I just saw a show called EcoTech on Planet Green TV. It's pretty cool, one segment had a guy who made green mobile inventions. One was a giant big wheel with a solar panel on top, that could really move! I'm not down for the spinning it did though, I get sick on spinney amusement park rides. Another was a robot-sleigh that walked like a human.
In the segment before they told the story of how ethanol can be made from nonfood parts of plants, and fibrous waste. Turns out they can genetically modify e-coli to break down this fibrous waste. Using E-coli (enzymatic hydrolysis) is far more green than the previous method (chemical hydrolysis). This is GM I can support, it takes stress off commodity crops and the environment by making fuel from waste. It saves fossil fuels in production, and I don't have to eat it. It sounds like a winner.
I found an old article about this from Treehugger in 2005
Half the automotive fuel in the United States could be replaced with ethanol from renewable agricultural and forest waste, says a University of Florida researcher who has developed a biotechnology "bug" that converts biomass such as sugarcane residues, rice hulls, forestry and wood wastes and other organic materials into ethanol
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Lonnie Ingram, a professor of microbiology with UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences has genetically engineered a stratin of E.Coli that produces fuel ethanol from non-edible sugar sources at an estimated cost of $1.30 gallon.
The bioconversion technology, selected by the U.S. Department of Commerce to become Landmark Patent No. 5,000,000, is being commercialized with assistance from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). BC International Corp., based in Dedham, Mass., holds exclusive rights to use and license the UF-engineered bacteria.
In 2005, more than 4.5 billion gallons of fuel ethanol will be manufactured from corn starch and sugars. He said his technology will further expand ethanol production by converting celluloic waste into fuel ethanol, more than doubling current ethanol production.
Ingram, who is director of the Florida Center for Renewable Chemicals and Fuels at UF, cited a recent report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and DOE that indicates more than one billion tons of biomass can be produced on a sustainable basis each year. Converting this to fuel ethanol could replace half of all imported petroleum in the United States.
Ingram said he genetically engineered the E. coli organisms by cloning the unique genes needed to direct the digestion of sugars into ethanol. With the ethanol genes, the engineered bacteria produce ethanol from biomass sugars with 90 to 95 percent efficiency.
SunOpta, a cellulosic ethanol industry leader, says that this UC Berkeley study shows that cellulosic ethanol is carbon net positive, especially when made from waste. The study contained this fun chart.
Here's a previous episode of EcoTech, the one I wrote about above isn't online yet.
