New biofuel with the power of petrol?

As well as energy efficient and well designed cars, I am always interested in what is going to power them in the future.So,from Amyris Biotechnologies, we possibly have an emerging alternative to petrol, which it is said will provide more energy than ethanol, although its basic production material is the same as for ethanol production in Brazil :sugar cane.

Assuming the world can produce enough sugar cane without exploiting the poorer countries and 'starving'global food production of essential arable land, can Amyris deliver, or is this just another good idea that will not work, or make any difference to the challenges facing us? John Melo, Amyris's chief executive clearly thinks his nearly petrol product will do the job.He expects his product to be in full production in 2010.

According to The Sunday Times (May 27, 2007),Amyris is a small biotechnology company based on the edge of Silicon Valley,and has many influential financial backers,including the Bill& Melinda Gates Foundation.The biofuel product however was discovered during work to find a cost effective treatment globally for malaria ( the purpose for which the investment had initially been made i.e. to bring "innovations in health and learning to the global community").

So what is this process all about? The clue is the use of microbes. Amyris claims to be "developing a large-scale fermentation process to renewably produce biofuels."

Time will tell if Amyris's work adds to the sum benefit from the many solutions that will eventually be required to meet our fuel requirements and help produce less harmful green house gases.One to watch.

timesonline
Amyris Biotechnologies

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