Abstract
F. W. Hayes (37, Sussex Square, London W2, 2SP ,U.K. ). ‘New horizons’, as we have used them in the context of these discussions on ‘industrial microbiology’, refer neither to west nor east, but to our ability to see beyond the immediate foreground. I am astonished at some of the negative thinking behind the gloomy forecasts of the practicability of schemes for growing agricultural crops to provide us with our energy needs in the future. It is true that, in the U.K., we have neither the land nor the climate to grow vast quantities of sugar cane for fermentation. But we do not grow all our own food now and, before the advent of North Sea oil, we were quite resigned (if not happy) to buy fossil products of million-year-old photosynthesis, ejected from holes in the ground in Saudi Arabia, Alaska or wherever. Why should we, therefore, be disinterested in the production of massive quantities of ferment-able material in overseas countries that have the land and the sunshine? Is not ethanol from Brazil, Australia, South Africa or Kenya as good a proposition as methanol from New Zealand, N.W. Australia or other countries with unutilized methane ?
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Schedule a callMore From: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. B, Biological Sciences
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