Why can't a pharmaceutical company create an enzyme to convert waste into gasoline?

Question

I don't believe oil came from dead dinosaurs. I think it came from the decaying of dead vegetation. If so, why can't we produce it in the laboratory? Then we could have big factories spewing out the stuff. Energy crisis GONE: Trade deficit GONE: Overpopulation GONE (By not teaching the Chinese and Indians how to drive their new cars, and just turn them loose: That's how!).

I have nothing against China or India, per se. Just against a social infra-structure that allows people to overpopulate.

Answer 1

Good question.

First, you are correct, NO dinosaurs were harmed (or even used) in the making of crude oil. It comes primarily from phytoplankton and zooplankton, along with some plant material, that is buried in sediment under anoxic conditions.

We can produce oil in the laboratory. The usual problem is that it takes more energy to produce than it yeilds. You see, not only is oil a reservoir of stored solar energy from the past, the heat from the earth was also required to change that organic material into oil. The earth's heat source is radioactive decay, so you could say that oil is a store of both solar and nuclear energy from the past. Because natural oil took more heat energy and solar energy to produce than we will ever get from it, it doesn't make it especially efficient to produce synthetically.

Actually, the oil companies, among many others are working to create both biological methods and chemical methods to convert trash to gasoline. There are even plants already in production, such as the ones that convert waste from turkey processing plants into biodiesel. Here's a good story about the turkey guts processing plant in Carthage, Missouri:
http://www.discover.com/issues/apr-06/features/anything-oil/

Here is a plant that does use enzymes to make ethanol from cellulose. Iogen's major partner in this research is Shell Oil.
http://www.iogen.ca/cellulose_ethanol/what_is_ethanol/process.html

Even better, Dr. George Olah, a Nobel Laureate, has published a book recently that suggests we use carbon dioxide as a raw material to make methanol, which will easily substitute for gasoline and can be used as a raw material to make most of the materials that we use oil for:
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16466&ch=biztech

Here's another interesting project where they are using carbon dioxide from a power plant to grow algae, thus reducing the CO2 emmissions, and then propose making the algae into biodiesel.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/algae.html

It just proves, there's more than one way to skin a dinosaur.

Answer 2

I agree with the other guy, enzymes are too expensive and they are really complex. What does Einstein have to do with enzymes and gas?. But if you are going to create gasoline you need to realize that you are creating pollution (and the crappy biofuel that creates same pollution to manufacture) so you need a way to get rid of all that, and creating waste into gasoline will create more pollution. The whole point is to create a renewable source of energy that does not procude carbon dioxide, nitrogen monoxide all those harmful gases that are causing changes in the environment. Needless to say factories create a lot of pollution and the energy crisis won't go away just by adding more cars to the world. By the way and Indian guy designed the new Nissan 350Z, a chinese guy was involved in the creation of the Ford GT 40, so why do you pick on those countries. Overpopulation will sky rocket since you would need to manufacture the enzymes in a place that has a low-wage workforce, third world countries and they have all the space to build your polluting factories.

Answer 3

I'm sure we can turn waste into gasoline. People right now are making ethanol and biodiesel out of waste plant material, and deisel substitue out of waste grease

The problem is, that the bio-deisel ethanol processes all make a fuel that costs a lot more than gasoline (who would buy it?)

and there is not near enough waste cooking grease to make a dent in even one country's energy need

there are many inventors and college professors and companies trying to find a cheap energy source so they can be famous or rich or both

if it were easy, we would already have it

Answer 4

Enzymes are extremely difficult to design. I have been working on making an artificial enzyme that behaves like a naturally occuring one for years and have yet to get to the ability of the natural.

As for making of fuels from wastes and other oils, it is currently done on smaller scales gradually enlarging, but will not be enough to completely overcome dependance dino-tea. Bio-fuels like biodiesel have a current production cost on the small scale of $0.70 per gallon (just under $0.18 per litre), economies of scale project the cost dropping to $0.50 per gallon.
Ethanol fuels have the key problem of not running well in humid areas (destroying the engines, even on these brand new vehicles) and being depleting to the soil, however they are an excellant choice to use in dry environs.
Hydrogen fuels would be the best choice in addition to biodiesel as soon as a safer method of containing the hydrogen is developed.

Answer 5

What you're presenting is talked approximately as "biomass", and various capability businesses are engaged on it. "Biodiesel", case in point, or perhaps ethanol. i'm undecided why you're able to think of a pharmaceutical business enterprise may be in touch. For some varieties of "waste", the regulations of thermodynamics could restrict the clever extraction of capability; for others we do, to a pair volume, usefully extract capability; and to a pair volume, the respond is only that medical examine is harder than is portrayed in technology fiction video clips.

Answer 6

It could be possible if you just listen to me, it describes the motion of particles moving at close to the speed of light. In fact, it gives the correct laws of motion for any particle. This doesn't mean Newton was wrong, his equations are contained within the relativistic equations. Newton's "laws" provide a very good approximate form, valid when v is much less than c. For particles moving at slow speeds (very much less than the speed of light), the differences between Einstein's laws of motion and those derived by Newton are tiny. That's why relativity doesn't play a large role in everyday life. Einstein's theory supercedes Newton's, but Newton's theory provides a very good approximation for objects moving at everyday speeds.

Answer 7

Oil comes from anything that decayed.

The problems are the law makers and politicians.

YES, we can do what you say. We can also expand stem-cell research, however the government is worried about other crap like how much methane a cow expells per day.

Answer 8

cause then big business would be screwed.
good idea cause then we could stay away from the violent mideast.