Over at Science News, Janet Raloff has a report about Steven Chu’s appearance earlier today before the Senate for his nomination to be Secretary of Energy. It sounds like he really perked up when asked about biofuels from synthetic biology:

I expected this. Unfortunately, nobody asked Chu to estimate how much land would be required in Alabama and elsewhere to grow enough food to allow these hungry little bugs to make a significant contribution to our energy needs. Nor did anyone ask Chu to comment on the potential environmental impacts of harvesting so much plant matter, a topic I brought up recently in an article on the environmental effects of synthetic biology.

But, then again, I