By A.K. Streeter, Source: Treehugger

Trying to do something useful with globe-warming gases – other than piping them into the ground or pumping them into soda pop – has been the great goal of tinkerers and entrepreneurs for years.

But the sticking point is efficiency – using less energy to produce something from the gas than that gas represents in emissions.

Enter biocatalysts – enzymes or hormones that increase the rate of a chemical reaction.

Newlight Technologies has been working since 2003 to fashion a biocatalyst that would help them turn the energy in methane and carbon dioxide into PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate) based plastic, and at a level of efficiency that would make their plastics comparable price-wise with plastics such as polypropylene produced from petroleum.

After nearly a decade, the company has a biocatalyst that it says performs five times better than previous catalysts.

So what about the chairs?

Read the rest at: Treehugger