BC: BIOFUELS 101
..
..
..
..
..
...
.
..
.
.
.
.
..
.
.
.
.
Cellulosic Ethanol:
1. Abundant. 30% of corn in the U.S. is being used for corn ethanol, but even if we used 100%, it still wouldn't do much to change our oil addiction. Farmland should be for food crops, not fuel. Cellulose is the basic structural material of all plants, so potentially any part of any plant can be used as feedstock. Huge amounts of homogeneous material is already being produced, as a byproduct of agriculture and forestry. For instance, 75 million tons of corn stover is made, and mostly discarded, in the U.S. each year. Potentially, large areas unsuitable for farming, grazing, or forestry could yield feedstock for a cellulose ethanol industry.
2. Global Warming. Since cellulose feedstock can be grown with minimal effort, or is already being produced as a byproduct, it doesn't require the inputs, that make the energy balance of corn ethanol questionable. Corn and sugarcane ethanol may actually worsen global warming.
3. Enzymes for hydrolysis. The development of enzyme technologies has the potential for a large reduction in costs of production, whether those costs are measured in dollars or energy input. Enzymes can operate at ambient temperatures, replacing processes that require energy-intensive heating. Genetic engineering has the potential to develop fungi or bacteria that can continuously produce the enzymes.
4. Preparation for hydrolysis, and hydrolysis into sugars, are the only difficult steps. The other steps are already being done on a large industrial scale, for corn and sugarcane ethanol. Those other steps are: initial milling, post-hydrolysis separation of sugars from other chemicals like lignin, yeast fermentation, distillation, dehydration.
5. Replaces oil. It produces a liquid fuel, and therefore has the potential to displace oil. The most developed alternative energy technologies, solar and wind, can displace coal and natural gas, but not oil.
Brazil’s sugar cane production facilities and conglomerates have lead to favorable terms for 1st generation sugar cane ethanol acquisitions, and attractive conditions for next-generation, integrated cellulosic biorefineries. These reasons explain the new wave of investments in Brazil, where Shell and BP have entered into to multi-billion dollar ventures (Shell-Cosan JV at $12 billion, BP’s $8 billion through 2015) domesticfuel.com
en.wikipedia.org
POET poet.com
Codexis codexis.com
Codexis, Shell, Logen greentechmedia.com
Novozymes novozymes.com
Coskata coskata.com
Biofuel Digest's 2009-10 50 hottest companies:
(lots of tiny companies, plus a few very big ones: BP, DuPont, Petrobras, Shell, Exxon)
1. Solazyme
2. POET
3. Amyris Biotechnologies
4. BP Biofuels
5. Sapphire Energy
6. Coskata
7. DuPont Danisco
8. LS9
9. Verenium
10. Mascoma
11. Novozymes
12. UOP
13. Gevo
14. Range Fuels
15. Abengoa Bioenergy
16. PetroAlgae
17. Synthetic Genomics
18. Petrobras
19. Bluefire Ethanol
20. ZeaChem
21. Qteros
22. Virent
23. Iogen
24. Algenol
25. Enerkem
26. Genencor
27. Royal Dutch Shell
28. Ceres
29. ExxonMobil
30. Cobalt Biofuels
31. Aurora Biofuels
32. Joule Biotechnologies
33. Syngenta
34. KL Energy
35. Codexis
36. IneosBIO
37. Renewable Energy Group
38. Rentech
39. Praj Industries
40. Neste Oil
41. LanzaTech
42. OriginOil
43. Choren
44. Solix Biofuels
45. Chemrec
46. Dynamotive
47. Terrabon
48. Fulcrum Bioenergy
49. SG Biofuels
50. Inbicon
prnewswire.com
.. |
