Photo taken from TimesOnline

Yeah. I didn’t believe it either. Apparently, scientists have genetically altered tiny bugs who feed off of agricultural waste, such as wood chips and wheat straw, and then remarkably excrete crude oil. Greg Pal, senior director of LS9, explains the bugs “are single-cell organisms, each a fraction of a billionth the size of an ant. They start out as industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli, but LS9 modifies them by custom-de-signing their DNA.” LS9 is one of many companies who are trying to find a way to create a product that can be used interchangeably with oil, instead of trying to change the entire global economy to accommodate to hydrogen or alternative biofuels and new cars.

The most remarkable thing about this is, LS9 is not only claiming this oil is renewable, but carbon negative. This means that the amount of carbon dioxide that is released from burning the oil is less than what the bug needs to survive to produce the oil.

In addition to this, the author of the article, Chris Ayres, states, “using genetically modified bugs for fermentation is essentially the same as using natural bacteria to produce ethanol, although the energy-intensive final process of distillation is virtually eliminated because the bugs excrete a substance that is almost pump-ready.” Sounds good to me. At least some companies out there are trying other methods to create oil, rather than using crops to produce ethanol during a food crisis.

LS9 has been funded $20 million dollars for startup costs from investors and the current president of the company is Bob Walsh- an oil industry veteran who worked for Shell for 26 years. Walsh was quoted asking, “How many times in your life do you get the opportunity to grow a multi-billion-dollar company?”

The biggest problem, however, is although LS9 can create the oil in beakers in a lab, they do not know if they can create the same results on a nationwide scale. They also haven’t even tried running an automobile with the bug oil yet. And last but not least, another drawback is that in order to produce enough oil for America’s weekly consumption of 143 million barrels, LS9 would need to build a facility the size of Chicago.

Check out the full article written by Chris Ayres from Times Online.