While it's encouraging to see an energy start-up with such lofty goals, it seems like unless DOE drops everything and gives Qteros a huge grant, we likely won't see biomass as a viable energy source for some time. When Sharp uses phrases like "ultimately, we’ll need millions of tons of biomass," it's difficult to take him seriously. We need don't need another theoretical solution to this problem.

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I can definitely see and appreciate the possibilities in this approach. And to take an existing organism, accelerate it's growth and feed it millions of tons of biomass, peeing out ethanol... Wow! How exciting is that?

Well, it's OK if it's regional, the biomass is a byproduct of existing industry and the efficiencies are significant.

Otherwise this whole process is "rooted" in failure. The process to grow ANYTHING. To support another process. Losing mass along the way. To generate an unrefined fuel... it's just plain inefficient.

And let's not consider the issues behind a super bug that could get loose and potentially eradicate lots of land at the same time.

I love the scientific process... I live it. Sometimes it's important to go a few steps further before pulling the trigger on a direction. Get further up or down the food chain, and the levels of progress can shorten the project time-to-market by years, even decades.

Just my two cents. best of success to this team. I'd love to see this happen in an accelerated fashion.

Mark Alan Effinger
http://www.RichContent.tv
http://www.ThoughtOffice.com