Dr. Craig Venter Creating Life Form That Turns CO2 to Fuel

Genetic engineering along with nanotechnology are two branches of science that hold a future for human race that is so spectacular in magnitude that is hard to fathom the future anymore. They have progressed beyond our imagination to create reality that more likely appear to be more the contrived creative juices of a writer of science fiction. While one dream of science fiction named ‘time travel’ is still many miles away if not impossible (and we will leave that idea with the quantum physicists to realize) many more things that we once dreamed of are becoming a reality.

Geneticist Craig Venter disclosed his potentially world-changing "fourth-generation fuel" project at an elite Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, California.

"We have modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry and becoming a major source of energy," Venter told an audience that included global warming fighter Al Gore and Google co-founder Larry Page.

"We think we will have fourth-generation fuels in about 18 months, with CO2 as the fuel stock."

Simple organisms can be genetically re-engineered to produce vaccines or octane-based fuels as waste, according to Venter.

Biofuel alternatives to oil are third-generation. The next step is life forms that feed on CO2 and give off fuel such as methane gas as waste, according to Venter.

His team is using synthetic chromosomes to modify organisms that already exist, not making new life, he said. Organisms already exist that produce octane, but not in amounts needed to be a fuel supply. Dr. Venter has apparently 20 million genes at his disposal to set about at work and I suppose that is pretty much everyday job for this man.

The limiting part of the equation isn’t designing an organism, it’s the difficulty of extracting high concentrations of CO2 from the air to feed the organisms, the scientist said in answer to a question from Page. To top it all off he said that they also put suicide genes in the organisms in case they escape his lab. So basically there is no life out of the lab for them and no need for all the crazy guys to go trying to find a doomsday scenario in this. The heartening aspect is that the claim comes from a man who knows what it takes to get there. It is not some lunatic working in his garage just to get cheap publicity. Al gore was there listening and if you ask me, it would do well for us to keep a close eye on this too.