Breakthrough in Electricity-Producing Microbe 177
University of Massachusetts researchers have made a breakthrough with "Geobacter," a microbe that produces electric current from mud and wastewater. A conservative estimate puts the energy output increase at eight times that of the original organism, potentially allowing applications far beyond that of extracting electricity from mud. "Now, planning can move forward to design microbial fuel cells that convert waste water and renewable biomass to electricity, treat a single home's waste while producing localized power (especially attractive in developing countries), power mobile electronics, vehicles and implanted medical devices, and drive bioremediation of contaminated environments."
I, for one... (Score:4, Funny)
...welcome our new shit-eating overlords?
Re:I, for one... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I, for one... (Score:5, Informative)
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It was redundant because reverseengineer made the same joke, but better. We don't need you explaining other peoples humor.
Apparently you do, if you think reverseengineer's point was the same as mine. You can't even grasp the difference after I broke it down, completely spelling it out for you like you were a preschooler. That tells me that you are one of two things: too stubborn or too stupid to mod correctly.
Get the fuck over yourself.
Sound advice from someone who advertises his idiocy through his mod points. I might take it if it were not bad form to listen to the King of all Jackasses when he tells you to stop being such a jackass.
Re:I, for one... (Score:4, Funny)
We're talking about a microbe that can turn bullshit into electricity?
Yep. Think about it: This site alone gives as much back as it takes. Sites like Infowars and Freep suddenly become self-sustaining generators. Fox News reduces its carbon footprint to near-zero levels!
There are not enough mod points in the world (Score:2)
Re:I, for one... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm always amazed at how little variation there really is in energy production. Really there are only two sources of energy here on earth:
-Solar
-Nuclear
Even geothermal is powered by the heat of the earth's core, which is itself powered by radioactivity. (I guess one could argue that the radioactive elements were formed in a star, making them solar as well, but that's a bit too far for me.)
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Solar = Nuclear
"Really there are only two sources of energy here on earth:
-Solar
-Nuclear
Even geothermal is powered by the heat of the earth's core, which is itself powered by radioactivity. (I guess one could argue that the radioactive elements were formed in a star, making them solar as well, but that's a bit too far for me.)"
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Solar = Nuclear
Technically yes, but not in the context here.
Earth absorbs a crapton of energy from solar, which is used by plants to power conversions of carbon and other nutrients. You can release that energy, which was original derived from the sun. The easiest example is to burn wood... the tree used carbon matter and CO2, and when you burn it the energy is released, it is returned for another tree to use. To use it requires more energy.
As far as nuclear, I guess he's talking about the ability to produce energy from
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The sun is powered by nuclear fusion in it's core.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/sun2.htm [howstuffworks.com]
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Even geothermal is powered by the heat of the earth's core, which is itself powered by radioactivity.
Well, and by the original formation of the earth (essentially gravitational potential energy of the dust and rocks that accreted and formed earth, plus later impacts, turned into heat).
Not that adding "Formation of the solar system" as another source of energy really adds much to the mix! It is pretty amazing when you think about it.
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And all energy is atomic energy, the difference comes in how we decide to extract that energy.
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energy is never created or destroyed
oh? i think a certain german disagreed.
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Nuclear
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---
young man, its turtles all the way down!
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One could also argue that solar power is derived from a nuclear reaction within the sun.
Re:I, for one... (Score:5, Interesting)
Tidal?
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I'm always amazed at how little variation there really is in energy production. Really there are only two sources of energy here on earth:
-Solar
-Nuclear
Third is inertial: Tidal power, which comes from slowing the Earth's rotation. Some of the energy goes into raising the moon's orbit (or the Earth/Moon system's orbit around the sun) and the rest moves water and air in ways that can be tapped.
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So what happens if it takes liking to the feces still in your colon?
Form an army of mutant Mongolian death-worms and take over the world? [news.com.au]
The worm- about 1.5m long- apparently jumps out of the sand and kills people by spitting concentrated acid or shooting lightning from its rectum over long distances.
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Won't they be more like underlings?
I know: When I have such a thing near my house, I will go outside, yell "Eat shit, you stinkin' microbes!", bang a stick on the container, watch the neighbor kids run away in terror. ^^
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Now go back to 4chan where you belong,
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...welcome our new shit-eating overlords?
...different from our politician overlords how?
Some of my favorites... (Score:5, Funny)
- This story stinks!
- The OP is full of shit!
- I get shitty service on my phone now!
I'll show myself out.
Re:Some of my favorites... (Score:4, Funny)
Bah.
See, I knew we'd find a use for dark matter!
This is no joke! (Score:3, Interesting)
- Man electrocuted on toilet
- Tip for rainy weather: wear well-insulated boots when walking in mud
- Tomato fields plagued by ball lightning after manure fertilization
- In the 3rd world, muddy unpaved roads power electric scooters
The idea of dipping my iPhone into the nearest bucket of shit sickens me, and yet this may become the favored means of charging one's pho
Re:This is no joke! (Score:4, Informative)
I really hope you're kidding (I can't tell).
While I'm not an expert on the technology, I think I can pretty safely say that everything you said is a load of electrified crap.
a microbe that produces electric current from mud? (Score:2)
Fantastic (Score:2)
Do I even need to go into What Could Possibly Go Wrong mode when discussing the prospects of using electricity-generating bacteria to power medical devices implanted in your body?
Re:Fantastic (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who helps to design and manufacture medical devices, I have no doubt that they could be made safely. That said, I doubt I'd be first in line to get one. I think even our current battery technology is sufficient for most implants. Of course, that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to improve.
If the technology works out, I do look forward to a home septic system that produces power for me AND saves me from tearing up my yard. (Wishful thinking, yes, but cool nonetheless.)
Anyway, regardless of whether this technology becomes a commercial success, this kind of stuff could/will be very useful down the road. Great work.
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I have no doubt that they could be made safely. That said, I doubt I'd be first in line to get one.
I woudn't be the first in line to get any new medical devoce, unless it was the only thing that would keep me alive or being maimed. I thought long and hard before I got my Crystalens implant, as it was only approved in 2003 and I had it implanted in 2006. I still worry somewhat that some day its struts might break.
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I don't get it. Who wants to inject mud into their veins?
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If the technology works out, I do look forward to a home septic system that produces power for me AND saves me from tearing up my yard.
It's called a composting toilet and grey water system.
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
Protestor sign of the future: (Score:4, Funny)
"No blood for poop!"
This joke is 100% recycled via humor-digesting bacteria.
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Obama calls for "regime charge" in the Republic of Elbonia.
Fixed it for you.
And in East Elbonia (Score:3, Funny)
And in East Elbonia, they are planning on dominating the world's energy market in 20 years....
. . . and I've been flushing away all that . . . (Score:2)
. . . um, . . . renewable energy resource all these years . . .
this reminds me (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe it's time to evaluate 2 girls 1 cup for educational reasons...
Then again maybe not
Needs a new power unit (Score:5, Funny)
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Relatedly, a "Couric" is now a measure of energy density, as well as mass.
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William of course because WC stands for William the Conqueror.
Let's get serious (Score:2, Funny)
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Yes, because no one could ever make any money selling a free-energy machine...
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Of course free-energy machines would sell, bigtime even! But *what i am afraid will happen* (that is NOT the same as 'I tell you this will happen!') is that other, bigger businesses which would loss energy sales and thus profit, will buy (things like) this and hold it back to protect their interests. Try to win from $Big_Business as a small startup company!
I HOPE I am too pessimistic here, I really, really want things like this to succeed, but if the vested interests want to stop it, they will try with all
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The thing is, the smarter oil companies are rebranding/re-aligning themeselves as energy companies. If they see practical profit in it, which is necessary for any reasonable power system, theyll grab it and develop. Id be more worried about them patenting things and making it overpriced.
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Of course free-energy machines would sell, bigtime even! But *what i am afraid will happen* (that is NOT the same as 'I tell you this will happen!') is that other, bigger businesses which would loss energy sales and thus profit, will buy (things like) this and hold it back to protect their interests.
That's what I'm saying. If Exxon (the biggest of the big) came up with, or bought the rights to, a free-energy machine, do you really think they would just hold on to it? Or, would they try to sell the shit out of it, and crush their competitors in the process?
I just don't see how holding it back would make any sense at all, provided Exxon gives it even a moment's thought.
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They could hold it back as long as they have another cash-cow to milk empty first. But maybe you are right and they would become really big and filthy rich selling the machines. On the other hand, they could also use the machines themselves (no-one else could, they have the rights) to make energy for free and sell it to you and me for the prices we pay now and stay in business forever.
It could go in all directions, but in the end, we will pay for our free energy. Upside is, of course, that this way of gener
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On the other hand, they could also use the machines themselves (no-one else could, they have the rights) to make energy for free and sell it to you and me for the prices we pay now and stay in business forever.
Not forever, just until their patent runs out. Or, if unpatented, until rediscovered by someone else (which would probably be a shorter time than a patent's length).
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Dude, because they're totally like EVIL. Didn't you watch Captain Planet? They're total goal is to destroy the earth because they are BAD.
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Not only that, Exxon or whoever could manufacture them to fail after a certain point in time causing the repurchase of the machines.
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Well, if BP (or any other firm) would pick this up and make it successfull, I will be the first to celebrate!
As I said in a previous answer in this thread, I really hope it succeeds. I'm just afraid the vested interests will (want to) make it fail.
And I said it in my original posting and will say it again: I don't mean to troll or flamebait, it's just me being (hopefully too) pessimistic.
Why devlopping countries? (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't have enough shit over here? we don't need electricity over here?
Why can't we use that technology to make the water treatment plants produce electricity while they also treat our wastes?Â
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over here people are full of shit, maybe we can make them useful, there are years and years worth of energy walking down the streets every day, running corporations and marketing.
I wouldnt trust these microbes with our water, i dont want to get zapped if they end up in my tap water!
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Seems valid enough, though I wonder if the sheer amount of waste at a large plant would make this setup hard to manage. It might simply make more sense to have decentralized handling of waste, akin to small communities where each house has its own septic system.
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If it could purify (Score:3, Interesting)
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Great.. (Score:4, Funny)
soon we'll be purchasing dirt and instead of oil, declaring war against third world countries to steal their wastes, and those environmentalists are gonna whine about the smell.
New energy source!?! (Score:2, Funny)
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Bring on the Matrix (Score:2)
Except machines will be using humans for ... well... you know which way to make electricity.
In-pod plumbing... it's gonna be big!
Details from the published paper (Score:3, Informative)
First, a citation to the published paper: Hana Yi, et al., Selection of a variant of Geobacter sulfurreducens with enhanced capacity for current production in microbial fuel cells, Biosensors and Bioelectronics, Volume 24, Issue 12, 15 August 2009, Pages 3498-3503.
The extrapolated current density was 7.4 ± 0.1 A/m2. The individual fuel cells produced 14mA, which was sustained for 24 months.
Re:Details from the published paper (Score:5, Informative)
downside being (Score:4, Funny)
1. you get a tingly feeling every time you sit on the toilet, and its not from your feet falling asleep
2. if your septic tank overflows you're in danger of electrocuting the family dog
3. you also have to be careful where you piss, or you'll know what its like to urinate on the third rail of light rail system
Mr Fusion (Score:3, Funny)
Talk about the future.. (Score:2, Interesting)
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Obligatory... (Score:4, Funny)
..."Dennis! There's some Lovely Filth down here!"...
More efficient adaptation, but... (Score:2)
... what's to stop the microbes from evolving/adapting BACK to the lower output when they're placed in a rich environment (fuel cell, whatever) again? Stupid researchers... they forget that mutation doesn't only occur when they want it to occur and not only in the fashion they desire.
Re:More efficient adaptation, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
... what's to stop the microbes from evolving/adapting BACK to the lower output when they're placed in a rich environment (fuel cell, whatever) again? Stupid researchers... they forget that mutation doesn't only occur when they want it to occur and not only in the fashion they desire.
[sarcasm]You're right. All this research is useless. We should just give up.[/sarcasm]
I feel like I say this constantly, but I just can't help myself here...
Just because you don't see a benefit doesn't mean there isn't one. Just because the technology doesn't instantly save humanity from all of its mistakes doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. Even research that never directly leads to a useful commercial application is helpful. Tons of advances have come sideways out of unrelated research. (Also, knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a choice many scientists make and there's nothing wrong with it.)
If you can't see past your own life, please get away from mine.
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The same thing that prevents house dogs from evolving back to wolves, and farm turkeys from evolving smaller breasts.
Silicone?
Re:More efficient adaptation, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
An electrode would really be the ideal living enviroment for this organism- it would act as a near-infinite sink for electrons. The mutant strain KN400 seems to be better adapted to living on an electrode, so within the constraints of a fuel-cell environment, the mutant strain should outcompete against the wild strain. In the organism's native enviroment, mud in a riverbed, I'd suspect the wild-type would be more successful, since it does not prefer to anchor itself in a biofilm. In mud, the organism would be better served on the move, making use of metal oxides as it finds them, rather than being tied to one spot and risking depletion (essentially asphyxiating).
However, in the fuel cell, selection pressure will favor organisms that stick to the electrodes, maximize electron conduction, and minimize internal resistance. Even without the "pushback" current used to drive adaptation of these characteristics, my guess is that the fitness advantages they provide will cause them to be passed on to future generations.
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It will be interesting to watch, if that happens, because then you'd have the reverse phenomenon to what happens now - batteries (well, fuel cells really) would get better, not worse with age.
The weekly Green Energy Hype (Score:3, Insightful)
We get at least one of these stories a week on /. A story about some wonderful new potential source of "Free" Green Energy. Of course none are anywhere near production and nobody sane even talks about them producing energy at costs per KWK anywhere near current technology. But as long as new miracle tech can be waved in front of folks the need to face up to our current reality can be postponed by wishful thinking.
Reality:
1. No "Alternate" Energy source is believed to be capable of producing a sizable fraction of our current energy needs at competitive rates in the next twenty years. Wind and solar are only popular in areas with massive government subsidy because they aren't cost effective on their own. And any attempt to scale either to carry large percentages of the grid will only make those issues clear and reveal more problems. Hydrogen is itself 'clean' but none of the sources are easy to tap in a clean way with one politically unacceptable (Nuke power) exception. Biofuels create egoboo for greens in small quantities but lead to famine when scaled up.
2. To obtain oil we are sending a large share of our wealth to people who are using it to destroy our civilization. This is a very bad idea.
3. The greens might have a point with the whole AGW thing. And even if their math and models are all wet it is likely we are having SOME effect somewhere with all this drilling, extracting and burning of fossil fuels.
4. Fusion has been thirty years off for the last forty years.
We really need to have a hard look at those realities, stop dreaming of a painless solution and start looking at options that might actually be able to help in the next twenty years.
Re:The weekly Green Energy Hype (Score:5, Insightful)
But then again, had
Within 10 years of that fictional
I totally agree that there's probably no way we're going to get any significant amount of our energy needs from electricity-producing microbes. Just as we probably won't from solar, wind, or waves alone. But it's just another piece of the puzzle for the future. Oil & coal aren't going away anytime soon, but it is important that we explore other options to push the frontier of what is possible. You never know, there's always a chance that this will be "the next big thing". It's worth at least reading about.
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> This is a scientific advance.
Not in dispute. That it it currently useless as a mainstream energy source and will remain impractical also isn't in dispute. Efficiency would have to go up a LOT and ability to run without costly maintainance to make bio powered fuel cells practical for anything but niche applications.
> Nowhere does it contain any green energy hype of the sort you are debunking.
No I didn't actually click through to the story but assuming the quoted part on /. is from the article I rea
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Polywell fusion's down to ten or twelve years.
Next thing you know... (Score:2)
We'll be reduced to batteries for our robot overlords.
Mostly Fact-free FA (Score:2)
There's just one parameter of interest-- how much power?
One suspects it's not a lot.
I can see biologists getting excited about picoamps and millivolts per square centimeter.
But as a practical source of electricity, that would be much less practical and economical than the lemon, penny, and nickel battery.
Even if they evolved to producing 1,000 times as much electricity, we could still be talking about nanoamps, millivolts, and picowatts.
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KN400 was much more effective in current production than strain DL-1. This was apparent with anodes poised at -400 mV, as well as in systems run in true fuel cell mode. KN400 had current (7.6 A/m2) and power (3.9 W/m2) densities that respectively were substantially higher than those of DL1 (1.4 A/m2 and 0.5 W/m2)
Somewhat higher than nano amps, it's a good jump forward, and to think thats from something that wouldn't be used anyway.
Re:Mostly Fact-free FA (Score:4, Informative)
Geobacter is an obligate anaerobe, so it does not require- indeed, cannot tolerate- access to the atmosphere, and it is not photosynthetic. You can buy carbon black, which makes a fine electrode, with a surface area to volume ratio of greater than 50 square meters per cubic centimeter. In the described experiment, they grew the bacterium on graphite, so carbon black should not pose an obstacle. A cubic meter of carbon black would have a surface area of about 50 square kilometers, but a mass of about 2 tons. An output of 3.9W/m^2 over 50 million square meters is 195 megawatts, which isn't shabby considering your input would be wastewater. Now, of course, that number is a wildly optimistic figure- good luck covering that much surface area with a bacterial biofilm- but it does suggest that you could produce enough power to say, make a wastewater treatment facility self-sufficient.
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Thanks for the basic numbers. But your extrapolation is wildly like 10^10 times optimistic.
A battery needs two electrodes. There's no way to take a cubic anything of carbon black and put electrodes around each particle, AND have an electrical connection to each particle, all insulated from the opposite electrode.
Also running your proposed battery into a matched load would result in half the power being dissipated in the battery. 97.5 megawatts in one cubic meter is going to heat up in a millisecond and
Photos (Score:5, Informative)
So, the Matrix *exists*? (Score:2)
I mean, the level of bacteria traditionally present in every student dorm - logical conclusion, no? No more power problems! :-)
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Yes, so fast. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Geobacter biofilm's "fortuitous" electron-transferring skill, the product of natural selection, suggested a pathway to Lovley - a way he might use selective pressure to increase its capacity to produce power. He and colleagues grew Geobacter as usual on a graphite electrode, providing acetate as food and allowing a colony to form the biologically active slime, or biofilm where electron transfer takes place across the nanowires. But for this new experiment they added a tiny, 400-millivolt "pushback" current in the electrode that forced Geobacter to press harder to get rid of its electrons.
The result of providing a more challenging environment, within five short months, Lovley notes, was evolution of a beefed-up microorganism that can press at least eight times more electric current across the electrode than the original strain. âoeI'm really happy with this outcome," the microbiologist notes. "It's exceptionally fast feedback to us and a very satisfying result." He adds, "I'm still a little amazed that they make electricity, but I'm happy to be exploring how to harness that ability. I'm sure there'll be applications developed in the future that we canâ(TM)t even envision right now."
That's halfway down in the article.
You should try reading things before you try to debunk them. The environment will be created to get the most electricity out of the little microbes, and probably sealed off and not thrown in the dirt. I imagine there may even be filters in place where the waste comes into make sure that any natural predators are weakened or killed to continue allowing the organisms to thrive.
And they have been studying this organism since 1987, and examining it for electrical production since 2002. I'm glad you're skeptical, but not glad that you're commenting on something you didn't even bother to read.
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I think mud is a euphemism for many of us. The riverbed, in this case, might be the bottom of sewage treatment plants. As for other bacteria, we could heat the "mud" up for a while to largely sterilize it to reduce that competition.
But it seems like this would (if it could operate in munch dryer situations) be an ideal additive to compost heaps to get a little more out of them...
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I'm wondering what would happen to compost heaps after some time with this bacteria. Will they be still useful for growing plants with them, or will they become "de-energized"?
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Ooooh. Interesting question! It binds iron and other metals, so that might make them more digestible, or less. Truely unclear.
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They would be de-energized. But the nutrients would remain. Nutrients are the building blocks needed by photosynthetic organisms to build carbohydrates (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, etc). So de-energized compost piles would still be good places for plants to grow.
Devon
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Your entire post is based on one very stupid assumption: That their plan is to just dump the bacteria in local mud and have it generate electricity. Of course, that's absurd. What they'll do is place the bacteria in a controlled environment, aka a fuel cell, and then pass the mud/waste water/etc through the fuel cell to produce electricity.
But, hey, don't let common sense stop you from coming to silly conclusions.
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What I tried to point out is that further consideration is needed on whether the environment needs to prepared/sterilized, i.e. made noncompetitive in ecological sense for the bacteria to do their job. It's not naive, it's biotechnology 101.
The bacteria are never put in the "environment" at large. They're stored and cultured in their own little specialized environment designed specifically for them. As I already mentioned it's called a "fuel cell".
Honestly, your complaint is akin to someone claiming that