If this is true it is very exciting. However, the iron laws of thermodynamics still hold; you can't get something for nothing. Without losses (inevitable) the process actually produces a little excess energy, 0.02 kWh per kilomol of H2. The energy to drive the reaction would come from the oxidation of CO to CO2 using water as the source of oxygen. This is similar to the water shift reaction, which was used in the 19th century to make "town gas". The only place to get lots of CO is to partially burn lots of carbon (coal or biomass). Lots of industrial processes produce lots of CO; for example the blast furnace uses carbon to reduce iron oxide to pig iron and the byproduct is CO. But the blast furnace operator burns the CO to preheat the incoming air, which is absolutely essential for the process to work efficiently. I doubt if the organisms can produce the amount of H2 required any more efficiently than the Fischer-Tropsch process.

is to screw a lot of women. Women are genetically inclined to want to have sex with men who have a lot of sex with lots of women. The poor things can't help themselves, since the reptile part of their brains tells them that the sons they will have with these men will also be womanizers, and spread their genes far and wide. The best strategy for men is then to appear to be womanizers, assuming that they want to have sex with lots of different women. I had a college roommate who followed that philosophy, the more he got the more he got. Boy was I jealous, but not structured to emulate him.

I read your posting and I agree with what you say, you just rephrased what I said. High status men have more children than low status men. Many high status men practice serial polygamy. They have no problem getting smart good looking women. I would call that high-class womanizing. Of course it's far more complex than I suggested in my posting; I was being a trifle cute. We, like almost all species except the coelecanth, are constantly evolving. Selection pressure is changing. But we are stuck with the brain we have, and we are not very far removed from the chimps you used as an example. In that brain there still exists in some or all women the non-verbal knowledge that they will have genetic advantages from having sons from a womanizer (high status male in your terminology). Men struggle for high status so they can have access to the most women. Of course if that tendency was allowed to run rampant society would be a far more nasty and brutish place than it is now. Muslim societies have solved the problem by carefully regulating access to women, and severely punishing women who manage to evade regulation. Some of the hostility to welfare probably exists because it allows low status males to have children at the expense of males who have managed to put most of their energy into supporting their own children. Etc, etc, etc....

You must be an aging feminist. I know a lot of women who are both intelligent and well educated. I doubt if any of them would consider me a misogynist. I am married to a woman who has an advanced degree from Harvard, and she lives a very independent and productive life. She's also hot and beautiful. Of course I am a follower of Edward O. Wilson, who invented the science of sociobiology. So I believe that "morals and ethics" derive from our biology. When I state that the Muslim societies have "solved a problem", it doesn't mean that it's a "nice" solution. I had several friends at college from "repressed" societies. At 18 they were very anxious to go to college in the US or Europe, where women were "loose and available". What feminists see as freedom and equality, they saw as loose and available. You are just as much a creature of your genes and upbringing as they were, but you seem to think that modern European and American culture, except for G. Bush and Republicans probably, has superior morals and ethics. The problem is to sustain a society that allows people enough reproductive choice so there can be individual happiness and fulfillment, without degenerating into something approaching chimp society.

I have three daughters, who are reasonably happy and productive. They also seem to like me even though I can be curmudgeonly at times. They also follow my advice sometimes. As I said somewhere else I am considering buying another airplane so we can visit them more often and more easily. They don't seem too unhappy with that.

I am enjoying my advanced age (72) where I am enjoying all the hot, attractive, and intelligent women who seem to like to flirt with me, without the necessity of doing anything about it. I'd also read that women are attracted to older men who are healthy and athletic, because of our apparently good genes. It appears to be (wonderfully) true.