(Could poop power our cars?)
DAVID WERNICK: There's a lot of protein waste that we produce
right now as a society that are not really used. In 2008, it was
estimated that there's about 1 billion tons of manure.
That is a lot of manure that is not fully utilized.
A good portion of that is left to aerobically compost
and that produces a lot of nitrous oxide and a lot of
methane emissions, which are green house gases that
325 times more potent than CO2, respectively. Our laboratory works on applying biology and
biological principles to solve engineering problems. Anything that comes from a nonrenewable
source, we're looking to develop a renewable way to make it.
We're looking at using all sorts of different waste feed stocks, anything such as agricultural
waste, like manure, municipal waste, like sewage, plant matter. And we work with a variety
of different bacteria, a variety of different organisms, to get them to produce different
compounds. And what we're focused on right now is sort of advanced biofuels. They have
more favorable properties as a fuel than ethanol. Ethanol's not an ideal biofuel. It doesn't
have the exact same burning properties as any of the other liquid transportation fuels
that we use. It is not quite as energy dense and it is corrosive to metal and to the fuel
infrastructure that we already have in place. We try to produce branched chain alcohols
that are a little larger and they're therefor more energy-dense and they burn more like
real gasoline. They're therefor compatible with current fuel infrastructure. You can
drop it right into your car. You don't need any modifications. (How do you make biofuel?)
Bacteria have evolved over billions and billions of years to find protein in the environment
and then use that to grow. However, we don't want them to do that. We try to engineer the
metabolism of bacteria so that instead of just growing on this protein, they will now
take a good portion of it to produce products for us. So bacillus subtilis is a soil organism.
It's recognized as safe by the FDA, which is a good step for developing this process
for industrial deployment. We've engineered bacillus subtilis to produce alcohol biofuels
and ammonia, but we don't have the highest yield. So what we're doing right now is trying
to further study the metabolism of this organism. See how we can alter it, adjust it. Once we
improve our yield of biofuels, then we can start looking at can we scale production of
this up. To me, it's important that we come up with technology for renewable energy. In
an academic setting, you know, we have a little more freedom to investigate basic science,
generate new theories, new hypotheses, that you might not be able to do in a corporate
setting. And because of this we can be sort of an engine for generating new ideas. And
right now we're working with guidance from a company in industry and well as the U.S.
Department of Energy to make something economically solvent or viable on an industrial scale.
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