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MONTEREY, California: A scientist who mapped his
genome and the genetic diversity of the oceans said Thursday he is
creating a life form that feeds on climate-ruining carbon dioxide to
produce fuel.
Geneticist Craig Venter disclosed
his potentially world-changing “fourth-generation fuel” project
at an elite Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in
Monterey.
“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.
“We have 20 million genes which
I call the design components of the future,” Venter said. “We
are limited here only by our imagination.”
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.
“If they could produce things
on the scale we need, this would be a methane planet,” Venter
said. “The scale is what is critical; which is why we need to
genetically design them.”
The genetics of octane-producing
organisms can be tinkered with to increase the amount of CO2 they
eat and octane they excrete,
according to Venter.
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.
Scientists put “suicide
genes” into their living creations so that if they escape the lab,
they can be triggered to kill themselves.
Venter said he is also working on
organisms that make vaccines for the flu and other illnesses.
“We will see an exponential
change in the pace of the sophistication of organisms and what they
can do,” Venter said.
“We are a ways away from
designing people. Our goal is just to make sure they survive long
enough to do that.”
--AFP
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