Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage: "A team of North American scientists has discovered a way of replicating the DNA code of a bacterium that could eventually allow the creation of bacteria to manufacture biofuels. Reporting in 'Science' magazine, a 17-strong group of scientists from the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, has constructed a bacterium's genome by chemically synthesising blocks of DNA. These are knitted together to create larger pieces of DNA that can be formed to make a synthetic version of Mycoplasma genitalium. Dr Craig Venter believes that specially-made micro-organisms can be created to produce hydrogen, while another strain could absorb excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."

GM greens up with bio-ethanol initiative (+video) - 15 Jan 2008 - Oil & gas news - NZ Herald

GM greens up with bio-ethanol initiative (+video) - 15 Jan 2008 - Oil & gas news - NZ Herald: "General Motors has announced a deal with a US ethanol research company that it believes could halve the price of a gallon of petrol, and reduce the CO2 emissions of the fuel by up to 84 per cent.

Coskata, a biology-based renewable energy company, has developed a means of producing ethanol from wood waste, household rubbish and old tyres by using bacteria and an existing gasification technology in a process that yields 99.7 per cent pure ethanol, plus water.

GM and Coskata claim that this method of ethanol production is far superior to using grain in terms of CO2 reduction, and an improvement on using ethanol produced using cellulosic plant-fibre ethanol (which is more CO2 efficient than grain) too."