Finding alternative fuel takes a lot of time and is rather costly, and there have been many projects done on studying the best sources of oil other than fossil fuels.
The reasons for such attempts mainly revolve around the several speculations about fuel matters.
Even the world-market has been providing consumers the speculation that oil is running low all over the world.
Considering this, and considering that 90% of the world industries are highly fuel dependent, finding an alternative fuel is a serious case and is no joke.
Modern day researches are geared towards the advancement of our society and among the things considered to be the prioritized study areas is the one that deals with alternative fuel sources.
The scientists and researchers at Tulane’s Department of Cell and Molecular Biology exactly know this top priority issue and thus give importance to the fact that fuel is one of the sources of energy.
For purposes of advancing the lives of the human kind, they are working on a specific strain of bacteria that is believed to feed on organic materials such as the newspaper, and is believed to latter on produce biofuel.
The Bacteria that scientists and researchers are working is named the bacteria “TU – 103″, one which can be maximized for butanol production.
The researchers involved in the project are David Mullin, the professor and head of the study and his post doctoral fellow Harshad Velankar and Hailee Rask an undergraduate student.
Asked what the project is all about, Harshad Velankar explains that “Cellulose is found in all green plants, and is the most abundant organic material on earth, and converting it into butanol is the dream of many.”
Velankar continued his thoughts and said, “In the United States alone, at least 323 million tons of cellulosic materials that could be used to produce butanol are thrown out each year.”
Clearly then, the main organic material the researchers are using in their study are the newspapers, specifically the old edition of The Times Picayune, New Orleans’ daily newspaper.
Although the project seems to be going on smoothly, the researchers’ method of biofuel production has not been patented yet and is still in the process for official documentation.
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