wayodd.com
Joined: Sep 2006
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A firm formed by Silicon Valley executives is trying to produce in commercial quantity genetically-modified bug waste that is similar to crude oil but cheaper, cleaner and renewable.

LS9 Inc. is planning to build by 2011 demonstration-scale and commercial-scale plants that will produce the so-called Oil 2.0, which is composed of excrement from altered industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli bacteria. So far, the company's laboratory can produce the biofuel in small amounts, enough to fill a beaker, but has yet to test a 264-gallon (1,000-liter) fermenting machine that can produce the equivalent of one barrel of the fuel per week.

The production process involves feeding wheat straw to the single-celled bugs to make them excrete the crude oil. Unlike natural bacteria used in fermentation to produce ethanol, the substance produced by LS9's modified bacteria does not need to undergo the expensive distillation process to make it pump-ready.

LS9 counts among its investors Vinod Khosla, the Indian-American entrepreneur who co-founded Sun Microsystems, a computer component and software vendor. The firm's president is a 26-year veteran at petrochemical giant Shell, Bob Walsh, 50.

anonymous

OK bug making oil :) that is good so now we just have to buy some bug to but in our car and then we can just feed the bugs so we can keep on driving.