04-30-2008
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#73 (permalink)
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Creating
Location:
North of Sydney Australia
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Re: What plants might be grown, just for bio-fuel?
Quote:
'Lipstick plant' offers to bring new meaning to the term plastic flower
Published Date: 30 April 2008
By TOM CURTIS IN PERTH AND EMILY PYKETT
IT MAY look like a weed, but the Arabidopsis plant could end the need for fossil fuels in the manufacture of household items such as paint and lipstick.
Australian researchers have genetically engineered a specimen of the plant – a member of the mustard family – to produce an unusual fatty acid normally only found in petrochemicals.
Scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CISRO) say the acid can be used to make polymers – the "building blocks" behind plastics and some paints and cosmetics.
As a "green" alternative to using fossil fuels to make plastic, its potential is seen as enormous as oil supplies dwindle and prices rise. It is hoped the same technology can now be engineered into a type of plant called the safflower, which would be suitable for growing on a large scale in Australia.
The CSIRO Plant Industry team was due to present its findings at a conference in Chicago last night.
Dr Allan Green, of CSIRO, said: "Our achievement is to engineer into plants the production of components of the oil that can be used to make polymers.
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"Plants do have massive potential to become factories and the nice thing about plant factories is that they don't have chimneys," he said. "They use light energy as a renewable energy source so they don't make any net contribution to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or climate change. They require minimal inputs so they can be used to provide raw materials for a large number of products where we currently rely on petrochemicals."
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The perils of producing too much plastic
100 million tonnes of plastic produced each year.
1 million sea-birds killed each year by ingesting or getting tangled up in plastic bags, according to Greenpeace.
275,000 tonnes of plastic used each year in the UK – that is about 15 million bottles per day.
500 years How long it takes plastic to decompose.
4% The rate at which the use of plastic in Western Europe is growing.
||54|| Number of recycled plastic bottles that would save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for 3 hours.
600,000 tonnes of plastics litter that Dutch scientists estimate lies on the bed of the North Sea. The litter can smother the sea bottom and kill marine life.
90 days How long it takes for a new type of biodegradable resin manufactured in America called Plastarch Material to break down by 70 per cent.
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http://hypography.com/forums/terra-p...ust-bio-8.html
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"Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden."
~Orson Scott Card  |
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