So Autoblog, and sister site AutoblogGreen, are reporting 2 new ways for the production of oil that don’t involve dead creatures from millions of years ago. The first (reported on Autoblog here) involves the use of livestock feed, and some genetically altered bacteria, primarily a genetically altered strain of E. coli.

The bacteria have been added to a 1,000 litre vat of the animal feed, and can turn out 40 gallons of crude oil (almost good enough to pour straight into your car) in a week. Very impressive. As long as they don’t escape. Or mutate. Or both of course!

The second story (on Autobloggreen here) reports a slightly different approach. It’s a sad fact that when some people change the oil in their cars, they don’t dispose of it in a safe manner, many choosing to just throw it into a spare peice of ground that they can find, then leading to contamination of the ground. However help could be at hand. Rather than producing the oil from crude, it is in fact produced from beef fat (imagine driving along with the smell of Sunday Roast wafting through the car… YUM!). When you change the oil you mix your old oil with a mixture called G-DISPOSOIL and this breaks it down into something you can pour on the ground. This mixture can then be consumed by bacteria in the ground and 90% of it can be consumed in under 10 days.

Both sound good, and I have to say my preference would be for the beef fat solution, for no other reason than it doesn’t involve deadly bacteria! Now they just need to work out how to produce diesel from pig fat and the job will be complete…