Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Algae Pre-historic and Furure Oil Source

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Algae Pre-historic
and
Future Source of Oil




The Oil and Coal of our planet was made some 500 million years ago. One tiny micro-organism was mainly responsible for this and consequently for our industrial revolution. That organism is a type of algae called Botryococcus Braunii.

Now that all that hard work of Botrycoccus Braunii 500 million years ago is all but used up, scientists are again putting hope in this little algae cell to provide oil for the future.

The idea of oil from algae is anything but a new notion. I have written several times of various efforts, mostly unsuccessful, to harness natures little oil factory.

Why am I writing again? Well, the latest efforts are based on sequencing the DNA of the ancient little organism. It is hoped that with the information thus gleaned, scientists can construct synthetic methods to synthesise oil all based directly on the original oil manufacturing techniques of  Botrycoccus Braunii.


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