The Opportunity for Biomass and Biofuel Enhancement

One of the greatest challenges facing the civilized world is the undeniable reality that non-renewable energy sources, specifically fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas, will eventually become depleted. Meeting this challenge requires the development of cost-effective renewable energy sources. Biofuel is one of the most promising renewable energy sources for the future. Biofuel is created from biomass—plant derived sources which are continually renewable from agricultural activity in the broadest sense of the word. There are three principal biomass based sources from which biofuels, principally ethanol, may be generated:

•  Starch—obtained from grain, primarily corn.

•  Sugar—derived from sugarcane or beets.

•  Cellulose—obtained from a variety of plant sources.

Starch based ethanol production from domestically grown corn is rapidly expanding in the United States currently. Sugar based ethanol production is widely utilized in the tropical regions of Brazil. Currently biofuel generation from cellulose has not been commercialized, primarily because of the cost and complexity of breaking down the cellulose to its sugar base.

The process by which biomass is converted to biofuel (primarily ethanol) requires that starch, or potentially cellulose , be degraded into sugar which then is fermented into ethanol. Ethanol, when blended with gasoline to produce hybrid fuel, is by far the most versatile alternative fuel source for transportation, heating, agricultural machinery operation and industrial processes. Modern technological advancements have dramatically improved the process of biofuel conversion and provided a unique opportunity to significantly lower the cost of production and increase price competitiveness. However, it is clear that starch and sugar-based biomass cannot be grown in sufficient quantities to even begin to satisfy current and future needs. Production estimates show that attempting to grow a fraction of the grain or sugar-producing crops required would cause ecological disaster due to the huge acreages which must be devoted to biofuel production. Production on such a scale may even imperil the food supply. Even with the most efficient production systems available, the current cost for producing ethanol from corn grain is three- to fourfold more expensive, at $2.25 per gallon, than equivalent production of gasoline from oil.

Paradoxically, while cellulose is relatively abundant and Florida produces more biomass than any other state in the Union , large quantities of cellulose are often discarded as waste because it cannot be efficiently converted to ethanol using existing technology. The problem of cellulose conversion is so great that there is a complete lack of large-scale (i.e., commercial) cellulosic biomass-converting facilities. Significant improvement is required before a cellulosic biomass-based system can become a cost competitive technology. Therefore, an opportunity exists for R&D on biomass and biofuel production focused on two areas:

1. Improvement of biofuel crops to increase biomass production and composition quality in order to provide a suitable cellulosic substrate.

2. Functional enhancement of the microbes and/or enzymes for more efficient conversion of cellulose > sugar > ethanol.

Advances in these technology areas will make cellulose-to-ethanol conversion facilities much more economically feasible. Once efficient cellulosic ethanol production is achieved, the enormous quantity of biomass substrate available for biofuel production will dwarf the capacity from sugar and starch.

FLG's bi-direction promoter technology can be applied to improve high-value biofuel crops and the enzymatic processes needed for cellulose-to-ethanol conversion.