Cellulosic Ethanol Gets a Boost

Range Fuels of Colorado has partnered with Emerson Process Management to form one of the first commercial cellulosic biofuels plants in the U.S. The plant is capable of producing more than 100 million gallons of ethanol and methane annually at its Soperton Georgia plant. The target date for production is 2010 and will beat the goal of 2012 by two years of producing a commercialized basis from non-corn or non-food based sources.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently awarded Range Fuels an US $80 million loan guarantee, the first ever for a cellulosic ethanol plant.

Cellulosic ethanol is referred to as advanced biofuels or second-generation biofuels because it does not use corn as its feedstock. The base is made up of switch grass, corn stover, forest waste, fast-growing trees, wood chips and other plant material.

The first demonstration-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in the U.S. opened in 2008 in Jennings, Louisiana. The verenium biorefinery produces 1.4 million gallons a year with agricultural waste left over after sugarcane production.

Existing corn ethanol plants should be converted into second generation biofuel plants as soon as possible. This may be difficult on a technical level, but it can be done. The major stumbling block toward making this happen has to do with politics. The farm lobby is very good at hanging onto subsidies even after they have outlived there usefulness. When food prices are low, they ask for subsidies, when prices are high (as now), they ask for more. So who knows if the fat corn ethanol subsidies will ever be repealed?

Here’s a list of Cellulosic Ethanol plants either opersting or under construction in the U.S.

Bio-based Butanol as an alternative fuel

Scientists have been feverishly studying many alternative fuels in an effort to break our tether to fossil fuels. Realistically, they are trying to find the next big money maker, but who can blame them.

Nasib Qureshi, chemical engineer, has been trying to perfect a modified method of producing biobutanol from wheat straw since 2003. he reasons that wheat straw is present in abundance and its cost would be lower than corn-glucose dependent feedstock.

Another reason for the interest in using biobutanol as fuel is its several advantages over ethanol. New pipelines are not required for transportation of biobutanol – existing pipelines will do. Biobutanol is less corrosive compared to ethanol. Biobutanol is less prone to water contamination. Biobutanol can be used alone in internal combustion engines or it can be mixed with gasoline. Biobutanol provides more energy per gallon than ethanol.

Biobutanol can also be produced from fermented sugars drawn from corn glucose. But large scale commercial production of such biofuels was not possible due to high recovery costs, low yields and easy availability of conventional fuels. But conditions are different now. Our environment is more polluted, reserves of conventional fuels are not going to last forever and gasoline prices keep fluctuating alarmingly.

Clostridium bacteria is one of scientists favorite means of stimulating fermentation. Preparation of biofuels mainly involves four preparatory steps such as pretreatment, hydrolysis, fermentation and recovery. These steps have to be carried out separately and sequentially. But Qureshi and his team members deviated from this traditional method and combined three of the four steps. They employed a procedure known as “gas stripping” to extract the biobutanol. First the wheat straw has been pretreated with dilute sulphuric acid or other chemicals. Next the material is fermented in a bioreactor containing three different types of commercial enzymes and a culture of C. beijerinckii P260, a strain Qureshi obtained from Professor David Jones of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Here Qureshi has combined the two steps.

The bacteria and enzymes do their jobs simultaneously. First the enzymes hydrolyze the straw and release simple sugars then the bacterias start fermenting those sugars into acetone, butanol and ethanol. Butanol is produced in greatest quantity but other two are also valuable components. “Feb batch feeding” method increased the butanol production. Qureshi says he is planning to scale up production levels in 2009. “Then, we’ll look at the economics of using hydrolyzed wheat straw to see how we’re doing and move this process forward.”

Growing Plastic in Switchgrass

When we think of plastic we might immediately picture carrying our grocery purchases home in those ubiquitous bags that end up floating on the breeze or being re-used to pick up after your dog. But no matter how they are used far too many of them are ending up in the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” and causing problems for marine wildlife.

We have grown accustomed to seeing plastic in everything from toys to electronic products to cars, boats, trains and planes. Traditionally, plastic has been made from petroleum, that substance we all love to hate but are unfortunately doomed to need until we adopt a better and cleaner energy replacement.

One company has found an alternative method of producing plastic. Massachusetts-based biotech company Metabolix has discovered a way to actually grow the plastic in the leafs of perennial plants. So far, switchgrass is the leading candidate to host this process. Anything left over after the harvest can go towards ethanol production.

By applying the knowledge gained from metabolic engineering, scientists at Metabolix have been able to produce what is being called biobased plastic. Their proprietary line of bioplastics is known as Mirel and can be used for everything from credit cards to plastic containers and even vehicle components.

Three immediate advantages of growing plastic instead of using petroleum is that, one, it becomes part of the movement to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels, two, it makes a positive impact on global climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and three, it will biodegrade to carbon dioxide and water in all environments with biological activity including soil, home composting, industrial composting, septic systems, wetlands, rivers and oceans.

Many plastics breakdown into smaller components over time (usually a very long time) but according to company statistics, Mirel will completely disappear in marine water within just over 40 days.

They tested injection molded bioplastics cups through 20 dishwashing cycles and found no change in either dimensional form or molecular weight. What this tells me is that injection molded bioplastics will still take time to break down and since most people use these type of cups once and toss them out, they will remain in the environment, however, probably not as long as traditional plastic cups. They do not give any stats on how long this form of bioplastics will break down. Bioplastic drinking cups, picnic plates and utensils will surely end up on the market, so we will require an adjustment in how we view them as throwaways since they will obviously have a longer useful life.

In 2006, Metabolix and Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) formed a joint venture company operating under the name of Telles to commercialize Mirel bioplastics. ADM has begun construction of the world's first Mirel biorefinery located in Clinton, Iowa. This new facility will produce 110 million pounds of Mirel plastic resin per year with start up scheduled for late 2008. Telles is responsible for the manufacturing, marketing and sales of Mirel worldwide.

Currently applications they are targeting are packaging, consumer disposables, erosion control, agriculture and any other application that requires sustainability, and/or biodegradability.

Finally, we will be able to bring our love affair with plastic back out into the open.

Biomass energy cubes: alternative to coal

A biomass briquette that could become to coal what ethanol has been to gasoline, is being made from a mix of plant materials that include wood, corn stalks and switch grass. Unlike raw biomass, the cubes can be blended with or substituted for coal in existing burners with little or no modifications. This advantage might enable fuel cubes to enable companies to use biomass without building new facilities.

Burning these fuel cubes creates far less pollution than fossil fuels and producing them has potential to boost rural economies. As with ethanol, there are concerns about whether harvesting material for the cubes will generate side effects that outweigh their value as an alternative.

The aggregate is not limited to wood, corn stalks and switchgrass, which is what makes this idea so versatile. Other grains (such as alfalfa), grasses, agricultural residues or even municipal solid waste can also be used as substitutes or in addition to these items. The process compresses the substances into dense, coal-like briquettes and processes them until just the right moisture content is achieved much like the process used to make BBQ grill briquettes.

They generate nearly twice as much energy as other biomass, putting it on par with coal from the western United States. The cost is competitive with coal in some markets.

When burned, the cubes emit 90% less sulfur dioxides, 35% less particulate matter and 30% less acid gases compared to coal. That’s based on testing at the University of Iowa with supervision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Burning coal and gas releases carbon into the atmosphere that has been stored underground for centuries and was therefore not part of the natural balance. Using prairie grasses or grains won’t contribute because the carbon emitted was only recently stored in the plant material. Harvesting trees as a raw material would release carbon that had been stored there for decades as well as increasing pressure to clear forests. So the claim that using these briquettes instead of coal won’t contribute to global warming is true, depending on the raw material used.

A push is underway by a subgroup of Clean Energy Minnesota that is trying to come up with a system for scoring biomass fuels based on things like how much net energy they produce, how much carbon they divert from the atmosphere, and how else they affect the economy and environment.

Just as with the debate over using food products for ethanol based fuel, there is likely to be disagreements over using wood for biomass energy which could result in higher material prices for other industries.

The briquettes, cubes or pellets need to be produced close to the point at which they are grown in order to realize a transportation cost savings, because shipping costs for unprocessed biomass are far greater than for fossil fuels as they contain less energy per unit volume than fossil fuels.

For further reading:

Twin Cities Daily Planet

Biomass Energy

Role of Native Grasses in Wisconsin’s Bio-Energy Economy

U.S. Army is turning ‘green’

Purdue University News reported in February of last year that a group of scientists had created a portable refinery that can convert food, paper and plastic trash into electricity. The machine was originally designed for the U.S. military to allow soldiers in the field to convert waste into power. If successful it could be used in civilian applications in the future.

The biorefinery is able to process several kinds of waste at once, so you don’t have to go through the tedious job of separating everything first. Trash is converted into fuel via two parallel processes. The system then burns the different fuels in a diesel engine to power a generator. The machine's ability to burn multiple fuels at once, along with its mobility, make it unique.

It’s portability reduces the potential danger associated with transporting waste and fuel. Also, from a purely military standpoint, the elimination of garbage remnants protects the unit's security by destroying clues that such refuse could provide to enemies.

Testing of the device showed that it produces about 90% more energy than it consumes.

The complex processes involves separating organic food material from residual trash, such as paper, plastic, Styrofoam and cardboard. The food waste goes to a bioreactor where industrial yeast ferments it into ethanol, a "green" fuel. Residual materials go to a gasifier where they are heated under low-oxygen conditions and eventually become low-grade propane gas and methane. The gas and ethanol are then combusted in a modified diesel engine that powers a generator to produce electricity.

Possible civilian uses would be in disaster situations where emergency crews could use the machine to turn debris into electricity to aid in lighting, heating, and communications. An added benefit would be, in some small way, in aiding in the cleanup effort. Also, it could be used as supplemental energy for factories, restaurants, stores, etc.

After successful testing, the U.S. Army installed one of these units in Iraq, at a cost of about $1 million, including the cost of development. The unit weighs about 4 tons and powers a 60-kilowatt generator. A second unit is now under construction.

Photo credit: Purdue Agricultural Communication photo by Tom Campbell

Are we about to witness first synthetic life?

Scientists have built the first synthetic genome by stringing together 147 pages of letters representing the building blocks of DNA.

This is scary stuff from the realms of science fiction. But researches say that within months we can see custom designed organisms, referred to as biological robots. The proposed use is to produce ethanol for biofuel use as well as producing other chemicals in applications we haven’t thought of yet.

Producing biofuels is an immediate and important application because one of the downsides of using food crops as biofuel production is that it drives up food prices.

The technical process involves using yeast to stitch together four long strands of DNA into the genome of a bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium. They said it's more than an order of magnitude longer than any previous synthetic DNA creation. The actual building blocks of DNA: Adenine, Cytosine, Thymine and Guanine, are rearranged and linked together to create never-before-seen organisms that will do their bidding.

The next step is to inject this synthetic strand into a cell, sit back and let it multiply.

Just a few years ago this process of synthesizing and linking together these building blocks was impossible. Now, the possibilities seem endless. By linking together millions of base pairs, biomedical scientists can create much more complex organisms.

Some ideas I would like to see this science used for is to create organisms that would eat petroleum to clean up oil spills, another could attack rogue human cells to control cancer and other diseases if not stop them completely, organisms to break down waste products in our water systems to purify our drinking water, organisms to neutralize or eliminate the E. coli bacterium plaguing our food supply, organisms to repair human tissue, the applications are almost endless.

The scary part of this new field is how future scientists handle this knowledge. There always seems to be some ill-intentioned person or even well-meaning person whose experiments go awry and will create something monstrous. Regulation and security is of the utmost importance. Already synthetic biologists are planning to scale up from the simplest organisms to the most complex: human beings. This thinking, in my opinion is a bit premature, but it is better to have rules in place before it happens.

Currently, synthetic biologists follow the National Institutes of Health's recombinant DNA guidelines, which were penned in 1974 for the first experiments in genetic manipulation. Accepted by NIH and industry scientists alike, the rules instruct researchers on how to safely handle engineered organisms in the lab. If they want to release a synthetic organism into the environment, it would be evaluated for safety by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Manmade biological forms can do unexpected things so we need to create a safeguard, perhaps an army of synthetic robots whose purpose is to destroy the offending organism.

New terms are entering into our language, and to help explain these terms here is a Scientific American article on synthetic biology, and a Live Science article on biological robots.

The full implications of creating synthetic life are as yet unknown for the future of mankind, but rest assured Hollywood will continue to come up with creative ways to exploit any fear surrounding it.

I think we should view this latest development as a step forward in helping us clean up after ourselves and keep our environment as healthy as possible.

It will be interesting to hear viewpoints from religious leaders.

Is Biofuel a reasonable answer?

Ethanol works. It has been used on farms to power tractors and other farm equipment for many generations. But jumping on the bandwagon for the opportunity to tell big oil where to stuff it is a luxury we cannot afford.

Higher food prices.
Corn for ethanol brings a higher price for the farmer than corn for food and so from an economical standpoint it makes sense to sell more corn to ethanol producers than to food producers.

Diverting corn from making food to making ethanol will translate to higher food prices for all of us, whether we individually use ethanol or not. The federal government has begun paying out subsidies for corn-for-ethanol and now we are going to be stuck with it.

The increase in the number of acres to produce this corn will mean the loss of acreage for other food crops because it doesn’t pay as well as corn.

One of the dangers of maintaining a mono-cultural is that if anything comes along that adversely affects that crop then we will lose everything. And now that we are going to have two industries depending on one crop the results will be devastating.

Just to keep this pursuit of ethanol going, farmers will need to grow more corn to attempt to meet the demand for ethanol production while at the same time maintaining the demand for food production.

Food prices have already jumped a startling 75 percent since 2005. This is a direct result of ethanol subsidies, which have dramatically driven up the price of corn and other grains. Another, more long term, effect is that rising demand for meat in China and India, will push up demand for more feed grain. The combined strain on the farmer to produce higher yields to feed animals, people and cars is going to create a market collapse.

The farmers, right now, are ecstatic over the rising prospect of increasing their income. The rest of us, especially those on fixed incomes, will inevitably be forced to further stretch their already strained food budget.

And what will happen when the point is reached, and it will, when we have to choose between feeding our cars, our animals or feeding ourselves?

None of these concerns has addressed the damage that increased corn production will have on the environment.

More fertilizer production.
Corn is what is known as a heavy feeder. It requires a lot of nitrogen-rich fertilizer, much more than almost any other food crop and it doesn’t absorb as much as other crops so the fertilizer has a higher runoff rate. Currently, the nation’s corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer. This fertilizer runs off into the water table, on towards the Mississippi River and eventually into the Gulf of Mexico where it contributes to a growing “dead zone”. This dead zone is a 7,900-square-mile patch that depletes oxygen and is suffocating fish, crab and shrimp. Fishermen have to sail further out to sea to get a decent catch and this leads to higher fuel bills which, as always, comes down to higher consumer prices.

More pesticide production.
Another environmental factor to consider is the increased production of pesticides and their effects on the animal kingdom, including humans. The U.S. has come a long way toward finding alternatives to the traditionally used more toxic chemical pesticide. But foreign countries are not as regulated with nearly as much zeal.

More and more, our food crop is coming from the rest of the world. China is the largest producer of apples, with nearly 41 percent. With the recent recall of toys made in China due to the use of tainted chemicals it does not take much imagination to realize that China has a lot of chemicals to use up and they are willing to use them regardless of how the U.S. protests their use.

Higher subsidies for farmers.
The increase in subsidies to farmers to produce more corn costs the American taxpayer $9.4 billion in 2005. That figure is double what it was in 2004 which almost doubled the previous year which almost doubled 2002. Farm subsidy formulas are a complicated matter and the numbers and reasons are overwhelming. But the bottom line is we will end up paying more in future years, and the trend backs this up. These figures are just for the production of corn.
http://farm.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn corn sub…cost the…

Once this kind of money begins flowing through the hands of politicians, it is going to be very problematic in halting, or at least slowing down, the demand for ethanol production. Lobbyists get paid big bucks to make sure that flow does not stop, whether it benefits the country or not. These subsidies need to be redirected towards a more environmentally sound answer to the use of petroleum.

Bottom line.
All of this gobbling up of extra land and extra money, and all of this extra production of chemical fertilizer and chemical pesticides results in producing a gallon of ethanol that requires more energy than the ethanol saves as a replacement for gasoline.