Scientists Create Fossil Fuels With Bacteria

Scientists have altered a biological process in bacteria so that they produce propane when breaking apart fatty acids. They hope to use this research to create propane with sunlight as a fuel source. When it comes to our use of fossil fuels, one thing is clear: We are running out. This is a massive problem for our way of life: Like it or not, our industrialized world is built on fossil fuels. It drives our industries, supplies us with power and moves us across the world. In the long run, we should look for cleaner solutions, yes, but as it stands today our civilization would be crippled if the oil ran dry tomorrow. Finding a viable replacement is paramount, but luckily, researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Turku in Finland, may be close to a solution. One possible replacement for conventional fossil fuels is propane. Apart from being somewhat cleaner, it also has an established global market. Propane is currently extracted during natural gas and crude oil refining processes, and you can find it in central heating systems, camp stoves and even vehicles. Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) is also mainly composed of propane. And as luck would have it, the scientists from Imperial and Turku have discovered a way of making petroleum a renewable fuel source. The researchers "Escherichia coli" bacteria to prevent the biological processes which turn fatty acids into cell membranes. Instead, with the help of enzymes, they guided the acids through a different biological path, turning them into engine-ready propane. This is an impressive discovery, but the scientists aren't done yet. Now, they want to try moving this system into photosynthetic bacteria with the hopes of producing propane directly from sunlight. "It's your friendly neighborhood E. Coli bacteria." Dr. Patrik Jones from Imperial's department of life sciences, explains: "Although this research is at a very early stage, our proof of concept study provides a method for renewable production of a fuel that previously was only accessible from fossil reserves. Although we have only produced tiny amounts so far, the fuel we have produced is ready to be used in an engine straight away. This opens up possibilities for future sustainable production of renewable fuels that at first could complement, and thereafter replace fossil fuels like diesel, petrol, natural gas and jet fuel." The scientists have chosen propane production as the focus of their research because it provides some important practical advantages over, say, biodiesel: "Fossil fuels are a finite resource and as our population continues to grow we are going to have to come up with new ways to meet increasing energy demands. It is a substantial challenge, however, to develop a renewable process that is low-cost and economically sustainable. At the moment algae can be used to make biodiesel, but it is not commercially viable as harvesting and processing requires a lot of energy and money. So we chose propane because it can be separated from the natural process with minimal energy and it will be compatible with the existing infrastructure for easy use" SOURCE:" Phys.org"Scientists create fossil fuels with bacteria