Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Mass. company making diesel with sun, water, CO2

Associated Press
2/27/2011

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts biotechnology company says it can produce the fuel that runs Jaguars and jet engines using the same ingredients that make grass grow.

Joule Unlimited has invented a genetically-engineered organism that it says simply secretes diesel fuel or ethanol wherever it finds sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based company says it can manipulate the organism to produce the renewable fuels on demand at unprecedented rates, and can do it in facilities large and small at costs comparable to the cheapest fossil fuels.

What can it mean? No less than "energy independence," Joule's web site tells the world, even if the world's not quite convinced.

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