Researchers discover trees? ;D
They clearly don’t get outside much
I have the impression that since pretty much 20 years or even more, the number of published papers, where scientist repeated old theories or hypothesis and concluded the same, skyrocketed. This may not be in every field the case, but in some fields like ecology there is a certain tendency. Just recently a team published with large excitement a paper which showed that trees communicate via volatile organic compounds (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/04/993430007/trees-talk-to-each-other-mother-tree-ecologist-hears-lessons-for-people-too). Well, studies, which showed the same, were already done in the 80‘s.
I get the tree jokes, but I think the idea here is that the output is in an easily-processsble form such that you just pipe it into a bioreactor or refinery and make ethanol or some fossil-fuel replacement.
And I guess these could be deployed on the ocean?
Why produce ethanol?
Producing and burning ethanol in internal combustion engines is more polluting, less efficient than using electric vehicles. So this can’t be it.
Producing and burning ethanol for heat is more polluting, less efficient than heat pumps or solar thermal energy. So that’s not it either.
The article mention chemical industry and:
[…] building blocks for products ranging from fertilizers to plastics
This leaves fertilizers and plastics. So this would have to compete with other ways to produce fertilizers, plastic and plastic alternatives (cardboard packaging, wood, glass…)
I didn’t think deeply about this. At least airplanes are still most efficient with kerosine-like fuel. But making plastics would be super important, because it’s such a powerful material.
We already had that. It’s called algae.
Trees: “holy shit you guys catch on slow”
