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Feed some sugar to yeast, and it will eat it at once, and produce alcohol as its waste matter, as Ethanol, its often mixed with gasoline to help power our cars.
Yeast can derive its energy from a lot of different sugars, it especially loves glucose, or honey (well known to home wine makers) But if it cant find sugar in its food, yeast will break down Corn into starch, which it converts to sugars to produce Ethanol.
Corn kernals are ground down by the Bio-Fuel makers into a starch which is then fed to the yeast. The yeast loves this starch powder, and eagerly converts it to Ethanol
The Bio-fuel makers feed ground corn kernals to yeasts, rather than many other varietys of food, because Corn starch only has the sugars that the yeast ferments and eats.
Many other plant foods produce sugars....but they also produce a second kind of sugar that yeasts avoid.....its called Xylose.
Yeasts won't touch this under any circumstances, in fact it tends to poison the mix, and the yeasts die before this alternative plant food can be fully utilised.
Now you know why farmers are so intent upon growing Corn crops. And why the Anti-Bio-Fuel Lobby states that this Corn is taken away from humans to eat as food.
As I stated some time ago, here....in these pages that..."Bio-fuel Crops Are a Crime"
I still believe that....since they are taking the basic foods out of many poorer peoples reach, and increasing their basic food prices, to boot.
Could there be some light at the end of the tunnel? Could it be possible for a geneticaly modified yeast to eat just any crop?
Even those crops that produce the Xylose sugars that yeasts wont touch?
Well 'Mark Goebl' a geneticist on the campus of 'Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis' (IUPUI)
Thinks that he is very close to producing a mutant strain of yeast which will eat these Xylose sugars, for Ethanol production. Which would reduce or eliminate the need to use corn to make the alternative auto fuel.
He states that by producing a mutant yeast strain that will eat xylose just as well as glucose means nearly doubling the amount of Ethanol you get from the same volume of basic
plant material. "You get a lot more ethanol for the same amount of work".
***Thoughts
Now thats a wonderful idea--It should be persued, as quickly as possible, and patented
Grow Corn crops for humans to eat again. Wonderful.
It wont stop the increased vehicle pollution if he is right, but thats another story.
.  . "You will never find a real Human being - Even in a mirror." ....Mike Kremer.
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So you're still on the kick that for some reason everyone should be allowed to eat and that it is more important than my right to drive my fuel hungry truck? You say making bio-fuel is evil when we should be feeding the poor people of the world, and then you go onto explaining a plan where we could change the laws of nature by producing a strain of yeast which will eat Xylose sugars, and that is not evil? I say let the poor and hungry masses die if they are too busy making children instead of looking for ways to feed themselves.
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Does anybody wonder what might happen if xylose-adapted yeast got out into our environment that is filled with plant life evolved to not have to worry about defending against yeast attacking their own xylose? I'm guessing plants can defend against yeast which like glucose or fructose or sucrose, or mannose, etc.
Is it xylose that constitutes the plant's natural defense against yeast?
It'd be terrible if we had to start spraying our crops with Monistat 3.
I tend to agree with Rallem, that this kind of genetic engineering is potentially very evil.
There are so many natural ways to grow biofuel crops, reclaiming recently desertified lands that can't support food crops, it should be a crime not to be doing such (and providing jobs for the desert poor).
~K
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Does anybody wonder what might happen if xylose-adapted yeast got out into our environment that is filled with plant life evolved to not have to worry about defending against yeast attacking their own xylose?
Is it xylose that constitutes the plant's natural defense against yeast?
It'd be terrible if we had to start spraying our crops with Monistat 3.
.............>
........>
I dont think 'Anonymous' understands yeasts..... Monistat 3 is not a killer of the type of yeast, that geneticist 'Mark Goebl' is talking about.
Having just looked up Monistat 3, I see it is an anti-biotic to fight human fungal infections. These fungal infections are often called yeast infections by the pharmacists...so as not to upset the public with the word Fungal.
Human fungal infections can be quite dangerous for pregnant women, often being found in the uterus, there is a similar type that causes cracks between the toes, which is also a fungal infection. (Athaeetes foot)
The causes are many....incipient diabetes, the use of internal tampons, or general uncleanlyness tends to promote this type of fungal infections. Once established, it can be difficult to get rid of. Yogurt (another yeast family) even Salt, or as you say, an anti-biotic such as Monistat 3, will fight a human fungal infection.
Common yeasts that eat sugars and excrete alcohol as their waste product, do NOT attack growing crops. So your talk of spraying them with an anti-biotic is as ludicrous as your comments.
Actually I dont think Mark Goebl actually has to produce a lab mutant strain of yeast to eat Xylose sugars...if he did'nt want to.
He could keep on taking and separating those few yeasts that lived just a tad longer than the rest of the dead and dying yeasts in his mix. This might take years to achieve, but after tens of thousands of trial mixes, he might well find a stronger strain of Yeast
Obviously, if he can chemically cause common bakers yeast to mutate, and eat Xylose sugars, he would be achieving something far far quicker. Worth while, both to himself and everyone connected to the (Auto industry?).
You might also note that if he were to achieve his idea, there would be less dry weight of plants used to achieve the same amount of Alcohol output. So theoreticaly, less crops would need to be grown, and further-more a greater variety could be used. Not neccesarily food crops either.
Subtle different strains of yeasts are found living on grapes. They will all produce about 11-12% alcohol, maximum, before they die. But there is one strain that lives on the Tokay grape, that produces a 13% alcohol content, before the "mash dies".
Wine producers often use this stronger Tokay yeast, since it produces just a little more alcohol.
So buy a "Tokay yeast" if you want to produce a stronger wine, of course you could use it in making homemade bread (it would probably rise quicker?)
Although you can produce alcohol with any vegetable matter, as long as its mashed up with warm water, and sugar added.
Just any vegetable matter is not an efficient alcohol producer, as far as the bio-fuel makers are concerned.....which is why Mark Goebl's idea could turn out to be a winner.
Of couse its not easy to change the eating habits of a living organism, that has been around for probably millions of years,....not only that, it would be helpful if a yeast could be developed, to live longer in its own excrement....before dying.
You might remember that all Alcohol anywhere in the Universe is only produced by living cells. (Oil as well for that matter)
The Creationists among you might think about the time line needed by Microbes to produce their 'waste', before you foolishly talk about the 4,000 years of Earth's life, to other foolish listeners.
An interesting tip before I end. Its quite possible to produce a strong taste free alcohol with nothing more than sugar and water.
Note that yeast plus Sugar and water will NOT make alcohol.
(Prehaps 1% if the waters dirty?).....So how do you do it?
Easy, just drop in two crushed tablets of multi-vitamins into a five gallon jar of sugar water.....and watch the resulting streams of Carbon Dioxide rise to the surface, as the yeasts
fight to feed.
. . "You will never find a real Human being - Even in a mirror." ....Mike Kremer.
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Joined: Sep 2006
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Posts: 194 |
I don’t think the anonymous poster was being serious when he or she said we’d have to spray plants with Monistat 3, and was only making a point that some questions should go unanswered if their answer could have devastating effects. Personally I don’t have a problem with turning food crops into fuel crops, because I don’t think it will have a long term effects on the planet being that I don’t think it will be a long term project. I think the upgrading of our bio-fuels industry is only a bridging step to getting ourselves free from foreign oil. I see that Iran is turning its cars into natural gas burning cars so they can have more oil to export at the $125.00/ barrel price tag. That is something we should be doing too, because we in America have plenty of natural gas, and I know that automobiles can run perfectly on it because I understand that all of the taxi cabs in Burlington Vermont run on natural gas and have been doing so for decades. That takes care of the automobiles with internal combustion engines for normal use, but what about the trucks which run diesel engines and need the strength and torque those engines deliver? I heard on NPR that the original diesel engine was not designed to run on diesel fuel at all and it was originally designed to run on a bio fuel from some southern crop which I cannot remember what it was, but diesel fuel quickly became the fuel of choice because while it didn’t run as well as the bio fuel it did cost a lot less until the bio fuel was all but forgotten. Now there seems to be a new comer plant which may help matters. Here is a link, but I still think the need for turning corn into bio fuels is important as a step until we can utilize Jatropha to its full effect. http://www.jatropha.de/
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Anonymous
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Hi Rallem,
Its interesting that you can speak up for 'anonymous', who ever he or she is. As a matter of fact going anonymous has certain advantages.....So much so that I am going anonymous from now on.
No longer will I post under my screen name of Mike Kremer, and of course I will be replying under 'anonymous' as well.
One dosn't feel obliged to reply to post like " don’t think the anonymous poster was being serious when he or she said we’d have to spray plants with Monistat 3, and was only making a point that some questions should go unanswered if their answer could have devastating effects" ......Like you did on anonymous' behalf
Makes life a whole lot easier dont you think?
By the way I believe the first diesel engine was run on Peanut oil.
Signing off for the last time as ..Mike Kremer
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Anonymous
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Rallem,
Thanks for noticing the hint of sarcasm in my "monistat" comment.
It was only to illustrate that changing yeast so drastically could have devastating consequences;
...and that maybe we should answer some questions about the role of xylose in plants, before we find a way to destroy it.
~K
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Anonymous
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Plead sarcasm when you/we screw up? Neat idea
~K
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Joined: Oct 2006
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Plead sarcasm when you/we screw up? Neat idea
~K What are you talking about, and why have you co-opted my anonymous signature? ~K
Pyrolysis creates reduced carbon! ...Time for the next step in our evolutionary symbiosis with fire.
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