On 01/05/2008, at 6:42 AM, Curtis Burisch wrote: >>> 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. > >> And algae or photosynthetic bacteria breed fast, so evolutionary >> biology as well as synthetic biology and genetics may have a large >> role to play. > > Efficiency is sub-1%, and we need to use the surface of this planet > efficiently. Sorry, this doesn't cut it. >
At the moment. But it's worth exploring in the lab. There's very little to lose by trying it out - one day, most of what we make may be from biofactories. Charlie. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
