A team in Berkeley, California has engineered a new type of E. coli bacteria that can feed off of the sugars in seaweed and produce ethanol.  The scientist’s have engineered an enzyme in these E. coli that allow us to use all the major sugars in seaweed, making it incredibly efficient. This idea is revolutionary because one of the major points against bio fuels is that in order to grow enough corn to produce biofuels it would require giving up some agricultural space.  These scientists claim that less than 3% of the world’s coast could produce enough seaweed to replace 60 billion gallons of fossil fuels. A site in Chile is already in place to take advantage of aqua farming with 4 sites available. However some things to consider after reading this article include, what kind of effects would this have on the ocean population since seaweed is a keystone species? Also one must wonder how they would contain this E. coli to keep it from spreading to surrounding areas.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+report+breakthrough+turning+seaweed+into+biofuel/6026302/story.html