With insight from Air Force Fellow Major Matthew Michaud, Argonne researchers incorporated this groundbreaking discovery into the design of the Endurance Bioenergy Reactor. The process begins in a large fermentation vessel tank; once it's filled, the engineered organism begins converting waste to energy. The bacteria are freeze-dried and shipped along with the reactor hardware, so the operator can simply open the package of bacteria and drop them into the main tank. The reactor can use a variety of carbon and energy sources to make fuel.