Generally, if you are interested in what technologies are available, there is a fascinating document published by the IEA in response to the Gleneagles G8 meeting in 2005 - "Energy Technology Perspectives: Scenarios & Strategies to 2050". If you can get hold of a copy, I can thoroughly recommend it as a good overview with decent detail (it's just under 500 pages long). Unfortunately I don't think it's available for free on the interweb. I would've really liked a hardcopy, but only managed to get it as a pdf in the end...
Doc's aside about the sequencing of cyanobacteria is actually very interesting, and couples nicely with "second generation" biofuels, often referred to as lignocellulosic ethanol. Still at the research stages, but with a lot of longer-term potential, especially if one co-produces ethanol, electricity and other products in a "biorefinery". It's certainly not the magic bullet, but in terms of piggy-backing existing transport infrastructure it makes sense, and avoids some of the total-lifecycle and agriculure-intensive worries around first-generation biofuels. Not something I know an awful lot about to be honest, so need to do a bit of reading I think.
DNA sequencing in fuel crops and bacteria, according to one source I have, is to do with an interesting development from the whole GM debate we had a couple of years back. Basically, what they are doing is mapping the genes and functions, and then off the basis of this knowledge to do accelerated selective breeding. Kind of Gregor Mendel on speed - GM without the objections
Doc's aside about the sequencing of cyanobacteria is actually very interesting, and couples nicely with "second generation" biofuels, often referred to as lignocellulosic ethanol. Still at the research stages, but with a lot of longer-term potential, especially if one co-produces ethanol, electricity and other products in a "biorefinery". It's certainly not the magic bullet, but in terms of piggy-backing existing transport infrastructure it makes sense, and avoids some of the total-lifecycle and agriculure-intensive worries around first-generation biofuels. Not something I know an awful lot about to be honest, so need to do a bit of reading I think.
DNA sequencing in fuel crops and bacteria, according to one source I have, is to do with an interesting development from the whole GM debate we had a couple of years back. Basically, what they are doing is mapping the genes and functions, and then off the basis of this knowledge to do accelerated selective breeding. Kind of Gregor Mendel on speed - GM without the objections
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