Bio fuels

[dsummersminet at comcast.net]

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Curtis Burisch curtis at burisch.co.uk
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:10:30 +0200
To: brin-l at mccmedia.com
Subject: RE: Bio fuels
>>which is better for ethanol; sugar cane, corn, switch grass, 
>>soy or hemp?~)


>A: None of the above, because they all contribute to world hunger. 

Agreed.  It might be pointed out, though, that it took 1/3rd of the US corn
crop being devoted to ethanol for the price of food to affect the lives of
people worldwide.  That gives a decent feel for the sensitivity of the
system to rapid changes in demand.

>Ethanol
>manufactured from atmosphere processing plants powered by solar energy is
>the correct answer.

What about algae the produce large amounts of complex hydrocarbons per unit
of input sunlight, as the syn biology proposal I mentioned would do. 
Granted, it's a tough job as Charlie pointed out, but the price of
equipment for synthetic biology is falling faster than Moore's law....so
there is at least a reasonable chance that something like this could work
in 5-25 years.

Dan M.


--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web.com – Enhanced email for the mobile individual based on Microsoft®
Exchange - http://link.mail2web.com/Personal/EnhancedEmail