Redesigning photosynthesis to sustainably meet global food and bioenergy demand
Authors:
Ort et al
Abstract:
The world’s crop productivity is stagnating whereas population growth, rising affluence, and mandates for biofuels put increasing demands on agriculture. Meanwhile, demand for increasing cropland competes with equally crucial global sustainability and environmental protection needs. Addressing this looming agricultural crisis will be one of our greatest scientific challenges in the coming decades, and success will require substantial improvements at many levels. We assert that increasing the efficiency and productivity of photosynthesis in crop plants will be essential if this grand challenge is to be met. Here, we explore an array of prospective redesigns of plant systems at various scales, all aimed at increasing crop yields through improved photosynthetic efficiency and performance. Prospects range from straightforward alterations, already supported by preliminary evidence of feasibility, to substantial redesigns that are currently only conceptual, but that may be enabled by new developments in synthetic biology. Although some proposed redesigns are certain to face obstacles that will require alternate routes, the efforts should lead to new discoveries and technical advances with important impacts on the global problem of crop productivity and bioenergy production.
Thursday, July 09, 2015
Improving Photosynthesis Through Biotech for Food and Bio Fuels
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3 comments:
Issue of crops vs. bio fuels is a little far fetch.
1) Bio fuels take sugar from the plant (feed corn) and the rest of the part can go and feed the cattle.
2) If food is that bad of demand, why are we growing tobacco?
Tobacco takes a lot of water and require very fertile lands (I mean more fertile than what corn or wheat needs).
3) Farmscrapers.
http://vincent.callebaut.org/page1-img-dragonfly.html
Imo, bio fuels is better than fossil fuels.
1) You're taking the CO2 that the plant took out of the air and not from underground (CO2 reused not increasing CO2).
2) It's renewable.
On the other hand, using so much farm land for fuel raises prices, which affects the poorest the most. Farmers will grow whatever makes them money (like tobacco). We have no shortage of food, or food produce capacity (not even close), but utilization will affect prices long before shortages become a possible worry.
Besides, algae based biofuels are vastly superior to the meager amount that can be gained from sugar rich plants. Algae can also be grown where plants can't (arid/desert/mountain), and so have no direct impact on agriculture.
Also, the biofuel processed from direct agricultural food doesn't really leave much else to feed cattle or people (all that chemical/digestion treatment that goes on and such, just normal plant husk wastes left when using sugar rich crops as a source). But, we can get biofuel from food waste, which greatly increases our efficiency by putting trash to good use.
So, really, I think we should completely scrap the biofuels-from-food absurdity and invest in any number of other biofuel from non-food or waste sources technologies. Makes vastly more sense from a future and efficiency perspective.
Yeah, pretty much.
There is a company trying to turn waste into oil.
But atm, they cost way too much.
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