“Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.”

He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs – very, very small ones – so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.

Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV next to us. Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls “renewable petroleum”. After that, he grins, “it’s a brave new world”.

Mr Pal is a senior director of LS9, one of several companies in or near Silicon Valley that have spurned traditional high-tech activities such as software and networking and embarked instead on an extraordinary race to make $140-a-barrel oil (£70) from Saudi Arabia obsolete. “All of us here – everyone in this company and in this industry, are aware of the urgency,” Mr Pal says.

What is most remarkable about what they are doing is that instead of trying to reengineer the global economy – as is required, for example, for the use of hydrogen fuel – they are trying to make a product that is interchangeable with oil. The company claims that this “Oil 2.0” will not only be renewable but also carbon negative – meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.

LS9 has already convinced one oil industry veteran of its plan: Bob Walsh, 50, who now serves as the firm’s president after a 26-year career at Shell, most recently running European supply operations in London. “How many times in your life do you get the opportunity to grow a multi-billion-dollar company?” he asks. It is a bold statement from a man who works in a glorified cubicle in a San Francisco industrial estate for a company that describes itself as being “prerevenue”.

Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol - Times Online

Hopefully this doesn't turn into the next "cold fusion" story.
Imagine what it might do to the dependency upon Middle East oil.

That will bring new meaning to the words "I drive a bug"

Hope everlasting.

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here's where they run into feasability issues...

That's the problem with everyone tauting alternatives fuel...They may work, but only when scaled down to 1/1000000th of what's actually needed...

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No doubt...
I was not thinking "substitute" at all...
But does anybody think that drilling in Alaska will supply a "substitute" for what the Middle East supplies?

Plus, it works on agricultural waste, as opposed to using up corn that could go to food use. More promising.
Add on its a new product with potential new advances that could help increase yield...
Hey. I can dream, can't I?

But at the same time, your point is something that cannot be overlooked.
We need to realize that the reason we have the capability to use the quantity we use today is due to millions of years of nature developing the oil by its processes.
Finding something that can mass produce and replace that on a much shorter time frame? Probably more of a dream...

No...

But do I think that drilling in Alaska added to drilling offshore added to mining shale oil in Colorado and North Dakota will supply a "substitute" for what the Middle East supplies?...

Absolutely...

So why can't we extract it RIGHT NOW and get this show on the road?...

Because it's being blocked in Congress by the Democrats...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

I have a dog that excretes large volumes of natural gas. We should breed him with some big Mastiff bitch. We could heat the house.

Wouldn't work...

The money saved on heat would be spent on air freshners...

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