renewable resources

What if instead of brewing beer you could brew crude oil? A Silicon Valley company is doing just that. Genetically modified microbes feed on renewable sugars and excrete hydrocarbons instead of alcohol. LS9 envisions their products being used directly in

any application where petroleum is required. Advantages to fermented petroleum include the fact that the renewable raw materials grown to feed oil-producing microbes will remove more carbon from the atmosphere than burning the fuels will release. Not only carbon-balanced, the process is economically

The Brazilian pulp and paper company Grupo ORSA has been using a sustainable forestry model for the past five years that offers hope for the Amazonian rain forest.

Managing the world's largest private tropical forest, ORSA harvests just 30 cubic meters (12,713 board feet)of timber per hectare (2.47 acres) every 30 years. This falls just below the natural regeneration rate, so the forest is able to grow faster than it is destroyed. Augusto Praxedes Neto, a manager at