Editorial Comment

	Vol. 226 No. 1
PERRY A. FISCHER, EDITOR

Tiny gas-belching critters. Scientists created life two years ago! I don’t know how I missed it, but, researchers from the University of New York at Stony Brook built the first synthetic virus from scratch using the genome sequence for polio. To construct the virus, the researchers say they followed a recipe they found on the internet and used gene sequences from a mail order supplier. After building the virus, the researchers injected it into mice to demonstrate that it was active. The animals were paralyzed. Some died. In a related development, late last year, scientists at the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives, significantly advanced the DNA-assembly method. The researchers assembled the 5,386 base pairs of phiX174, a bacteria-devouring virus.

Thirty years ago, this would have made worldwide front-page headlines because it constituted the creation of life. Nowadays, because of an uneasy truce between science and religion, viruses have been sort of reclassified as dead, or at least technically nonliving, causing the story to be a back-page paragraph. It derives from the old, unfortunate argument between science and religion, wherein science is obligated not to acknowledge Authority as an explanation of the natural world. If viruses are nonliving, we can avoid the argument that science has created life – for now.

Moreover, during the past three decades, defining what is alive has become an impossible task. Finding a dozen disparate definitions of what constitutes life is not a problem. We can’t even use the old adage, “I’ll know it when I see it.” Much of what is alive we cannot see. And even when we can see it, its status is murky. For me, it’s an academic exercise that I’ve given up on. That the living and nonliving occur on a continuum is no more surprising than dozens of other oddities, such as knowing that the universe is made up of atoms, each of which is 99.999 . . . % space, which, if I think about it too much, makes me feel kind of empty. But I digress.

So, what does the creation of synthetic viruses have to do with the oil field? It is probable – even likely – that genetic engineering will enable the production of far more hydrocarbons than all other technologies. We’ve reported on various microbial oilfield technologies over the years. For the most part, these have been naturally occurring critters that have been bred and/or fed to enhance their populations, for the purpose of improving production, lowering viscosity, reducing sulfur or improving some other aspect of oil, in situ. But the ability to manipulate genes to create ever more useful microbes is rapidly advancing.

If you consider the full range of possible ways that genetic engineering can be applied, it becomes likely that we are on the verge of a new type of technology revolution – one which is alien to our industry. The exploration/ drilling/ production cycle is rife with mathematics, models, steel, geologic concepts, and other familiar technologies. But the geneticist division? The bio-engineering asset team? To the extent that these exist at all, they are fledgling within oil companies. Mostly, they exist as novel startups by intrepid visionaries – or at least diehard optimists – backed by equally daring venture capitalists.

As an example, consider the new, privately held startup company, LUCA Technologies. It is finding and developing certain naturally occurring microorganisms – methanogens – to convert coal resources to methane.

The company says laboratory evidence shows that ongoing activity of anaerobic microbes in Powder River basin (PRB) coals are generating methane in real time. These tests have shown that radioactive-labeled CO₂ introduced to PRB core samples is rapidly converted to radioactive-labeled methane. This suggests that much of the gas in the PRB need not be generated from ancient methanogens, as is generally believed. The company believes that these microbes also may inhabit other coals, organic shales, and oils and further believes the careful enhancement of such microbes may offer a new long-term, renewable methane source.

I’ve been an outspoken critic of the current status of ethanol. First, because it competes with prime farmland and food crops – fuel should never compete with food. Second, because ethanol production could not exist without heavy government subsidies – with little chance that an initial government boost would allow the critical leap to independent profitability. But especially because such government money is spent for political reasons (in the US, Europe, Brazil and elsewhere), rather than for environmental or energy independence reasons.

However, bio-engineering may allow ethanol production that has none of these drawbacks, because it can come from genetically engineered critters that can convert high-cellulose, low-sugar, low-starch biomass and plants to the alcohol fuel. The plants themselves would be genetically engineered to be grown on otherwise marginal or useless land, specifically for ethanol production. There have been recent advancements that could herald a breakthrough in this long sought-after solution to ethanol production.

Genencor International and Novozymes Biotech have been working under a $17 million contract with the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory to make an improved group of enzymes to break down cellulose into sugars for ethanol production. The enzymes that Genencor has been working on are derived from a cotton-eating fungus that was found on tents in the Solomon Islands 60 years ago. By manipulating the genes of the fungus and adding genes from other species, these enzymes, which cost $4 – $5/gal of ethanol when the research began four years ago, now cost 10 – 20 cents/gal.

There are many other bio-engineering applications for energy creation. You may not have heard of algal ponds, but these have been studied and proposed as possible sources of hydrocarbons. The combination of wastewater, desert land and genetically engineered pond scum could constitute a considerable energy resource. Several research groups are trying to find and or modify microbes that produce large quantities of hydrogen as a byproduct of their natural biological processes.

I’ve always thought it would be serendipity that played the greatest role of all in securing a prosperous energy future. No one predicted that oil well drilling would save the sperm whale from extinction. No one predicted that developing the atomic bomb would lead to fission-reactor-generated electricity less than a decade later. Bio-engineered hydrocarbons? Who’d a thunk it?