If you’ve been noticing a slew of alternative based fuel posts lately on Swye, you’ve noticed our excitement over the possibilities of weening the US, and effectively the rest of the world, off fossil fuels forever! One of the problems with some of these processes is the processing the “crude” oil requires before it can go in our tanks. LS9 is a company that might be able to shorten the processing time it takes from production to our cars.

Using genetically modified single-cell organisms including industrial yeast and nonpathogenic strains of E. Coli to break down raw material such as wood chips, wheat straw, or even corn (they’re avoiding the need to use food as fuel and focusing on using agricultural waste according to the area and climate) into a by-product that’s nearly pump-ready.

There are several advantages to this over food-based ethanol including the lack of a need to use food like corn. Using agricultural waste solves two problems, the disposal of that waste by agricultural companies, as well as the need to transport it. Since the little guys create something that’s molecularly similar to oil, there’s also no need to distill the product like you have to with ethanol. This greatly reduces the time it takes to create product and get it to market.

So far, they have no production ready space, nor are they sure if the technology could work on a nationwide or global scale, but they machine they’re testing on already can produce about a barrel a week and only takes up 40 square feet of floor space. If that’s any indication of what they can do, bring it on!

» Via TimesOnline