Venter at TED

TED2008 finished at the beginning of the month and there's been a flurry of new videos of the talks (generally about 15 minutes in length) to the site. One of the new talks is by Craig Venter, I've posted before about his last TED talk here, and like last time I find his new talk fascinating, but it leaves me in two minds.

The science is very impressive and his delivery is understated so that when he says things like "replacing the entire petrochemical industry" or "producing fuel from sequestered CO₂ within 18 months" it makes it seem more so. On the other hand, does he actually answer the question at the end about using the technology he's creating to produce bioweapons? He gives reasons why it is currently unlikely, but is it actually impossible? That's probably unreasonable of me - you can use all sorts of technologies to make weapons that are also used to produce entirely innocuous and useful products.

And the product he's talking about here is to divert CO₂ waste-streams from manufacturing and make fuel directly from them using synthetically constructed microorganisms. Though this doesn't actually remove CO₂ from the atmosphere, you remove the emission - perhaps permanently if when you burn this new fuel you recycle that CO₂ as well. Climate change undeniably needs radical solutions and this certainly is one.

I'm trying to look past the presentation to the heart of his talk and find out what he's actually saying and what I think about it, meanwhile see for yourself below.