Saving our planet
Alternative to fossil fuels
Scientists have created a new genetically engineered microbe that turns algae into low carbon bio fuel. This means that instead of using fossil fuels such as coal we can use other more sustainable sources that don’t affect our planet’s enviroment as much.
Seaweed farming could be the answer to our energy dilemma. Seaweed grows 10
times faster than normal plants and are full of sugars, until recently it has been very hard to make ethanol by conventional fermentation as is already used to convert land crops such as corn and sugar into bio fuels.
New microbe research recently published in the leading journal Science, talks of “a critical technological breakthrough” that may overcome the fermentation problem.
Seaweed has been farmed for over 1000 years in China and Japan,
So adapting these into bio-fuel factories is a serious viable proposition.
The EColi microbe that is currently used on corn and sugar is ineffective on seaweed. A new microbe had to be engineered and it is this breakthrough that has got people excited.
The challenge now is to find a low carbon way of farming the seaweed that will make seaweed fuel commercially viable and affordable for all of us.
Found on the guardian,
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