Ethanol can be made through the fermentation of many natural substances and used to run motorcars. There is some dispute about the net energy benefit of producing ethanol from food crops including corn, sugarcane is considered more efficient than most.
At the recent big biotechnology conference in Chicago an even more effective system for ethanol production from genetically modified (GM) sugarcane was announced by Farmacule and its research partner Queensland University of Technology (QUT):
According to Mel Bridges, Farmacule chairman, the company’s research team successfully modified sugarcane plants using the INPACT technology (and cellulases in the plant) to enable highly efficient conversion of cellulose into fermentable sugars after crushing. The remaining sugars can then be used efficiently to produce bioethanol, leaving the sucrose untouched and available for the consumer sugar market.
Bridges says that the concept, known as cellulosic bioethanol, is seen as the next generation of ethanol production techniques as it aims to produce higher yields per hectare at costs lower than current techniques.
“President Bush recently endorsed the cellulosic bioethanol approach, suggesting that it may come to market within six years,” said Bridges. “Farmacule’s genetic technology will make this a reality, producing viable plants that contain the cellulase enzyme to enable the cost-efficient production of ethanol as a byproduct of the sugarcane.”
Farmacule’s proprietary technology, Bridges added, would use cellulase in the sugarcane leaf material to convert cellulose to fermentable sugars that could then be converted to bioethanol. He said the use of this technology in bioethanol production is an important development in alternative fuels and offers strong benefits for sugar producers and the local and international economies.
“The key to our approach will be to generate plants in which the over-expression of high levels of cellulase is tightly controlled, and activated when required, using our technology. This ensures that the sucrose used for consumer sugar is not sacrificed in any way — we would just be using the waste that’s left after the sucrose is extracted,” he explained.
I had thought President Bush was backing hydrogen, rather than ethanol powered motorcars?
It is interesting this biotechnology breakthrough has come out of Australia, with the mainstream Australian media still running lots of antibiotechnology stories. David Tribe critiques a recent feature in Melbourne’s The Age.
And it is Brazil that has already mapped the sugar genome and already developed a viable ethanol industry.
Perhaps Australians are really innovative, an issue Thomas Barlow discusses in his new book ‘The Australian Miracle’?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
more on Thomas Barlow’s new book here:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18814700-28737,00.html
Thomas Barlow has also been broadcast on the Michael Duffy’s “Counterpoint” (transcript and audio)
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2006/1611183.htm
and Global Innovation Paranoia
http://www.abc.net.au/science/wings/feature1.htm
I thought the advantage of ethanol was that it can be blended easily into the existing distribution system for liquid fuel. Hydrogen, as Ender observed on the earlier post, requires a new distribution infrastructure similar to the LPG system already in place and so we would be looking at three sets of infrastructure for transport fuels.
I think the logistics of this replication of infrastructure are frequently dismissed as a simple problem. Maybe logistics is not up there with brain surgery and rocket science, but it quite possible that the low-tech fundamentals, such as another fleet of trucks, another bank of pumps at the servo and so on can make the attractive high-tech option like hydrogen very difficult to get up to the critical mass required to become a viable alternative. Look at decades it has taken for LPG to achieve enough penetration into the market to allow a car to travel around Australia on gas.
Another fundamental issue is that people buy a vehicle to do more than travel to and from work. They choose vehicles that suit occassional but very significant uses, such as long distance travel. Who would buy a hydrogen car if it can’t travel outside the Brisbane-Sydney-Melbourne triangle? Not even the people who live in those cities.
And Brazil has the lead on ethanol, but from sugar, not from cellulose.
We can use ethanol but only if most of our transport is electric. There really is not enough land. water and fertiliser to replace petrol with ethanol assuming that we want to grow food as well. The waste really needs to go back into the soil as humus – taking it to make ethanol could deplete our soils even faster.
The ideal transport mix would be 50% battery electric vehicles that are used mainly for commuting, 45% plug in multi fuel hybrids for occasional long distance trips and 5% liquid fuel vehicles where neither of the other 2 are applicable.
Looking at the future the hybrids could use living fuel cells powered by ethanol. Read this transcript from the Science Show:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s1614815.htm
“Robyn Williams: So not only fitting in a cell, but would it sit in my electric car?
Shelley Minteer: You know, lots of people ask me that question, whether or not we’re looking at large-scale applications. At this point we’re looking at small-scale applications for one reason, not because the technology can’t be used for a car but because there’s a lot less engineering in small electronics than there is in your car. Cars are very complex and so we’re starting with something that is relatively easy where we have a passive fuel that’s in there and we just change a cartridge, rather than having to maintain fuel injectors et cetera. So cars are definitely more complex and what I consider a long-term application not a short-term application.”
Ender
The transport mix you describe applies to personal transport? If so, does heavy transport still require liquid fuel? Can alcohol be used to carry hydrogen for supplying a fuel cell, or did I just make that up in a dream? But then you link suggests that fuel cells are already a bit passe.
I agree to some extent with your concern about using food grade feedstock for ethanol, but cellulose is a different source. And while some is required to maintain soil structure, there is a lot of waste that is currently a problem and has to be disposed of, often using fossil fuel to process it where burning is not acceptable. Eg, corn stover and cotton trash, apart from sugar cane bagasse, where this discussion started. There are also some papers I can dig out if you are interested about the productive capacity of land that is currently set aside from agriculture that could be used to produce fuel crops. Some people estimate that total current world energy requirements could be grown and food requirements still be met without clearing more land for agriculture, just better utilisation of the land already in use.
There is also the huge productive capacity of the ex-Soviet republics that is presently largely untapped. As an indication of what may happen in the future, the world record for the area seeded in a 24 hour period by a single tractor, 572 hectares, is held by a Ukraine farm using an American tractor and a locally made airseeder. (see http://www.seriousmachinery.com/press1.html) The typical seeding rate in that part of the world is about 20ha per day, so when the rest of Ukraine’s farms upgrade to the level of the record holding farm, the world will have a lot more grain than it does now. They will also produce it more cheaply than many other countries can, possibly wiping large parts of Aus cereals agriculture out in the process. If we are smart enough, we could use a lot of our more marginal cropping country to grow energy as it falls out of use for wheat production.
Boxer – there is no reason that heavy transport needs completely dependant on liquid fuel. Short haul delivery trucks can be electric. Long haul trucks can be multi fuel plug in hybrids. Large mining trucks, trains etc are aleady diesel electric and would require minimal modification. Coal to liquids produces a really good diesel fuel.
I would be very interested in the papers on land use as this is one of the limiting factors. I am not against ethanol as a fuel what I am against is the thought that when we run out of petrol we can just go on business as usual with ethanol. This precludes the changes that are needed to make transport sustainable.
Biomass to diesel using the same Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is also approaching viability. I think Shell has a $600 million pilot plant (I wish I had money like that for a pilot plant) doing this in Malaysia already. Lots of stuff here http://www.ecn.nl/en/bkm/ if you have time to fossick around in it.
Heavy transport will follow the best compromise between energy density, weight and cost. Transport cost is dominated by payload and an energy supply that reduces payload (such as batteries) may have trouble displacing diesel.
As I understand mining trucks and trains are diesel electric to avoid the cost of building and maintaining massive gear transmissions for the thousand horsepower upwards machines. Batteries to feed such enormous electric motors for a 12 hour mine shift may be a fairly ambitious development project.
I agree with your final comment; transport must be sustainable. But there may be several ways to skin the cat and ethanol and F-T diesel are two that might go alongside hybrids and pure electric vehicles. The market will probably be the final arbiter.
Im a student of AGREE BIOTECHNOLOGY-2nd yr.
Im quite impressed by your idea of inserting cellulase in sugarcane
Will u plz send me some more information about this technology.
I would like to do some project on the production of ethanol