Biofuels Made From E Coli Bacteria - Is It Possible?

Image via Wikipedia

Fuel Made From the E Coli Bacteria - The Next Biofuel of the Future? by Bob Randooke

Remember when just a few months ago the price of gasoline was over 4 dollars a gallon and the price of a barrel of oil was over 140 bucks? I still remember those days because they put a serious dampener on my business because I needed to do a lot of driving to finish my routes each day. Since then a barrel of oil is down to 35 dollars yet a gallon of gas still costs us 2 dollars a gallon.

The oil companies are making a killing here and we need to start searching for a viable and cheap alternative fuel source to use in our cars instead of gasoline. Obama really wants to put more emphasis into research on alternative fuel sources and has earmarked a lot more money to help researchers come up with one.

We currently are working on all-electric cars like the Chevy volt and even solar-powered cars, and even though they are a few years off this is a great time to start research on them now, but I feel the best source of energy that can be created easily and doesn't damage our ozone layer or atmosphere are biofuels as they are very eco-friendly, but which biofuels should we choose from?

Last year researchers from the engineering section of UCLA succeeded in creating a very efficient fuel source from modifying the E. coli bacteria of all things. That's right, you heard it first, the bacteria that has been making people sick from food poisoning for so long now has the potential to fuel our cars on the roadways. Most people were looking into ethanol as an alternative source of fuel but the difference between the biofuel from ethanol and the biofuel produced by the modified E. coli bacteria is in the molecular chain of the alcohol.

The alcohol produced from ethanol is a lower molecular chain alcohol and has many limitations some of which are: it has to be mixed with gas to produce fuel (which still makes us dependable on gasoline), and it can't be distributed without modifying it. The higher chain alcohol produced from the genetically modified E. coli Bacteria has no such limitations as they have a density that is close to gasoline, does not absorb H2O as quickly and is healthier for engines to run on as they have high octanes.

This is a very exciting new source of biofuel and my guess is they will pour more money into it to somehow make this a biofuel that is cheap enough to bring to market. One day our cars could run on bacteria fuel. Amazing isn't it?

The author loves writing about new alternative energy sources such as Biofuel. To get the latest information visit http://www.biofuelguide.net to get up to date on the latest biofuel research and information.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob_Randooke
http://EzineArticles.com/?Fuel-Made-From-the-E-Coli-Bacteria---The-Next-Biofuel-of-the-Future?&id=1912894