Special Report on Cellulosic Ethanol: Synthetic six-carbon alcohols may hold key to higher energy density, fuel efficiency in cellulosic fuels of the future

In the US, a fascinating development worth tracking comes from the National Academy of Sciences: a new process to genetically engineer e.coli bacteria to produce six-carbon alcohols.

In nature, carbon chains range from two-molecule (ethanol) up to five-carbon; the breakthrough represents not only a unique synthetic organic molecule, but one with higher energy density.The higher energy density will produce more mileage efficiency, and long-chain carbons can be easily separated from water, making them transportable using existing pipeline infrastructiure. Although long-chain carbons can be artificially created using exotic amounts of heat and pressure, the e.coli process works at room temperature.

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