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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
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Name: J. Craig Venter
Title: CEO, Synthetic Genomics
Location: La Jolla, Calif.
Why algae?
You look at the potential output from algae, and it’s one to two orders of magnitude better than the best agricultural system. If we were trying to make liquid transportation fuels to replace all transportation fuels in the U.S., and you try and do that from corn, it would take a facility three times the size of the continental U.S. If you try to do it from algae, it’s a facility roughly the size of the state of Maryland. One is doable, and the other’s just absurd.
Everybody is looking for a naturally occurring alga that is going to be a miracle cell to save the world, and after a century of looking, people still haven’t found it. We hope we’re different. The [genetic] tools give us a new approach to being able to rewrite the genetic code and get cells to do what we want them to do.
Why do this? What’s the motivation?
We all live on the same planet. The bad cliché is: we’re all in the same lifeboat. If somebody takes a power drill and drills a hole in the bottom of the boat, we’re all screwed. Sooner or later the oil and coal industries won’t have any choice. The forward-looking companies are trying to get a real jump on that now. None of these solutions are things where you just pick up a book and find the solution. It is long-term research.
What are the big hurdles?
It’s just the size, the expense—billion-dollar-plus facilities. Getting algae that are really robust and can withstand true industrial conditions on a commercial basis. The thing that will make the difference is the engineered cell, a cell that can produce 10 to 100 times as much.
What about nutrients?
We need three major ingredients: CO2, sunlight and seawater, aside from having the facility and refinery to convert all those things. We’re looking at sites around the world that have the major ingredients.
How long will this take?
To us, this is a long-term plan. It’s a 10-year plan. We’re not promising new fuel for your car in the next 18 months.
What was the bigger challenge: the human genome or algae?
I did [the human genome] in nine months. But there are 500 different parameters in the [algal] cells and in the systems. Absolutely, algae are the bigger challenge. It also has a lot bigger implications for the world if we’re successful.
Given algae’s checkered past, what makes you confident of success?
I like to win arguments by having the data. People making extraordinary claims have the obligation to provide extraordinary evidence that their claims are true. Right now nobody has the data in any of these fields. We have some new tools to approach these same problems. Algae have had a lousy history. There is no guarantee we will succeed, either.
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19 Comments
Add CommentIsaac Asimov knew this decades ago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'll bet Monsanto has already put a patent on every major strain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm betting on the time traveler in the monkey suit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt sounds like it should be MADE a top priority due to the only waste product FROM this operation would be food ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny by-product would simply be organic nutrients ?
There is a section of the human genome more dangerous than that which makes us drill holes in the boat where we all are, is the one that makes us talk and talk and do not decide: who will kick, to which is already drilling the hole.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI propose that we all.
For the mass production of any biofuel solution, It takes a lot clean energy. As long as needed, more than a half gallon of dirty fuel to produce a gallon of green fuel, there is no solution.
"Oceanogenic Power" gives us the opportunity, you the smart ones in these matters, have to say it already, to your friends with economic and political power.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-719547
Maybe I'm wrong...but the human genome must be slightly different for every person(except for identical twins). So...there's several billion(read 7+) out there that have not been sequenced. Where as algae...what...there is only 500 unique ones...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess I just don't understand....
Ok, I just reread the article and it states there are 500 parameters...still don't see how it even begins to compare to the complexities of dealing with multicellular organisms....
Nutrients : Just sunlight, CO2 and water? Everyone knows that plants need fertilisation. This limits the algal farms to sites of oceanic upwelling where the nutrients are already efficiently converted to plankton, krill, frigates, anchovies or whalemeat by mother nature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo instead of breeding algae at great expense, just pyrolyse the natural biomass to produce hydrogen and biochar. The technology already exists. See www.eprida.com. CO2 at $29 a ton would help.
Craig Venter is probably one of the most positive forces in today's world fascist greed. We need to grow political support for people like him who clearly understand what the human race is up against. As to Monsanto, they like all the psuedo humans, and indeed, the bought and sold politicians of the current crop (all) need to be dis-enfranchised if we are to survive. The time is short. Re-read Thomas Jefferson as well as your science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is not the ultimate answer. Burning biofuels still produces carbon dioxide. However, if correctly done, it is cleaner, sustainable and hopefully economical, and so would help until we can develop ways of using the suns energy directly in an economical way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease, America stop using corn to make biofuels!
At the end of the day solar energy is the source of almost all the energy we use. The only energy we use that is not derived from solar energy is hydrothermal or nuclear.
CO2, sunlight and seawater + two order of magnitude reproduction: I hope no engineered algae will ever make their way to the oceans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as I understand it is not 2 orders of magnitude reproduction, but 2 orders of magnitude increased bio fuel production. Besides these engeneered algea will be constructed such that they cannot survive outside the lab.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis mechanism is completely CO2 neutral. The algea first consume the same amount of CO2 Toroduce the biofuel that is then later set free when the biofuel is burned. This technology therefore directly uses the suns energy in aeconomical way. However I agree that current mechanisms to produce biofuel are producing significant amounts of CO2 due to inefficiencies, transport costs etc and that they should be stopped.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReading the human genome is like reading a long book. Optimizing the genome of an algea is like cracking a "500" letter code, the number of combinations and options is mind boggling an far surpasses the effort to read a book.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA couple of years back I saw an enthusiastic video by mr venter. from reading this article and the repeated emphasis on the project being long term, I get the impression, that they are not making progress as fast as originally planned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne thought - instead of producing oil from the algae, would it be more efficient to simply burn the algae in an electricty generation plant? Pressed and dried algae bricks perhaps. Also some pond scum doesn't need saltwater but grows in fresh water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe source of the oceanogenic power is the same that moves the oceans: the earth's rotation around its own axis, and the force of gravity, mainly between the earth and moon. OK, there is disagreement in the scientific community about the origin of the energy that sustains these two cosmic phenomena, but like so many other things in the universe, their existence is unquestionable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for the possibility of loss due to thermodynamic reasons, can we dismiss this, as only the movement of the oceans is causing this type of wear and is trillions of times larger than the energy used by mankind.
The very nature has allowed us a place to extract this clean energy: my country, Panamá.
In Panamá, within 9 degrees north, the tangential velocity of the earth is greater than 450 meters per second. It is the place that separates all the oceans of the world with 39 miles of land, which stops the two daily tsunamis that represent tides and twice, daily, travel the 40,000 kilometers of the circumference of our planet.
On the other hand, the tidal amplitude offshore (0.3 meters), coincide with the variation of distance calculated by applying to the derivative of the formula of universal gravitation, the variation of gravity due to the moon. This body of water has to move at the same speed of the tsunamis: A little less than 200 meters per second.
Then, when the moon move from Panama to Asia to its 1 km per second, each voyage would need 27 hours to do the same route and when the moon reaches the end of the Pacific, in Panama already is being formed a new high tide. By the other side, in the Atlantic, the bulge of water is stopped by the Americas, and its onset, especially in the northern hemisphere, has to expect the relative path of the moon on Europe, Asia and Africa, which corresponds to one quarter of the circumference of the planet or six hours.
The roundness of our planet, and the position and direction of motion of the moon relative to Earth, defines, and makes it impossible for the ocean in Cape Horn change its direction of motion, the same as the rotation of our planet.
So, the Pacific is pulled, simultaneously two times and two times more than the Atlantic and with a simple equation, it demonstrates why altimetry measures the Pacific is 37 cetimeters above the Atlantic. And this is the origin of the Oceanogenic Power.
With this real clean energy, we burn or refine any carbon-based fuel, including biofuel processing algae. And with this, working without war, we make a friendly transition, of our global infrastructure.
I don't agree that algae have a lousy history. I was involved in a successful commercial project on the west coast of Australia in the 1980s. That plant is still operational and produces betacarotene.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are several are several other new projects being set-up in the same part of the world that use seawater. As Venter says the raw materials are simple but there is a need of course for N and P. The need for strain improvement is paramount but improving husbandry is also critical.
We can either go ponds or bioreactors and both are showing promise in Australia. Time will tell and there will be a shakeout.
Any where in the world where coastal land can be used as ponds can produce algal biomass, its lipids, it feedstock for animals and its pharmaceuticals. A balanced business model and the energy source ain't gonna run out anytime soon.
Something like this kick started life on earth when cyanobacteria began to use photosynthesis to scavenge carbon from CO2 more than 2bn ya. The oxygen they released as a waste product revolutionised the planet. The carbon they extracted ended up as oil.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe organism to fulfil the process envisaged in this article probably already exists. The problem is finding it and working out how to harness its capabilities.
Along the way there are plenty of other little critters that need to be identified and harnessed to assist us in converting waste into energy and other useful products, and decontaminate past human mistakes.
For those who don't know, Venter is one of the biotech greats. Venter, George Church, and other innovators that are driving the biotech revolution will be remembered for generations like Marie Curie, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, Salk, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs mentioned, the production and burning of biofuels is carbon neutral. Also as mentioned, the energy losses associated with operating biofuel production facilities and with transportation are NOT carbon neutral. However, when biofuels become economically competitive with gasoline/diesel, the trucks that transport them will be fueled by them.
The real issue I have with Venter's strategy here is that, as far as i know, he's focused on microalgae instead of cyanobacteria. Both are photosynthetic organisms, but cyanobacteria have enormous advantages in terms of energy efficiency and product isolation. Microalgae have evolved to store large amounts of fatty acids, where as cyanobacteria have not. Thus in vivo production of fatty acid methyl esters or decarboxylation to yield n-alkanes (see Joule Unlimited's recent patents) provides fueles that phase separate from the culture and only require centrifugation to isolate.
Photosynthetic microorganisms will likely become the main source of our fine chemicals. Their metabolisms and engineerability are becoming better understood, and eventually they will replace E coli and yeast as the chasis of choice. Whether they dominate the energy market depends on several things:
a) The cost of oil. The discovery of new oil reserves may keep prices down for decades. Oil has never had any real competition in the energy market, so we don't know how low the price could be reduced to outcompete alternatives.
b) Solar energy and battery storage advances. These technologies are green, scalable, and highly investigated. 2-3 fold improvements in battery storage capacity and 2-3 fold improvements in energy efficiency per production cost of solar panels would be enough to make biofuels unnecessary for small vehicles (trucks and planes will still need fuels)
c) Improvements in (and the development of new) protein engineering techniques, including rational design, computational design, and directed evolution. Advances in the biotech toolboxes for these organisms. Advances in the design and engineering of bioreactors and product isolation/purification plants. While the number of enormous advancements in these areas every year is simply astounding, its a race against the clock against solar + battery.