They Can Have their Cellulose and Digest it Too
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 05.17.07
Corn-based ethanol, once the darling of renewable energy enthusiasts, has recently come under heavy criticism from many influential quarters in the science, business and public policy realms for several of its perceived fallacies. Its two main sticking points: low cost-efficiency and upward pressure on food prices.
Indeed, a growing volume of research literature has now shown that more fossil energy is expended to produce ethanol than is actually contained within it, leading many to point to more efficient alternatives such as cellulosic ethanol produced from waste biomass or switchgrass, which are cheap and plentiful. Mariam Sticklen, a professor of crop and soil science at Michigan State University, may have just found the ideal solution to this problem.
Cellulose, a complex carbohydrate, requires the presence of enzymes produced by specialized bacteria not typically found in plants to be broken down into usable sugars. Sticklen and her colleagues were able to genetically engineer corn to get it to make the same enzymes that the bacteria normally manufacture. According to Sticklen, the cellulase produced by corn could save about 30 to 50 cents per gallon of ethanol.
To accomplish this, she had to make sure that the enzymes would not break down cellulose in the living plants, a problem she overcame by using an enzyme normally found in bacteria that live in hot springs. Since the enzyme is only active at high temperatures outside the plant's normal physiological threshold, it remains dormant until heated to approximately 50 ºC.
James McMillian, a principal group manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, CO, cautions that steps should be taken to ensure that these plants don't have a negative impact on the environment before this scientific breakthrough is implemented on a larger scale. Left-over plant biomass could provide a rich source of easily digestible sugars for microorganisms, whose rapid growth could then lead to changes in ecosystems. ::Technology Review: Cheaper, Cleaner Ethanol from Biotech Corn
See also: ::Purdue Research Could Improve Ethanol Production
So genetic engineering is what we need.........
Frying pan.........fire??
all this talk about alt fuels, why come it iz they aint no mention of HEMP?! the plant that will eventually save this planet from despots like us.
This is a somewhat cool idea. Can you still eat the corn? Also, could this wipe out life in the desert if it cross breeds with plants that live out there? Just a thought, but I'm a bit concerned since cellulose is the basic structure for most plants.
This will only enable us to burn more topsoil in our automobiles.
I think the US will have to compete effectively with Brazil on cellulosic ethanol as well as sugarcane ethanol. The article on Biopact renewed my excitement over cellulosic ethanol, and so I analyzed the business side of this development and how "Brazil’s Biofuel Empire is About to Grow in a Big Way".
I would love to hear from the enzyme guys on this one.
I comment regularly on the business/investor side of alternative energy on Energy Spin: Alternative Energy Blog for Investors-Served Daily
Cheers,
Francesco DeParis
Sorry, forgot to put my name in, please delete my previous post!
I think the US will have to compete effectively with Brazil on cellulosic ethanol as well as sugarcane ethanol. The article on Biopact renewed my excitement over cellulosic ethanol, and so I analyzed the business side of this development and how "Brazil’s Biofuel Empire is About to Grow in a Big Way".
I would love to hear from the enzyme guys on this one.
I comment regularly on the business/investor side of alternative energy on Energy Spin: Alternative Energy Blog for Investors-Served Daily
Cheers,
Francesco DeParis
Sorry, the ethanol v. food dilemma is utter fiction.
It may be attractive to treeghuggers who believe in the invention known as "industrial corn" or "farming monoculture," which in the lexicon of liberal esoterica have a nice ring but are really the by-product of intellectual laziness. Those who think we're using "food" to make fuel or that ethanol is a conspiracy of "big farming" need to spend some time in the Corn Belt.
Corn used to produce ethanol is not the same as corn grown for human consumption. Re-read that one, please, please, please. It’s a variety you and I just can’t eat.
Of the record-breaking corn yields of the last several growing seasons, a wimpy 10 percent has gone to human consumption — much in the form of booze and corn syrup — according to the National Corn Growers Association, the hands-down authority on the subject. The US produces regular surpluses of corn, which translate into around 2 billion bushels exported annually, the largest of any country in the world.
Fifty percent of the corn supply goes to livestock feed. The impact of higher corn prices on your grocery bill has been either negative or pennies more (in the single digits for products like chicken), according to the US. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Meanwhile, non-ethanol demand for corn, including human consumption and livestock feed, has been flat for years.
To top that off, protein from the corn crop used in ethanol production stays in the supply chain in the form of distillers grains, an excellent, in-demand feed supplement -- which means we don't sacrifice corn as a feed source for livestock when we use its starches to make fuel.
No one in ethanol or farming believes they can raise enough corn to satisfy total American fuel demand. They have a pretty good grip on the threshold for production, and it tops out around 16 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol per yer by 2016.
Finally, the notion that ethanol has a negative energy balance is another fallacy that has been put to bed by just about everyone except contributors to this blog. Researchers from the Argonne National Laboratory, USDA and even Michigan State University have demonstrated a significant positive energy balance for corn-based ethanol. Yes, cellulosic ethanol delivers an even high energy balance, but it's not commercially available yet. Corn-based ethanol is. It's on the market right now, it knocks out very real barrels of petroleum consumption and yes, it's flat-out better for the environment than pure fossil fuels.
No one is going hungry because we're developing domestic, renewable energy from American corn. Period. But corn-based ethanol is worth backing right now, and with enthusiasm, because it’s the more commercially viable, leading edge alternative in a growing movement toward renewable energy that at last has actually drawn new allies (Republicans!) into the conversation.
>>Sorry, the ethanol v. food dilemma is utter fiction
http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1831963920070418I
"In February, prices hit 10-year highs due to surging demand from the U.S. ethanol industry"
"We're going to see this food inflation rate be maybe 1 to 2 percent above the general inflation rate, in other words it's pulling inflation up. That will continue in 2008,"
"Food prices could rise by 5 percent or more in those years, compared with 2 to 3 percent normally"
"More competition for farmland will also force prices of other food and feed commodities higher."
"Prices of food containing large percentages of corn and corn products will increase sooner than meat, poultry, and dairy products, which may rise significantly only within a year or two of the initial price spike in corn, economists said."
"I don't like to be an alarmist, but we're only one hot, dry July away from a bit of a problem."
If the bacteria doesn't work until it is heated to over 50 C, why bother going through the trouble of genetic engineering when you can just add the bacteria to the corn after you harvest it and have the same result?
G.B. Veerman's comment is spot on. The only way in which ethanol production competes with food production, is by creating a stimulus to plant more corn (and therefor, less soybeans and the like).
Otherwise, the production of ethanol totally unaffects livestock grain and only marginally affects production of corn syrup and other additives (stuff that Americans could stand to eat less of anyway).
And cellulosic ethanol totally closes the debate.