"Fish, and plankton, and sea greens, and protein from the sea. It's all here. Ready! Fresh as harvest day!" Box - Logan's Run 1976
Scientists have discovered a way to generate ethanol by designing a custom e. coli that breaks down seaweed at temperatures that are close to ambient. Other ethanol processes require the application of large amounts of heat. This reduces that energy benefit from the resulting fuels. There are some studies that indicate that creating ethanol from corn actually consumes more energy than is present in the resulting fuel.
As the story indicates, algae is still a better alternative to seaweed processed by e. coli. But if we can come up with seaweed based fuels, then what other options can we discover?
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