从生物燃料的角度看,生物工厂浪费了大量的能源:它们用太阳光制造纤维素、淀粉、木质素和种子,其中只有部分可以被转化为燃料。越来越多的研究正在寻找经基因工程改造的微生物,来直接制造液体燃料。从理论上讲,用这种方法优化出来的能源转换效率,与利用生物质来制造燃料的技术相比,要高出一个数量级。 Biofuels are wasting vast amounts of energy from a biofuels perspective: they use sunlight to make cellulose, starch, lignin and seeds, only a portion of which can be converted to fuel. More and more research is looking for genetically engineered microorganisms to make liquid fuels directly. In theory, the energy conversion efficiency that is optimized in this way is an order of magnitude higher than the technology that uses biomass to make fuel.