise.

To my understanding, combustion of hydrocarbons generally creates ketones, thus the conversion process is a literal chemical reversal of combustion.

3) Ketones are things like solvents: acetone as a common example.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/2...ss/#more-36885

http://www.favstocks.com/u-of-m-rese...fuels/2438749/

Um, I've got an apple tree out back that makes ketones too. Of course, in this case, the ketone is fructose...

Somebody call DOW chemical up and get them 'cracking.'




Seriously, though, it might have been more useful to know what it was spitting out than where the carbonyl group was.

(P.S. - For those who gleefully abandoned organic chemistry directly after college, here's the best simple primer I could find).