(Notícia em Inglês)
Scientist Craig Venter is on his way to creating the first synthetic fuel made of algae, a science that has been touted as the "new industrial revolution." But Steve Levine of Foreign Policy argues that we are still a long way from this kind of breakthrough.
Steve LeVine is the author of The Oil and the Glory and a longtime foreign correspondent.
It's good to be J. Craig Venter right now. In May, Venter -- who you may recall from his entrepreneurial work in genomics research -- created a stir in scientific circles by creating the first cell with synthetic DNA; Exxon, meanwhile, has gone on the hook for up to $600 million in funding for Venter's ambitious synthetic algae fuel project. In a piece over the weekend, The New York Times' Andrew Pollack has added some James Dean brushstrokes to the portrait of this "scientific rebel." Shall we cut to the chase and start carving busts of the guy?
There's no doubt that algae-based fuel is tantalizing -- unlike crops, trees, the sun and wind, algae starts out already half-comprised of hydrocarbons useable for bio-diesel, as Debora MacKenzie writes at New Scientist. That's why Silicon Valley, the Pentagon and serious oil companies are attempting to crack the code and scale up algae into a global transportation fuel. And if you ask the chin- and chest-out Venter, his own efforts are headed for tickertape-parade-type success: "Designing and building synthetic cells will be the basis of a new industrial revolution," he told Pollack. "The goal is to replace the entire petrochemical industry."
Scientist Craig Venter is on his way to creating the first synthetic fuel made of algae, a science that has been touted as the "new industrial revolution." But Steve Levine of Foreign Policy argues that we are still a long way from this kind of breakthrough.
Steve LeVine is the author of The Oil and the Glory and a longtime foreign correspondent.
It's good to be J. Craig Venter right now. In May, Venter -- who you may recall from his entrepreneurial work in genomics research -- created a stir in scientific circles by creating the first cell with synthetic DNA; Exxon, meanwhile, has gone on the hook for up to $600 million in funding for Venter's ambitious synthetic algae fuel project. In a piece over the weekend, The New York Times' Andrew Pollack has added some James Dean brushstrokes to the portrait of this "scientific rebel." Shall we cut to the chase and start carving busts of the guy?
There's no doubt that algae-based fuel is tantalizing -- unlike crops, trees, the sun and wind, algae starts out already half-comprised of hydrocarbons useable for bio-diesel, as Debora MacKenzie writes at New Scientist. That's why Silicon Valley, the Pentagon and serious oil companies are attempting to crack the code and scale up algae into a global transportation fuel. And if you ask the chin- and chest-out Venter, his own efforts are headed for tickertape-parade-type success: "Designing and building synthetic cells will be the basis of a new industrial revolution," he told Pollack. "The goal is to replace the entire petrochemical industry."