Fungus fuel

Jamie Myers

just copied this i thought it was interesting

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'Diesel' producing fungus found

3 hours 46 mins ago
ITN

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A tree-living fungus that produces a substance similar to diesel fuel has been discovered in South America. Skip related content
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'Diesel' producing fungus found

Experts believe Gliocladium roseum could potentially be a completely new source of green energy.

The fungus, which lives inside the Ulmo tree in the Patagonian rainforest, naturally produces hydrocarbon fuel similar to the diesel used to power cars and lorries.

Scientists were amazed to find that it was able to convert plant cellulose directly into the biofuel, dubbed "myco-diesel".

Crops normally have to be converted to sugar and fermented before they can be turned into useful fuel.

Professor Gary Strobel, from Montana State University in the US, said: "G. roseum can make myco-diesel directly from cellulose, the main compound found in plants and paper. This means if the fungus was used to make fuel, a step in the production process could be skipped."

Prof Strobel led an investigation into novel fungi in the rainforests of northern Patagonia, which cross the borders of Argentina and Chile.

He found that when the diesel fuel fungus was exposed to potentially toxic antibiotics, it reacted defensively by generating volatile gases.

"Then when we examined the gas composition of G. roseum, we were totally surprised to learn that it was making a plethora of hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon derivatives," he said.

"The results were totally unexpected and very exciting and almost every hair on my arms stood on end."

Cellulose provides the fibrous supporting structure of plants. During biofuel production, cellulose from plant waste is first treated with enzymes that turn it into sugar. Microbes then ferment the sugar into inflammable ethanol.

Nearly 430 million tonnes of plant waste is produced from farmland each year around the world.

Prof Strobel said: "We were very excited to discover that G. roseum can digest cellulose. Although the fungus makes less myco-diesel when it feeds on cellulose compared to sugars, new developments in fermentation technology and genetic manipulation could help improve the yield.

"In fact, the genes of the fungus are just as useful as the fungus itself in the development of new biofuels."

Garry Brockley

Nice one pommie all i have to do now is plant a forrest of about a thousand acres and my fuel worries are over and what the hell are you doing back in this cold god forsaken country.

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newguy18

I see your a real patriot Galbee.

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old schooler

Jamie Myers

I never went anywhere but does nt mean i will stay in this dump for ever

Garry Brockley

iv'e fought on two fronts for my queen and country it's now being slowly taken over by liberal lefties who are scared of insulting people and don't have an ounce of Britishness about them sorry ekka political i know slapped wrist.
i hope they can find a way to reproduce this fuel though it may be another path for the future fuels millions of acres of oilseed rape mixed with millions of acres of these trees hey a green yellow and blue planet. sorry mate i thought you worked outside the country too

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Jamie Myers

No not yet have down sized my business to part time (or it downsized itself) and taken a job but have plans to get out in the not to distant future

Garry Brockley

Well if your ever around north lincolnshire/ nots way give me a ping

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Eric Frei

What all these bio fuels dont tell us is what the volumes are. Like how many fungi, by weight, mass or plant etc is required to make 1 litre of fuel?

What is the costs of such, the emissions of such.

You'd think that it being a fungi it would be fast to grow and produce unlike the diesel tree which takes what, 25 years to yield.

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Tree Machine

And fungi can be easily propagated in the lab, upscaled to bulk substrate and further on to produce it's wanted metabolites in giant bioreactors.

Also this gives the scientists some DNA to work with. Once they identify and sequence the gene(s) responsible for the production of that 'fuel', then that gene can likely be spliced into another fungus that is more easily and quickly grown.


I see hope in this. After all, a yeast is a fungus and we've gotten that to produce, like, billions of gallons of ethanol. Maybe the key is to insert this gene into a yeast as yeast do really well in a liquid fermentation system. Possibly, though this is a stretch, it could produce a dual-fuel.

Mushrooms can save the planet?

glennak

yep sounds good use our wood chips to run truck chipper and saws. Good for enviroment.