From: Jeff Davis (jdavis@socketscience.com)
Date: Tue Sep 12 2000 - 22:11:10 MDT
On Sun, 10 Sep 2000 23:35:49 -0700 (PDT)
"Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com>
writes:
>Now, since I've just finished my sometimes discussed about in hushed
>whispers business plan for the development of biotech based
>self-replicating systems I'll toss my vote in for the *dark horse*.
>
>The *dark horse* will be based on light harvesting methods
>currently found in plants. Once these systems are cloned
>and available as easily manipulated laboratory tools, scientists
>will develop energy harvesting, storage and production systems
>based on biotechnology based self-replicating systems.
>
>This solves the problems of production costs, capital costs,
>etc. that have plagued other renewable energy sources. This
>will not be simple, but the payoff is big! Really big! -- being able
>to "paint on" your power generation system that is self-organizing,
>self-repairing and entirely local (producing revenue if it is connected
>to the grid...) argue that this is the way to go.
>
>Self-Replicating systems beat overcoming gravity. No contest.
>
>The market is clear -- you can have grass that you have to mow
>or you can have grass that pumps excess energy into the grid.
>Which do you prefer?
><snip>
>While I would love to see the energy storage and retrieval aspects solved by
>high temperature superconductors, I suspect that they will first be
>solved by biotech (with horrible losses compensated for by the large
>collection areas enabled by self-replicating systems) and the subsequently
>improved upon by much more efficient systems based on diamondoid nanotech.
Chloroplasts (in eucaryotes) and cyanobacteria (procaryotes) harvest energy
from light. Cellular ion pumps create voltage gradients across membranes.
Cellular organelles (ribosomes and ?) produce a variety of energy-storing
fuel candidates: ATP, oils, methane, methanol, ethanol, and others. The
DNA bio-code for these particular products and processes and the structures
which mediate them, can now be identified, isolated, elucidated, precisely
customized, reproduced, and then systematically mass-produced.
Though arguably a non-trivial process (everything's hard till...), these
disparate pieces of biological evolution, along with whatever
post-biological modifications prove advantageous, can be envisioned
conjoined to create never-before-seen-or-even-imagined, truly "engineered",
biological-yet-synthetic organisms. Every code variation across a spectrum
of billions of different organisms from virus to whale, from radiodurans to
cubic kilometer matrices of a single fungus--the largest individual
organisms yet discovered--each piece of DNA a life-tested-and-proven asset
in the bio-engineering inventory. As a technophile and gadgeteer, a lover
of hardware departments, junk yards, and laboratory-gizmos-R-us emporiums,
the vision of this vast-beyond-imagining biological tool kit sets my heart
to racing. No Christmas-eve-wonder-intoxicated tyke was ever more excited
and impatient--and less inclined to sleep.
SHOW ME THE MAGIC!
The dark horse races through the velvet night, chasing the star-lit
infinite, to the coming dawn.
Best, Jeff Davis
"Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
Ray Charles
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