DOE: NEW PROCESS CUTS ETHANOL COST
A unit of the U.S. Department of Energy claims a breakthrough that promises to cut the cost of producing ethanol from biomass.
The result could be stiffer competition for reformulated gasoline sales under a government edict requiring oxygenated motor fuel. The petroleum industry is challenging the edict in court (OGJ, July 18, p. 29).
DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, Colo., said its genetic engineering breakthrough, combined with the use of inexpensive feedstocks, could cut in half the per gallon cost of ethanol from biomass.
NREL has applied for a patent on its new ethanol production process.
NREL said its method holds an advantage over the most common method of ethanol production, which uses yeast to ferment glucose, a six-carbon sugar that is the major component of most biomass feedstocks. Alternatively, the Zymomonas mobilis bacterium is more efficient than yeast and is suited to ethanol production.
In the breakthrough, NREL staff members genetically engineered a new strain of Zymomonas that can ferment xylose, a five-carbon sugar, in addition to glucose. Because xylose can comprise 25-40% of biomass, the new bacterium greatly expands the percentage of feedstocks that can be fermented into ethanol.
NREL researchers estimate that using the new bacterium, along with inexpensive feedstocks such as agriculture residues and sawdust, will lower the cost of ethanol from biomass to 60-70 cents/gal from about $1.20/gal.
DOE's goal is to produce ethanol from dedicated crops such as switch-grass and hardwood trees that is cost competitive as a pure fuel on the open market.
In addition to advancing technology to lower the cost of ethanol from biomass, NREL is forming partnerships with industry to use the technology. Amoco Corp. is scheduled to be the first private partner to apply an NREL pilot plant, currently being completed, to provide data needed to commercialize a biomass to ethanol process.
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