into the Gulf of Mexico is a stark reminder that the United States' reliance on liquid fuel has consequences. A substantial portion of this fuel powers vehicles: In 2008, 97 percent of energy consumed for transportation in the U.S. was supplied by liquid fuel—much of which was made from oil imported from foreign countries. Photosynthetic plant and algae-derived biofuels are additional sources of fuel (think ethanol and biodiesel) but today's technologies are less than 1 percent efficient at converting sunlight into energy we can use.

Organisms use several other ways besides photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide into energy, but so far these have remained relatively unexplored for their biofuel potential. Recently, the Department of Energy's (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) awarded $40 million dollars to 13 projects researching alternative approaches to making fuel out of existing and synthetic organisms. Each grant will last three years.

The programs explore options for coaxing organisms to make energy-dense liquid fuel, including the design of metabolic pathways not found in nature. In theory, these approaches "could be 10 times more efficient" than the technologies used today to produce liquid biofuel, according to ARPA-E's website. Here's a look at the big money being invested on a variety of projects.

Official Name: Engineering E. coli as an Electrofuels Chassis for Iso-octane Production

Lead Organization: Ginkgo BioWorks

Organism: E. coli

Project Goal: Engineer E. coli to convert carbon dioxide and electrical energy into ingredients for iso-octane, a fuel that can be applied to existing fuel infrastructure for U.S. transportation.

Official Name: Novel Biological Conversion of Hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide Directly into biodiesel

Lead Organization: OPX Biotechnologies Inc.

Organism: Cupriavidus necator

Project Goal: Develop a new, genetically engineered micro-organism that can produce biodiesel from hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

Official Name: Engineering a Bacterial Reverse Fuel Cell

Lead Organization: Harvard Medical School–Wyss Institute

Organism: N/A

Project Goal: Engineer a bacterium that can absorb electrical current and turn it into octanol.

Official Name: Electro-Autotrophic Synthesis of Higher Alcohols

Lead Organization: University of California–Los Angeles

Organism: N/A

Project Goal: Genetically engineer micro-organisms to use electricity instead of sunlight to make a high-octane gasoline substitute.

Official Name: Bioconversion of Carbon Dioxide to Biofuels by Facultatively Autotrophic Hydrogen Bacteria

Lead Organization: Ohio State University

Organism: Hydrogen Bacteria

Project Goals: Develop genetically modified bacteria that use carbon dioxide, oxygen and hydrogen to produce butanol. Also, build an industrially scalable bioreactor and a new way to recover butanol from the reactor.

Official Name: Development of an Integrated Microbial-ElectroCatalytic (MEC) System for Liquid Biofuel Production from CO 2 Lead Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Organism: Ralstonia eutropha

Project Goals: Develop a combined microbial and electrochemical catalytic system that converts hydrogen and carbon dioxide into butanol, and find a chemical method to convert butanol into jet fuel.

Official Name: Bioprocess and Microbe Engineering for Total Carbon Utilization in Biofuel Production

Lead Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Organism: Anaerobic and aerobic microbes.

Project Goal: Develop a process that will use an anaerobic—able to live without Oxygen—microbe to produce an organic compound that a second aerobic microbe can convert to oil that can be used to make biodiesel.

Official Name: Hydrogen-Dependent Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Liquid Electrofuels by Extremely Thermophilic Archaea

Lead Organization: North Carolina State University

Organism: Archaea

Project Goal: Using microbes that live in extremely high-temperature environments, develop a new process that converts carbon dioxide into biofuel precursors.

Official Name: Electroalcoholgenesis: Bioelectrochemical Reduction of CO 2 to Butanol

Lead Organization: Medical University of South Carolina

Organism: N/A

Project Goal: Develop an electrolysis cell that will employ microbes that can use electricity to convert carbon dioxide into ethanol and butanol.

Official Name: Engineering Ralstonia eutropha for Production of Isobutanol (IBT) Motor Fuel From Carbon Dioxide, Hydrogen & Oxygen

Lead Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Organism: Ralstonia eutropha

Project Goal: Engineer Ralstonia eutropha to make butanol.

Official Name: Development of Rhodobacter as a Versatile Microbial Platform for Fuels Production

Lead Organization: Penn State University

Organism: Rhodobacter

Project Goal: Insert genes from oil-producing algae into Rhodobacter, a hydrogen-consuming bacteria, so it can use electricity to make gasoline.

Official Name: Electrofuels via Direct Electron Transfer from Electrodes to Microbes

Lead Organization: University of Massachusetts–Amherst

Organism:

N/A

Project Goal: Increase efficiency of microorganisms that are already capable of making biofuel.

Official Name:

Biofuels from CO 2 Using Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria in a Reverse Microbial Fuel Cell

Lead Organization: Columbia University

Organism: N. europaea

Project Goal: Genetically modify N. europaea to use ammonia to make butanol.

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