Sounds strange, but bear with me.
J.C. Bell, an agricultural researcher who lives in Tifton, recently made Internet headlines as the mysterious man who holds the answers to the nation’s energy problems. He didn’t shoot a hole in the ground and up came a’bubblin’ crude. He stood downwind from a gassy cow and smelled opportunity.
“Let me tell you, cows have a great ability to make gas,” Bell says during a phone interview.
The key to the cow’s talent, he says, is a bacteria living in its body that produces hydrocarbon. When it interacts with waste, it produces gas. After four years of under-the-radar research, Bell says he’s identified the bacteria and now plans to genetically modify and produce it on a mass scale, and in turn use it to convert waste into fuel. Bell’s operation is building several pilot plants and production facilities capable of pumping our 500-1,000 barrels per day from each.
He says the result, which he hopes to see by October next year, wouldn’t require a change in the energy infrastructure. Unlike electric cars, which would necessitate a sweeping retrofit of charging stations and a reexamination of the power grid, Bell claims his idea could be pumped directly into your gas tank. It wouldn’t replace our need for fossil fuels, he says, but it would ease our dependence on them. (more…)
