Friday, January 29, 2010 PARIS: Gene scientists have coaxed bacteria into eating agricultural waste and secreting diesel, offering a potentially cheaper, greener energy source than present-day biofuels, a study released Wednesday said. Soaring demand for the current mainstay source for biodiesels -- corn, sugar and other starchy crops -- has caused the prices of some staple foods to soar as farmland is turned over to fuel crops, and worsened deforestation. Some researchers also doubt whether there is a significant net reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases, given the inputs needed from fossil fuels, in ploughing, fertilising, harvesting and processing and so on, to make biofuel. One problem is that oil from plants must first be chemically transformed. To purify ethanol, for example, it must be distilled from a fermentation broth. But biologists in the United States say they have invented a genetically-engineered version of a humble bacterium called Escherichia coli that c...
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