ABC mentioned in Forbes

Nov 17, 2008: The American Biofuels Council was named as one of the few organizations credited with helping to accelerate innovation of next generation biofuels from advanced feedstocks.

Carbon Sciences converts CO2 to fuel with low-energy biocatalytic process.

A California company is developing a new technique for recycling carbon dioxide, or CO_2, and turning it back into fuel.

Carbon Sciences believe they have made a breakthrough with their technology, which they say can transform CO₂ back into basic fuel building blocks efficiently.

Their biocatalytic process converts CO₂ into basic hydrocarbons - C1 (methane) C2 (ethane) and C3 (propane) -- which can then be utilized to make higher-grade fuels like gasoline and jet fuel.

"We are very excited by what we've seen in the lab. We've had some promising results," Derek McLeish, President and CEO of the Santa Barbara-based company.

By employing biocatalysis -- using natural catalysts to perform chemical reactions -- Carbon Sciences hope to bypass the problem of inefficient energy ratios which can render many CO₂recycling projects pointless.

"We don't use high temperatures or high pressures, which is a huge advantage in terms of scaling the project up," McLeish said.

In the future, McLeish envisages Carbon Sciences setting up shop next door to large CO₂ emitters -- coal, gas-fired plants and oil refineries -- recycling concentrated streams of CO₂ discharged from fossil fuel plants. Trying to take CO₂ out of natural air just wouldn't be worth it.

Governor Crist gives the green light for 100M gallon/yr cellulosic ethanol plant.

Charlie Crist has approved a proposed plan for commercial scale cellulosic ethanol production to be run by Coskata on US Sugar land originally intended for sale to the State of Florida.

The 100 Mgy cellulosic plant will utilize sugarcane waste and other agricultural residue from US Sugar and other AG producers in the area surrounding Clewiston. The project is expected to cost $400 million and would be the first commercial scale cellulosic ethanol plant.

Buses running on biodiesel reduce pollution

Buses now running on a fuel containing 10 percent biodiesel are likely to help Indianapolis mass transit reduce pollution without compromising fuel economy, according to a report released by Purdue University on August 21st. The report also suggests introducing more diesel-electric hybrid buses and a fuel containing 20 percent biodiesel would further reduce emissions and petroleum consumption.

"There are many reasons an organization would want to move toward biodiesel, including environmental benefits and reducing consumption of imported petroleum," said Gregory Shaver, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. Shaver prepared the report with doctoral student Dave Snyder and undergraduate Chris Satkoski.

The university's Technical Assistance Program at the Purdue Research Park arranged for the engineers to prepare the study for IndyGo Public Transportation Corp., which provides mass transit in Indianapolis. The report was presented to Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard earlier this month at Purdue's Ray W. Herrick Laboratories in a visit organized by the university's Energy Center.

The report compared bus operations in April 2006 and April 2007 to determine the impact of switching from standard diesel fuel, referred to as ULSD, to B10, which contains 10 percent biodiesel. IndyGo switched its entire fleet to B10 in 2007.

Officials wanted to know the impacts of switching to B10 and whether it would be advisable to replace B10 with B20, which contains 20 percent biofuel.

"In our assessment, we would recommend going to B20," Shaver said. "We also saw a significant benefit to using the diesel-electric hybrid buses, so we would recommend increasing the number of hybrids in the fleet. The best bang for your buck might be running B20 in hybrid buses, depending on the initial cost of hybrids compared to standard buses."

The researchers found that the 280-bus fleet's two diesel-electric hybrid buses increased miles per gallon by 30 percent compared with the conventional buses.

Going from ULSD to B10 had virtually no overall effect on mile-per-gallon fuel economy in the fleet, said Shaver, whose research is based at Herrick Labs.

IndyGo buses consumed about 1.8 million gallons of fuel in 2007.

"Changing to B20 could potentially save IndyGo 360,000 gallons of fuel per year in foreign and non-renewable sources," Shaver said. "That equates to 770,000 gallons of crude oil needed to produce the fuel."

Modern engines in buses and cars do not need to be modified to use fuels containing less than 20 percent biofuels.

"Biodiesel is more environmentally friendly than standard diesel, 100 percent renewable and domestically available," Shaver said. "It can be made from different types of animal fats and vegetable oils from numerous types of plants."

The fuel also is "nearly carbon dioxide neutral," meaning the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere by the growing plants is nearly equal to the combined carbon dioxide released during combustion of biodiesel and the carbon dioxide emitted by vehicles transporting the fuel.

"If you switched over completely to biodiesel, you would see about a 50 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, which is pretty substantial," Shaver said.

Biodiesel also is nontoxic, biodegradable and burns cleaner than standard diesel fuel, reducing unburned hydrocarbons, pollutants called particulate matter and carbon monoxide. Using B10 generally reduces particulate matter and carbon monoxide by 5 percent and unburned hydrocarbons by 10 percent. Switching to B20 would likely cut particulate matter and carbon monoxide by12 percent and unburned hydrocarbons by 20 percent.

Researchers also noted that biodiesel mixes well with conventional diesel.

Shaver's research group sponsors include Cummins, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Office of Naval Research.

Making biodiesel is healthy for you (Hmm.. food and fuel?)

A method of turning the biodiesel byproduct, glycerol, into omega-3 fatty acids has been developed by a team from Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The team, led by Zhiyou Wen, assistant professor of biological systems engineering, has developed, it says, a novel fermentation process using microalgae to produce omega-3 fatty acids from crude glycerol.

"We have shown that it is possible to use the crude glycerol byproduct from the biodiesel industry as a carbon source for microalgae that produce omega-3 fatty acids," said Wen, who added that the impurities in crude glycerol may actually be beneficial to algal growth. "After thorough chemical analysis, we have also shown that the algae biomass composition has the same quality as the commercial algae product."

After growing the algae in the crude glycerol, researchers can use it as an animal feed. This mimics a process in nature in which fish, the most common source of omega-3 fatty acid for humans, eat the algae and then retain the healthful compounds in their bodies. Humans who consume the fish in turn consume the omega 3s. Fish-derived products such as fish oil are an inexpensive alternative, but the taste has deterred widespread use.

Wen has partnered with Steven Craig, senior research scientist at Virginia Cobia Farms to use crude glycerol-derived algae as a fish feed. "The results so far have been promising," Wen said. "The fish fed the algae had significant amounts of omega-3 fatty acids."

He and Audrey McElroy, associate professor of animal and poultry sciences, are now trying to determine whether the algae would work as a chicken feed. Kumar Mallikarjunan, associate professor of biological systems engineering, is also working with Wen to determine the fate of omega 3s after they enter the food supply. Researchers do not yet know whether oxidation would have a major impact on omega-3 fatty acids stored in cheese, for example.

Wen presented his paper, "Production of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid from biodiesel-waste glycerol by microalgal fermentation," as a part of a session sponsored by the American Chemical Society Division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

BP to invest$90 Million into Verenium 

A strategic partnership to accelerate the development and commercialization of cellulosic ethanol has been announced today by BP and the Verenium Corporation. The move sees BP invest $90 million into the venture over the coming 18 months, covering the initial phase of the alliance. The investement, sasy BP, is for rights to current and future technology held within the partnership.

"We are very excited and proud to be partnering with BP, a world leader in both the traditional and alternative energy industries that shares our commitment and vision to rapidly evolve next-generation ethanol into a commercial-scale solution for our energy needs," said Carlos A. Riva, President and Chief Executive Officer at Verenium. "In addition to BP's world-class capabilities in traditional energy production, logistics and distribution, their commitment to accelerate the development of the global biofuels market was a significant factor in our decision to partner with BP. In addition, both organizations are aligned on the significant market opportunity and operational imperatives for achieving rapid commercial-scale success."

"BP is very pleased to be entering this important relationship with Verenium. We believe energy crops like sugar cane, miscanthus and energy cane are the best feedstocks to deliver economic, sustainable and scaleable biofuels to the world. This deal puts us at the front of the cellulosic biofuels game," said Sue Ellerbusch, president of BP Biofuels North America. "In partnering with Verenium, we now have the most advanced technology for transforming these energy grasses to biofuels, increasing our ability to invest earlier in the US to meet the requirements for cellulosic ethanol laid out in the recent energy bill. We also have the possibility of enhancing the productivity of our Brazilian assets. Verenium has already demonstrated the technology, making this real and an appropriate fit with our commitment to bring more sustainable biofuels to the market more quickly."

The initial phase of the strategic alliance utilizes Verenium's technology for cellulosic ethanol production as the platform for a joint development effort between BP and Verenium. The companies have formed a Special Purpose Entity (SPE) that is equally owned by BP and Verenium and will license existing intellectual property from each company and own jointly-developed intellectual property in the field of cellulosic ethanol production. All intellectual property owned prior to the formation of the SPE will be retained by each respective company. Further, the SPE will serve as the licensing entity to enable all cellulosic ethanol production projects.

The financial terms of this initial phase of the strategic alliance include:

* $45 million, payable in three installments over the next twelve months, for broad access to Verenium's cellulosic ethanol technology platform, production facilities, and employee scientific knowledge and expertise. At closing, Verenium will receive the first $24.5M of this amount.

* $2.5 million per month to co-fund Verenium's various scientific and technical initiatives within the cellulosic ethanol field. The companies' joint efforts in the field will be directed by a Joint Development Agreement the initial term of which is 18 months.

Beyond the initial phase of this alliance, the companies expect to negotiate a second phase of the relationship focused on the development of a Joint Venture (JV) to accelerate the commercial deployment of the technologies from the SPE into commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol production facilities. While the primary and initial focus of the JV will be on facilities jointly-owned by BP and Verenium in the United States, the SPE technologies may also be licensable to third-party commercial projects. It is the companies' intention to negotiate and finalize this second phase of the strategic alliance, including incremental financial terms for co-funding the JV.

Executive Director's appearance on the Richard Roffman Show!

The head of the ABC appeared on talk radio WKAT 1360, on July 17th, and discussed the realities of renewable fuels and the future of transportation fuels.

Biofuels from peaches?

Clemson University researches have developed a way to produce hydrogen gas and ethanol from rotten peaches. Click here for the video report.

Cost effective hydrogen

Researchers at Ohio State University have found a way to convert ethanol and other biofuels into hydrogen very efficiently.

A new catalyst makes hydrogen from ethanol with 90 percent yield, at a workable temperature, and using inexpensive ingredients.

Umit Ozkan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State University, said that the new catalyst is much less expensive than others being developed around the world, because it does not contain precious metals, such as platinum or rhodium.

"Rhodium is used most often for this kind of catalyst, and it costs around $9,000 an ounce," Ozkan said. "Our catalyst costs around $9 a kilogram."

She and her co-workers presented the research Wednesday, August 20 at the American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia.

The Ohio State catalyst could help make the use of hydrogen-powered cars more practical in the future, she said.

"There are many practical issues that need to be resolved before we can use hydrogen as fuel -- how to make it, how to transport it, how to create the infrastructure for people to fill their cars with it," Ozkan explained.

"Our research lends itself to what's called a 'distributed production' strategy. Instead of making hydrogen from biofuel at a centralized facility and transporting it to gas stations, we could use our catalyst inside reactors that are actually located at the gas stations. So we wouldn't have to transport or store the hydrogen -- we could store the biofuel, and make hydrogen on the spot."

The catalyst is inexpensive to make and to use compared to others under investigation worldwide. Those others are often made from precious metals, or only work at very high temperatures.

"Precious metals have high catalytic activity and -- in most cases -- high stability, but they're also very expensive. So our goal from the outset was to come up with a precious-metal-free catalyst, one that was based on metals that are readily available and inexpensive, but still highly active and stable. So that sets us apart from most of the other groups in the world."

The new dark gray powder is made from tiny granules of cerium oxide -- a common ingredient in ceramics -- and calcium, covered with even smaller particles of cobalt. It produces hydrogen with 90 percent efficiency at 660 degrees farenheit (around 350 degrees Celsius) -- a low temperature by industrial standards.

"Whenever a process works at a lower temperature, that brings energy savings and cost savings," Ozkan said. "Also, if the catalyst is highly active and can achieve high hydrogen yields, we don't need as much of it. That will bring down the size of the reactor, and its cost".

The process starts with a liquid biofuel such as ethanol, which is heated and pumped into a reactor, where the catalyst spurs a series of chemical reactions that ultimately convert the liquid to a hydrogen-rich gas.

One of the biggest challenges the researchers faced was how to prevent "coking" -- the formation of carbon fragments on the surface of the catalyst. The combination of metals -- cerium oxide and calcium -- solved that problem, because it promoted the movement of oxygen ions inside the catalyst. When exposed to enough oxygen, the carbon, like the biofuel, is converted into a gas and gets oxidized; it becomes carbon dioxide.

At the end of the process, waste gases such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and methane are removed, and the hydrogen is purified. To make the process more energy-efficient, heat exchangers capture waste heat and put that energy back into the reactor. Methane recovered in the process can be used to supply part of the energy.

Though this work was based on converting ethanol, Ozkan's team is now studying how to use the same catalyst with other liquid biofuels. Her coauthors on this presentation included Ohio State doctoral students Hua Song and Lingzhi Zhang.

REG claims scalable algae production

A US company, Renewable Energy Group, claims that it now has a scalable, commercial, technology capable of refining and producing large volumes of high quality algae based biodiesel. The company says that it has implemented technology to refine the oil from a variety of algae strains and produce algae biodiesel exceeding ASTM standards.

"With the technology now available we are looking to initiate additional partnerships for commercial-scale production of algae biodiesel at volumes comparable to those from other vegetable and animal feedstocks now in use", explained Chief Operating Officer Daniel Oh, who oversees technology and research and development programs for the company.

"Commercial demonstration of algae biodiesel at this level is a major step forward for the industry," Oh said. "By defining the processing parameters for larger volumes of algae oil, we can process the algae oil using REG’s commercial scale production technology like any other feedstock out there today."

"REG’s successful demonstration of technologies presents the flexibility and opportunity for it to partner with almost any algae-oil supplier for biodiesel," explained Research and Development Manager Glen Meier. "Universal compatibility is the fastest means to procure the volumes of feedstock needed for large-scale commercialization."

New protein discovery could lead to custom made biomass for biofuels

A new protein, trigalactosyldiacylglycerol 4, or TGD4, necessary for chloroplast development has been identified by scientists at Michigan State University. The discovery, they say, could ultimately lead to plant varieties tailored specifically for biofuel production. "This protein directly affects photosynthesis and how plants create biomass (stems, leaves and stalks) and oils", explained Christoph Benning, MSU professor of biochemistry and molecular biology.

Understanding how TGD4 works may allow scientists to create plants that would be used exclusively to produce biofuels, possibly making the process more cost-effective. Most plants that are used to produce oils – corn, soybeans and canola, for example – accumulate the oil in their seeds.

"We've found that if the TGD4 protein is malfunctioning, the plant then accumulates oil in its leaves," Benning said. "If the plant is storing oil in its leaves, there could be more oil per plant, which could make production of biofuels such as biodiesel more efficient. More research is needed so we can completely understand the mechanism of operation."  

The research was funded by the Energy Department and the National Science Foundation. Benning's research also is supported by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station.

DoE and USDA announce $10 million in grants for feedstock research

Plans for 10 grants totaling more than $10 million to accelerate fundamental research in the development of cellulosic biofuels were announced on July 31st by the US Department of Energy (DoE) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA).

"Cellulosic biofuels offer one of the best near- to mid-term alternatives we have, on the energy production side, to reduce reliance and imported oil and cut greenhouse gas emissions, while continuing to meet the nation's transportation energy needs," Under Secretary for Science Dr. Raymond L. Orbach said. "Developing cost-effective means of producing cellulosic biofuels on a national scale poses major scientific challenges—these grants will help in developing the type of transformational breakthroughs needed in basic science to make this happen."

"USDA is committed to fostering a sustainable domestic biofuels industry at home in rural America," Agriculture Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics Gale Buchanan said.  "These grants will broaden the sources of energy from many crops as well as improve the efficiency and options among renewable fuels."

The grants will be awarded under a joint DOE-USDA program begun in 2006 which aims to accelerate fundamental research in biomass genomics to further the use of cellulosic plant material for bioenergy and biofuels.  DOE's Office of Biological and Environmental Research will provide $8.8 million while USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service will provide $2 million to the following institutions over a three year period:

* Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research (Ithaca, NY), $882,000
* Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO), $1,500,000
* University of Georgia (Athens, GA), $1,295,000
* University of Georgia(Athens, GA), $1,200,000
* University of Massachusetts (Amherst, MA), $1,200,000
* Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI), $540,000
* Pennsylvania State University (State College, PA), $587,191
* Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN), $1,200,000
* Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR), $1,200,000
* Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR), $1,200,000

Abandoned farmlands viable for biofuels from biomass

The biofuels community continues to be in search of sustainable and cost-effective sources of biomass materials for producing cellulosic and other advanced biofuels. Scientists from the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University have released a report indicating that current abandoned or degraded agricultural lands are a viable option for growing energy crops that could be converted into biofuels.

According to Elliot Campbell, a post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie Institute who led the research effort, there are approximately 470 hectares (1.8 million square-miles) of abandoned lands globally that could be available for growing energy crops. However, the potential yield of this land area, equivalent to nearly half of the land area of the United States (including Alaska), depends on local soils and climate, as well as the specific energy crops cultivation practices in each region. “Recently, there has been criticism of biofuels if you implement them by using cropland or current forestland,” Campbell said. “So, one alternative would be to use abandoned agricultural lands, and that was our motivation. I think we might be the first group to actually get a data-driven estimate of the global potential of these lands.”

Campbell and his team determined that the global harvestable biomass that could be utilized would be between 1.6 billion and 2.1 billion dry tons per year, which would satisfy approximately 8 percent of worldwide energy demand. “If you think about it in terms of energy content, that’s about 32 to 41 exajoules per year or about 7 [percent] to 8 percent of primary energy demand,” Campbell said. One exajoule is a billion billion joules, equivalent to approximately 170 million barrels of oil.

Additionally, the research team factored in historical land-use data, satellite imaging and ecosystem models into their assessment to make their conclusions. “The main data we used was historical maps of crops and pastures,” Campbell said. “The maps we used were about a decade time-scale, where every decade you have another new map. We were able to identify abandoned agricultural regions in areas where the crop or pasture decreased over time.”

At a regional scale, the study revealed larger opportunities for other parts of the world such as African regions where grassland ecosystems are productive and fossil fuel demand is low. In regions like this, biomass could provide up to 37 times the energy currently used, Campbell noted. “If you look at the regional scale, there are some places where within a given country the amount of biofuel potential from this abandoned agricultural land could be actually much larger than the total primary energy demand,”.

Campbell also said the United States, Brazil and Australia possess bioenergy potential from abandoned agricultural lands, but even if the lands were used exclusively for bioenergy, they would still only yield enough for approximately 6 percent of national energy needs. “I think there are a lot of efforts right now to figure out how much biomass we can get from marginally productive lands, and I think our paper gives these current efforts a global context for how much they might be able to scale up to,” he said.

Hybrid grass may be used to make ethanol

Due in large part to $4-a-gallon gas, Americans are scrambling for alternative fuels, and a retired man in Lakeland, FL may just have a solution growing in his own back yard.

"I didn't think about ethanol until I read a lot about it. Then I thought, 'My God, my grass is a possible solution,' " said the Giok Se Tjiong, 86, of north Lakeland.

There's nothing new about ethanol, of course, but anyone who's gone grocery shopping recently knows why it's fallen out of favor as an alternative fuel.

Most U.S. ethanol is made from corn, which has been diverted in massive quantities from its normal market as cattle feed into fuel production, thus greatly inflating the price for meats, milk and other related products.

Responding to rising corn prices in recent years, U.S. farmers have converted fields from wheat, soybean and other crops to corn production, thus increasing the retail prices for other food products. Then there's the impact of rising fuel prices themselves on food distribution and sales.

So the search is on for an ethanol crop that doesn't take food off the plate. That's where "Tjiong grass" comes in.

A native of Indonesia, Tjiong said he bred the grass himself by crossing sugar cane with African elephant grass that had been brought to his country in the 1950s. Because of its high carbohydrate content, the resulting grass proved a superior feed grass for his family's cattle.

Shortly after Tjiong relocated to Lakeland in the 1970s, he bought 203 acres and some cattle in north Lakeland, he said. He subsequently brought back some Tjiong grass from Indonesia.

Tjiong had the grass analyzed by an independent Tampa lab, and the results showed it had a high carbohydrate content of 71.26 percent, according to the lab report Tjiong provided.

A high carbohydrate content is an important characteristic for producing ethanol, said John Thomas, a research chemist at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne. Simple sugars, such as glucose and sucrose, work the best in producing ethanol.

His grass contains mostly those simple sugars, said Tjiong, who has produced ethanol from the grass in his home laboratory. Thomas worked on alternative fuels since 1980 and agreed Tjiong's grass shows promise as an ethanol source.

Tjiong's estimates show one acre of Tjiong grass could produce 1,365 gallons of ethanol from one harvest. He can get two harvests per year from his north Lakeland field.

Most cars can operate on fuel with up to 10 percent ethanol. With modifications, today's vehicle engines can run on up to 85 percent ethanol.

Tjiong and Thomas said they made several unsuccessful attempts to get government grants for a pilot project to produce ethanol from Tjiong grass.

Officials did not explain the reasons for rejecting the applications, Thomas said, but he thinks the main obstacle was not having enough land to grow enough grass to supply even a small pilot plant.

Based on Tjiong's calculations, a plant producing 10 million gallons of ethanol per year, a typical pilot plant, would need 3,663 acres growing Tjiong grass.

Tjiong said he's too old to start his own business, but he wants to work with a university researcher like Thomas or a private company to develop a commercial manufacturing process to make ethanol from Tjiong grass.

"I believe there's big money in this thing because it's replacing corn," he said.

Lesquerella ideal for biodiesel production 

With funding from USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), a research group in Texas, Arizona and Illinois is looking at Lesquerella, a member of the mustard family, as a potential source for energy. Lesquerella (Lesquerella fendleri) grows naturally in arid and semi-arid landscapes and is native to areas in the southwest United States and Mexico.

Lesquerella has several novel properties absent in other oilseeds. The oil contains natural, unique molecules (estolides), which are rare in other seed oils. These molecules promote natural ease of flow of the oil under many different conditions. Naturally occurring estolides allow lesquerella oil to flow more easily than petroleum at cold temperatures.

The seed, says the research team, provides an agricultural alternative to petroleum that can grow successfully in less productive environments and support rural economies. This project may yield new industrial products from renewable raw materials and expand on market opportunities for farmers and rural communities.

Mike Foster and colleagues at Texas A&M University, University of Arizona, USDA's Agriculture Research Service (ARS) in Maricopa, AZ, and Peoria,IL, and Terresolve Technologies Ltd have worked to develop new breeding lines to increase hydroxy fatty acids and oil content. In addition, they publicly released a salt tolerant line of lesquerella.

The Department of Energy is evaluating lesquerella oil products as biodiesel additives. In addition, studies show that the high level of hydroxy fatty acids in lesquerella increases oil lubricity as compared to other vegetable oils. A private company, Technology Crops International, plans to market lesquerella oil, which could result in a huge market for growers in the Southwestof the USA.

CSREES funded this research project through the Initiative for Future Agricultural and Food Systems (IFAFS) program.

Miscanthus

Following, what is claimed to be, the largest field trial of its kind in the United States, researchers from the University of Illinois have said that the giant perennial grass Miscanthus x giganteus outperforms current biofuels sources by a clear margin. Using Miscanthus as a feedstock for ethanol production in the US, says the team, could significantly reduce the acreage dedicated to biofuels while meeting government biofuels production goals. The new findings will appear this month in the journal Global Change Biology.

According to the report, using corn or switchgrass to produce enough ethanol to offset 20 percent of gasoline use, a current White House goal, would take 25 percent of current US cropland out of food production. However, getting the same amount of ethanol from Miscanthus would require only 9.3 percent of current agricultural acreage.

"What we've found with Miscanthus is that the amount of biomass generated each year would allow us to produce about 2 1/2 times the amount of ethanol we can produce per acre of corn," said crop sciences professor Stephen P. Long, who led the study. Long is the deputy director of the BP-sponsored Energy Biosciences Institute, a multi-year, multi-institutional initiative aimed at finding low-carbon or carbon-neutral alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. Long is an affiliate of the University of Illinois's Institute for Genomic Biology. He also is the editor of Global Change Biology.

In trials across Illinois, switchgrass, a perennial grass which, like Miscanthus, requires fewer chemical and mechanical inputs than corn, produced only about as much ethanol feedstock per acre as corn, Long said.

"It wasn't that we didn't know how to grow switchgrass because the yields we obtained were actually equal to the best yields that had been obtained elsewhere with switchgrass," he said. Corn yields in Illinois are also among the best in the nation.

"One reason why Miscanthus yields more biomass than corn is that it produces green leaves about six weeks earlier in the growing season," Long said. Miscanthus also stays green until late October in Illinois, while corn leaves wither at the end of August, he said.

The growing season for switchgrass is comparable to that of Miscanthus, but it is not nearly as efficient at converting sunlight to biomass as Miscanthus, Frank Dohleman, a graduate student and co-author on the study, found.

"One of the criticisms of using any biomass as a biofuel source is it has been claimed that plants are not very efficient about 0.1 percent efficiency of conversion of sunlight into biomass," Long said. "What we show here is on average Miscanthus is in fact about 1 percent efficient, so about 1 percent of sunlight ends up as biomass."

"Keep in mind that when we consider our energy use, a few hours of solar energy falling on the earth are equal to all the energy that people use over a whole year, so you don't really need that high an efficiency to be able to capture that in plant material and make use of it as a biofuel source," he said.

Sweet Sorghum

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has identifed sweet sorghum as a smart crop which can produce both fuel and food. “Sweet sorghum provides an opportunity for developing countries to re-direct oil money that used to go overseas back into their own rural economies,” says Dr. William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT, one of 15 allied centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

“We consider sweet sorghum an ideal ‘smart crop’ because it produces food as well as fuel,” Dr. Dar adds. “With proper management, small holder farmers can improve their incomes by 20% compared to alternative crops in dry areas in India.”

In partnership with Rusni Distilleries and some 791 farmers in Andhra Pradesh, India, ICRISAT helped to build and operate the world’s first commercial bioethanol plant, which began operations in June 2007. Locally produced sweet sorghum is used as feedstock. Similar public-private-farmer partnership projects with ICRISAT, local industries and farmers, are also underway in the Philippines, Mexico, Mozambique and Kenya, as those countries search for alternatives to high priced oil.

India intends to use a 10% ethanol blend to save an estimated 21 million gallons of gasoline each year to ease the country’s growing need for gasoline and to reduce carbon emissions. Sweet sorghum in India costs $1.74 to produce a gallon of ethanol, compared with $2.19 for sugarcane and $2.12 for corn.

USDA highlights sorghum's potential as a biofuel

Sorghum's potential as a biofuel crop was explored at the International Workshop on Sorghum for Biofuels in Houston, Texas on Aug 19th. More than 100 international experts from government, academia, the private sector and the agricultural community participated in the conference.

US co-sponsors of the event included the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Research, Education and Economics (REE) mission area, Texas A&M University (TAMU), and the National Sorghum Producers (NSP). Other co-sponsors included Brazil’s Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuaria (EMBRAPA), the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), and Tsinghua University, which is located in the Peoples’ Republic of China.

"US consumers know that we need to develop new sources of energy to meet our transportation needs," said REE Under Secretary Gale A. Buchanan. "Growing sorghum for bioenergy production can give us a source of renewable—and profitable—energy right here at home."

Sorghum is attracting greater interest as a bioenergy crop because it is tolerant of drought and grows well on marginal lands not suitable for most other crops. It produces high yields even after an abbreviated production cycle, and requires minimal amounts of fertilizer and irrigation. Scientists at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), a USDA scientific research agency, are part of the international research community studying sorghum genetics and genomics, production systems and conversion processes to optimize biofuel production.

At the workshop, attendees will share information about key scientific advances supporting the economically viable and environmentally sustainable production and utilization of sorghum as a bioenergy crop. Participants also will be able to visit TAMU and learn more about ongoing research on bioenergy feedstock and development. Site visits also will be available to Jennings, La., where Verenium Corporation has broken ground for a 1.4-million-gallon-per-year demonstration cellulosic ethanol facility, the first of its kind in the United States.

Opening remarks were given by Mark Hussey, interim vice chancellor and dean of the TAMU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and also director of Texas AgriLife Research; USDA Under Secretary Buchanan, and Liu Yanhau, vice minister of the People’s Republic of China Ministry of Science and Technology. Other speakers on the agenda included representatives from the NSP, USDA, ARS, the US Department of Energy and the TAMU Agricultural and Food Policy Center.