Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: toms@ncifcrf.gov (Tom Schneider) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: H20 + CO2 + electricity --> hydrocarbons ????? Keywords: solar power car gasoline energy storage Message-ID: Date: 25 Feb 90 21:18:05 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: National Cancer Institute, Frederick Lines: 26 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article <8145@pt.cs.cmu.edu> vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: > it would be really neat to use several >thousand watts of solar cells on my house to produce gasoline for my car. Plants make hydrocarbons, so we should be able to bioengineer a plant to extrude hydrocarbons, much the way maple syrup is tapped from a tree... If we get on it right away - we might have it in maybe 50 year's I'd guess. Could be much sooner. How long would a tree take to make a gallon of gas? We should be able to figure this out from the known rates of tree growth! This is a useful problem for the nanotechnology folks over in sci.nanotech to think about (so I am cross posting it there also). Tom Schneider National Cancer Institute Laboratory of Mathematical Biology Frederick, Maryland 21701-1013 toms@ncifcrf.gov [Well, in the case of maple sugar it's an incredibly inefficient way to do it. By far the best way would be some single-celled creature, in tanks. However, I imagine that nanotech will obviate the whole problem by allowing (a) direct, high-efficiency conversion of light to electricity, and (b) efficient, high-density storage of electric power. We shouldn't need to burn hydrocarbons in our cars at all. --JoSH]