What do we make of the Dimbleby Lecture last night? Do the AGW skeptics find themselves disrupted or will a DNA Driven world lead to a new set of problems?
What do we make of the Dimbleby Lecture last night? Do the AGW skeptics find themselves disrupted or will a DNA Driven world lead to a new set of problems?
Not really answering your question, and I didn't see the whole prog, but Venter is someone I have a lot of time for. He knows what he's talking about!
What do we make of the Dimbleby Lecture last night? Do the AGW skeptics find themselves disrupted or will a DNA Driven world lead to a new set of problems?
Not really answering your question, and I didn't see the whole prog, but Venter is someone I have a lot of time for. He knows what he's talking about!
He appears to be an amazing guy and not just his current status as a top scientist.
I found his talk fascinating, esp his reference to "disruptive technology". That is the replacememt of one technology with another, eg the motor car replacing the horse and cart etc etc.
His proposed use of artifically created life designed specifically to create "green" fuel and thus replacing fossil fuel is his way ahead.
I didn't see his lecture so my comments may be off.
The designer "bugs" or whatever have to get their energy from somewhere - presumably the sun. We are presumably then talking about releasing these into the environment on a very large scale. I imagine there will be strong resistance to this as with GM crops.
Also the timescales for this sort of work mean that it is not an alternative to cutting down on CO2 emissions.
A link to a transcript - or if it's going to be repeated on digital, would be of interest.
Originally posted by Steve_M: I didn't see his lecture so my comments may be off.
The designer "bugs" or whatever have to get their energy from somewhere - presumably the sun. We are presumably then talking about releasing these into the environment on a very large scale. I imagine there will be strong resistance to this as with GM crops.
Also the timescales for this sort of work mean that it is not an alternative to cutting down on CO2 emissions.
A link to a transcript - or if it's going to be repeated on digital, would be of interest.
I'm sure the transcript will appear on the Beeb at somepoint. Couldn't see it this morning.
He talked about thousands of silos dotted around the UK full of artificial bugs feeding off sugars of various descriptions. He sees this happening in the near future as the rate of genomic advancement is accelerating fast.
I'm sure the transcript will appear on the Beeb at somepoint. Couldn't see it this morning.
He talked about thousands of silos dotted around the UK full of artificial bugs feeding off sugars of various descriptions. He sees this happening in the near future as the rate of genomic advancement is accelerating fast.
He talked about thousands of silos dotted around the UK full of artificial bugs feeding off sugars of various descriptions.
Interesting transcript.
It seems that existing sources of energy could be used more efficiently or flexibly, or existing industrial approaches could be improved. And perhaps these bugs could be used in CO2 sequestering at power stations.
The use of biofuels to feed the bugs still has the knock-on risks to food security and land-use changes (cutting down rainforests to grow biofuel crops). And 1 million bio-refineries is a lot of bio-refineries (10 thousand would be required in the UK) and a lot of planning battles additionally confused by fears about biosecurity. He'll certainly need to get his PR right.
What do we make of the Dimbleby Lecture last night? Do the AGW skeptics find themselves disrupted or will a DNA Driven world lead to a new set of problems?
I missed the program so interesting to read the transcript. It is a good summary of how technology will have to be relied on to sustain humanity. There must be plenty of ideas out there to create some sort of Tomorrow's World type programme that takes a regular look at evolving potential disruptive technologies. It wouldn't have to be a big budget programme, just well researched, presented and targetted at the GCSE and above scientifically literate.
As for specifically a DNA driven world, we have one anyway, so like all significant technologies, as long as it's managed carefully I see no reason why its associated problems will be outside of mankinds control.
I'm sure the transcript will appear on the Beeb at somepoint. Couldn't see it this morning.
He talked about thousands of silos dotted around the UK full of artificial bugs feeding off sugars of various descriptions. He sees this happening in the near future as the rate of genomic advancement is accelerating fast.
Many thanks TS for digging this out and Lucibee, SOM and Steve for your comments. At the very least, there now appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Originally posted by Lucibee: Things could start getting quite exciting... although I don't think much of the plan to surround our island by wind farms...
Neither do I Lucibee. Its a pity we can't learn from the experience of other countries whose investment in wind creates chaos on the grid and has not lead to any significant closure of conventional power generation.
Still the government will have a visual pointer to its efforts to combat climate change I suppose.
It's just so predictable that once governments or large organisations get the bit between their teeth, they tend to go shooting off at a tangent, spending vast amounts cash and creating vast amounts havoc before they get reined in! It seems to be the same with biofuels and the palm oil "explosion". Oh dear! We seem to have accidentally lost our rainforests in our attempt to be "green"!!! Whoops!!! - sorry - it's not funny - I know...
What do you think is wrong with off-shore wind turbines. Personally, I'm reluctant to see wind turbines in the countryside till every ugly industrial estate has its own. But when they're out at sea I'm not sure I'm bothered, even if I can see them from the beach. Not too bothered by the economics either. Once we all have compact fluorescent light bulbs we'll be able to save enough money to afford the more expensive electricity. Plus it'll reduce the risk of Gazprom holding us to ransom when the oil runs out.
What do you think is wrong with off-shore wind turbines.
Well - where do I start?! They are not much good when the wind isn't blowing, so absolutely dreadful if we are going to be relying on them for most of our energy in the future. Also, the RSPB hate them because they cull migratory birds - although I haven't seen any studies about this...
They are not much good when the wind isn't blowing, so absolutely dreadful if we are going to be relying on them for most of our energy in the future.
Yes, you would need to take this into account when updating infrastructure to ensure we can import power when we've not got enough wind and export (or store it) it when we've got too much. There are also deals where industries use less grid power when less is available (eg. by cutting work or using their own generators).
The RSPB are not against it, but are making the fair point that there needs to be a "planning" system for the sea to try and avoid conflict.
I think I'd prefer turbines to great big silos of alien bugs
I'm not sure from that which factor is assumed to affect birds: blade strikes or loss of habitat due to other factors such as noise.
I realise that this is from a site that might be biased (!), but it seems that the danger to birds is much exaggerated when compared with the other ways in which we are responsible for their deaths. Putting Wind Power's Effect On Birds In Perspective.
A lot of wind-power's bad reputation with regard to birds is based on one early wind-farm, Altamount Pass, which you can see has many small rapidly spinning rotors mounted on just the sort of structures, often incorporating steel support cables, that are known to kill many birds even without moving blades being involved at all.
They are no more alien than those we have created in our hospitals by the over-use of antibiotics...
Oh yes they are Lucibee! The 'hospital' bugs survive by virtue of natural selection, but the 'alien' bugs survive by virtue of genetic engineering. Just one more thing for us to 'mess with'? Besides that, the general population are 'suspicious' of GM.
On the 'offshore' wind power generation front. Offshore is better sited for wind availability and 'NIMBY' avoidance, but invokes more costly maintenance and the continuing heavy use of the UK national grid (the 'grid' is also responsible for many 'bird strikes'). However, 'onshore' wind power generation also needs the UK national grid to some degree.
I thought that one main initiative was to rely as little as possible on the national grid! The reason being that the grid is so 'lossy'. For every kilowatt of power that is fed into it, only about half of it comes out! If we did away with the UK national grid we could afford to use less efficient local power generation and still cut our CO2 emissions. Especially when these 'local generation plants' are less likely to be coal powered.
If the UK national grid is 'fully' maintained there are no excuses for the discontinuance of large scale coal burning power plants because they are efficient and offset some of the grid losses, but they are also the greatest generators of CO2 per kilowatt and can't be 'fired up' and 'shut down' quickly (thus the excuse for continued operation). Coal has the greatest percentage of its energy potential locked away as carbon, so if you are looking to reduce CO2 output you should be looking to exclude the use of coal.
Offshore wind-farms, continued reliance on the grid, continued use of big coal burning plant. End of story. However, should we be looking to reduce CO2 emission, or O2 consumption?
Suricat, by "alien" I mean coming from another planet - so they are no more alien than hospital superbugs!!! And besides, GM is far more precise than natural selection, and means that you can build in safety nets - ie, apoptotic genes that you can use to kill your bug if it does something you didn't want it to, which is unlikely if you designed it properly in the first place.
I'm not aversed to a wind turbine on the hill behind me - in fact I'd positively welcome it given the number of outages we have a year, usually when there are high winds! But I do think that the environmental impacts do need to be considered first. I still think nuclear is a better option in the long term though.
I do only see a new set of problems with GM type bugs producing fuels from sugars.
First of all the sugars have to be produced (presumably by cultivation with the related land loss to this process), then they need to be converted into fuel. We already have natural bugs that convert sugars into a fuel. Ethanol. The problem is, the bugs (yeast) create CO2 during the conversion and release this into the atmosphere. It would be more efficient to burn it all in the first place (unless you want some of the 'black stuff' down your neck)!
However, if the GM bugs precipitate the carbon during the process this may be a viable undertaking. What would the resultant fuel be? Hydrogenated water? It'll probably be more efficient to use a windmill as an electrolytic water-splitter to produce hydrogen!
I think that the process that Dr Ventner is really interested in is the process that has been a Holy Grail to the oil industry for a long time. The breakdown of coal into oil with the use of enzymes. It may also be possible to 'crack' heavy oils into other - what would normally be - distillates by using enzymes, instead of the energy intensive 'thermal cracking', catalysing and distilling methods used today.
or maybe 
