A little over a year ago, I had the pleasure of hearing Daniel Pinchbeck give a lecture and reading of his book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, at Malaprop’s in Asheville, NC. While the lecture was interesting (bemusing, perhaps?), the subject of Pinchbeck reemerged when a friend of mine forwarded me a link to his web magazine Reality Sandwich.
Over the last few months I’ve checked in with Reality Sandwich from time to time to see what was coming across the transpiritual pyschadelic bow, when I ran into this article on cyanobacteria by Melinda Wenner.
What the article basically outlines is that University of Hawai’i scientist Pengcheng “Patrick” Fu managed to engineer a strain of freshwater cyanobacteria that feed on carbon dioxide and emit ethanol as waste in the presence of sunlight. To get the carbon dioxide it needs, the system can pull the gas out of the emissions of power plants or other carbon dioxide producers.
Sounds a lot like the system set up by Greenfuel Technologies Corp., with cyanobacteria taking the place of algae and emitting ethanol as an end product instead of biomass and algal oil.
The question burning in my mind is this: Can we combine these two systems into a single operation? That is, can we harness the benefits of both cyanobacteria and algal strains in a single, integrated system that can perform multiple functions with a minimum of inputs and resources lost?
I’m thinking big picture on this one — carbon sequestration, diverse biofuels production (biodiesel, butanol, etc.), desalination of salt water, filtration of freshwater, bioremediation of wastewater, agricultural-grade fertilizer, food-grade dyes and more, all being the products of the ideal cyanobacteria/algal system floating around in the ethereal soup of my skull.
Maybe this system-fantasy will manifest itself when Pinchbeck finishes breaking my head open, but I’d rather work as a hired cosultant in bringing it into being.
- Curtiss Martin
