Discovery of "Q Microbe" for cellulosic ethanol...

skids

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Sat Aug-18-07 07:27 PM
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Discovery of "Q Microbe" for cellulosic ethanol...

...I just had to post this because it was discovered at my alma mater (and by extension, in the coolest part of Massachusetts.)

AMHERST, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SunEthanol Inc., a biofuels technology company, announced today that it has secured funding to commercialize the Q Microbe, a unique natural bacteria capable of converting cellulose into ethanol. Series A financing for developing patent-pending cellulosic ethanol technology around the Q microbe has been provided by VeraSun Energy (NYSE: VSE), Battery Ventures, Long River Ventures and AST Capital. SunEthanol's Q Microbe technology, licensed from the University of Massachusetts, has the potential to make the production of ethanol from cellulose economically competitive.

...

SunEthanol's Q Microbe represents true consolidated bio-processing (CBP), a technology that consolidates multiple steps into a single efficient and natural process, potentially resulting in a lower cost of production and the ability to convert various forms of biomass into ethanol. It was discovered by University of Massachusetts professor of microbiology, Dr. Susan Leschine in the soil of New England, near the Quabbin Reservoir, and is being developed for cellulosic ethanol production by Dr. Leschine and the SunEthanol lab team. Dr. Leschine serves as a senior advisor to SunEthanol. The team believes that the Q Microbe's CBP process can be used with a wide variety of plentiful biomass feedstocks including: switchgrass, corn stover, wheat straw, sugar cane bagasse, and wood pulp. It can potentially be used in all parts of the world where biomass is plentiful.

...

"Commercializing cellulosic ethanol is an important component in reducing our nation's dependence on foreign oil and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions," said Bill Honnef, VeraSun senior vice president. "SunEthanol is developing technology which we believe has the ability to be at the forefront of commercial scale cellulosic ethanol production."

"We have looked at a number of cellulosic ethanol technologies, and are thrilled to make this investment in a potentially game-changing technology," said Jason Matlof, partner at Battery Ventures. "The development of a CBP solution has long been the goal of the biofuels industry, and SunEthanol has proven that their microbiological process has unique capabilities to meet the industry's objectives. This funding will give them the support needed to increase the performance and scale of their technology as they work toward bringing it to market."

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070814005319&newsLang=en

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HysteryDiagnosis

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Sat Aug-18-07 07:32 PM
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1. One step closer to where we

need to be,

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/19004
Ethanol made from corn has already been used to power some car engines, but the process is only 20% efficient. Moreover, all traces of water must be removed before the ethanol can be used as a fuel, which adds to processing costs. Now, the Minnesota-Patras team says that if ethanol was used to make hydrogen for fuel cells, the process would be 60% efficient and the ethanol would not need to be pure.

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Buzz Clik

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Sat Aug-18-07 07:49 PM
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2. Fascinating. I hope she's nailed it.

Her discovery has not made it into peer reviewed scientific literature, but findings with this kind of commercial potential often do not.

Here's her UMass website.

http://www.bio.umass.edu/micro/faculty/leschine.html

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kestrel91316

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Sat Aug-18-07 08:11 PM
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3. Can they use it to turn all our JUNK MAIL into auto fuel????

'Cause if they can, I'm ALL FOR IT, lol.

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NNadir

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Sat Aug-18-07 08:37 PM
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4. Here is a quote from Amory Lovins' 1976 article in Foreign Affairs on enzymes.

Edited on Sat Aug-18-07 08:39 PM by NNadir

Secondly, exciting developments in the conversion of agricultural, forestry and urban wastes to methanol and other liquid and gaseous fuels now offer practical, economically interesting technologies sufficient to run an efficient U.S. transport sector.''' Some bacterial and enzymatic routes under study look even more promising, but presently proved processes already offer sizable contributions without the inevitable climatic constraints of fossil-fuel combustion.

Foreign Affairs Summer 1976, pp 75-96 "ENERGY STRATEGY: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN?"

Bold and italics mine.

The last time I looked the world wasn't running on those methods that were presently proved in 1976 and the promising methods of 1976 haven't produce one exajoule of energy.

Amory Lovins spent the last quarter of the 20th century trying to destroy the largest climate change gas free form of energy and then went off hawking hydrogen hypercars with his fellow distracted consumer car culture apologists.

According to a National Geographic hawking the genius oracle at Snowmass - who apparently decided that hydrogen chimeras were superior to ethanol chimeras, the hydrogen hypercar would be available in showrooms by 2005.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/10/1016_TVhypercar.html

How many years have we been hearing this talk here? Are we in a substantially different place than we were when we were trying to decide whether to support John Kerry or Howard Dean for the 2004 nomination?

Is there any particular reason that we should stake the whole future of humanity on talk similar to that which the hydrogen-biofuels-soft path-levitation mystic genius of 1976 was hawking?

Why don't our biofuels mystics just produce exajoules instead of talk and promises and anti-climate change concerts where not-too-bright guitarists wear "no nuke" tee-shirts while standing in front of 100 kilowatts or amplifiers and a thousand kilowatts of lights? Ten exajoules of production would be worth the exajoules burned in computer time talking about this crap.

I personally would have no objection to wind/solar/biofuels/geothermal producing 50 exajoules or even 20 exajoules or even 10. The world needs about 450 exajoules of climate change gas free energy. I don't expect I will see it though, because I've been hearing it since I was a 20 year old kid in a "no nukes" tee shirt and now I am an old and bitter man who is disgusted with more talk.

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amandabeech

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Sat Aug-18-07 09:34 PM
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5. Your frustration comes out loud and clear, and with good reason.

Not much happened in the '80s, '90s or early '00s except SUV's got bigger and bigger.

However, unlike the '70s, the price of liquid transportation fuels will not go down because the Saudis have decided to pump enough black goo to satisfy U.S. demands. I'm sure that you read theoildrum and know what ASPO is, and think that they're on to something. If they are generally right even if a bit off on the timing, then you probably think that the Saudis are not going to come to the rescue this time because they really can't.

You know the old saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention." Well, thirty years ago, we had a short period of "necessity" and it wasn't enough to sustain scientific or general interest. We are now facing a long period of "necessity," or if you will, a long emergency. I believe that long-term problems, and they are upon us, will inevitably concentrate minds.

I don't see any really rosy outcome to all of this, but I do think that renewables will sort themselves out according to location and you will eventually get those 20 exajoules because it will be the only way to go besides nukes, which I think will be built in at least some locations. I think that there will be research money and general financial incentives to find better ways of making cellulosic ethanol from waste instead of this stupid, totally politically motivated focus on corn ethanol and strip-mining all our soil.

I don't think that it will happen overnight, and I might not live to really see it, but if nasty stuff continues to happen with the weather and the oil wells play out, more people will get into this because no Saudi Arabian white knight is going to pull us out again.

I've been looking for the right time to write something like this to you because you have become increasingly frustrated, angry and bleak over the few years I've been reading the EE forum. I hope that perhaps my few lines allow you to see why some of us, although rather pessimistic, see hope for something that is not the worst outcome that you probably imagine. It's possible to be less optimistic than jpak, not that that's so difficult, while not seeing certain black doom.

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NNadir

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Sun Aug-19-07 09:58 AM
Response to Reply #5

6. Bleak? Me?

Edited on Sun Aug-19-07 10:01 AM by NNadir

Let me begin here: My antagonists are not, in my view, optimistic. It is not optimism to eat lotuses.

Let's be clear what the lotus eaters are doing. They couldn't care less about dangerous fossil fuels and dangerous fossil fuel waste. Most of the time the lotus eaters are attacking what is, by far, the largest single climate change free form of energy there is.

They're not just high, but more like people who are high and operating heavy machinery, like trains or aircraft. Thus they will not only kill themselves, but also other people. They are destructive.

Five years ago or thereabouts, I started writing here in hopes that the Amory Lovins faith could be smashed by appeal to pure reason. So much for my own niave faith. There are still people quoting the deluded, drunken, sybartic sot that the oracle at Snowmass represents. All faith, my own and that of the lotus eaters, is useless.

Any form of energy that cannot get to 20 exajoules within five years will do little to ameliorate the disaster that is already taking place. We've been hearing about enzymes forever. So what? Suppose someone finally makes one of these magic enzymes work? When the droughts kill the switch grass and the new deserts strangle the roots, how then our cute car culture? When the gas fields who pay the Oracle and Snowmass's salary - for whom he does apologetics and shilling - are either depleted or swept away from storms, what then? We're like the Jamaicans now experiencing the outer bands of Dean, knowing that the real show will be here soon.

You've pegged me right. I am angry and bitter. Not one person who alleges to actually care about this issue has managed to grasp the issue of scale, and so there is no true caring.

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amandabeech

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Sun Aug-19-07 12:29 PM
Response to Reply #6

7. N, I don't think that we will manage to avoid climate change.

I do think that we can lower the probably range a bit, and try to slog away through it, as a species, if it does end. I don't see much activity directed toward mitigation and adaptation, either.

Amory Lovins is making lots of dough and laughing all the way to the bank. So are the folks who think that wind energy, and solar, too for that matter, are going to make much difference without some sort of scalable storage mechanisms and some really heavy-duty long-range HVDC lines all over the place.

However, I really do think that there will be a time when folks really sense danger, and I think that problems with the food price and supply, together with higher gasoline prices from depletion, will force it.

Recall the U.S. response in WWII. We stood around and watched without really readying our military much or our civilian production potential. We got hit, and Voila' and a year or so, and we mobilized. I don't think that people here are much different than people anywhere else.

It won't be soon enough to avoid or turn back change, but I do think that it will be enough to stave off complete disaster.

As I tried to write above, you have a sound basis for your anger and frustration, but things human are not always black and white. What I'm suggesting here is the possibility for a rather deep gray, but I think that it could be better than coal black.

That is if people like you open your door when every reporter in New Jersey wants your ideas for getting out of the mess that has already been created.

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skids

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Sun Aug-19-07 03:52 PM
Response to Reply #6

8. Speaking of issues of scale...

...how many nuclear plants would be required to reach an extra 20 exajoules/year, and how many more nuclear plant staff, designers, and experienced construction personnel? Can those folks be trained adequately in five years? I would hate to think we would rush nuclear, as it's one technology that needs extremely careful planning. You cannot half-ass a nuclear plant.

I'd be fully in support of building a new nuclear plant if I thought there was strict assurance that it would be run safely. That is as I've stated before my primary opposition to nuclear power: lack of competence. I don't view nuclear by itself as a climate/energy solution because I do not believe we even have the wherewithall to get our current facilities straightened up. The regulatory agencies are falling flat on their face and the same corporate competence rot (and general sociopathy) you see in any "office space" seems to be leaking into nuclear power companies which is the last place we need it.

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NNadir

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Sun Aug-19-07 10:29 PM
Response to Reply #8

10. Right now 0.7 exajoules (electric) worth of annual nuclear power is under construction.

On order there are 2.5 exajoules.

5.7 exajoules have been proposed.

This brings a total of 9 exajoules of electricity, equivalent to 27 exajoules of primary energy at 33% thermal efficiency. Some of that energy may be recoverable with strategies like those being used in Romania, where waste heat is used for district heating.

This is equal to about 1/4 of the world's current coal out put, these new plants.

The figures are from here:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html

This isn't very much, but it is larger than any other proposal to produce climate change free gas.

The new energy would be about 1/4 of US demand.

I believe that the United States should have about 500-1000 reactors. With conservation we could see the milky way again at night and live relatively safe and secure lives. If some of our reactors produce thermochemical hydrogen or brayton cycles they will achieve high efficiencies.

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philb

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Sun Aug-19-07 08:06 PM
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9. Anyone know if there is any potential for these "bugs" to produce toxic residues?

There have been concerns about some of the other bugs used to produce ethanol from cellulose- such as E Coli strains.

It would be nice if there were a way that avoids controversy.

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