Biocatalysis

Shell has announced that it is creating a $21 billion joint venture (that’s billion, with a B) to produce fuel ethanol with Brazilian ethanol producer Cosan. Sugar cane will be used as the feedstock. The venture will be one of the top three ethanol producers in the world–so far.

The theory of human-caused global warming got some support from a surprising source last week. The latest tape from “Osama bin Laden” cited, among all his grievances against the US, its responsibility for ruining the environment by not signing the Kyoto Protocol. Who knew he was an environmentalist? Well, on reflection, he does seem to live pretty much off-the-grid ….

South San Francisco-based LS9 announced today that it has developed a microbe that can produce advanced biofuels directly from cellulosic biomass, such as woodchips, in a “one-step” fermentation process that eliminates the need for additional chemicals and industrial processes.

Always at the leading edge of innovation, Apple has just filed a patent application on a solar-powered iPod, iPhone or other device. Much cooler than biofuels …

Algae has garnered a lot of attention as a biofuels source, but a big economic hurdle is collecting the oil-rich algae from ponds in which they are grown so that they can be processed to extract the fuel. LiveFuels has a novel approach to that problem: have fish eat the algae and recover and process the fish. The tag-line: biomass concentration as nature intended it. One algae expert called this approach “not impossible.” I also find it not unlikely that no funding will not be found from investors who are not unbelieving this not impossible approach.

I love some of the promotional tag lines in the biofuels arena, and the newest one, courtesy of Joule Biotechnologies, is “fuel from thin air.” The Massachusetts-based firm has developed a genetically-engineered microbe that, according to the company, converts carbon dioxide, sunlight, and standard nutrients into ethanol. Joule estimates based on its lab data that the process can produce 25,000 gallons of ethanol for $50 per barrel. A pilot plant to prove this is planned for a yet-to-be-disclosed location in the American Southwest. Hold on to your horses!

Here’s an amusing news item. According to researchers at the Biotechnology Foundation Laboratories at Thomas Jefferson University, tobacco could be a superior biofuel crop. By genetic modification, the oil accumulation in tobacco leaves was increased to 6.8% of dry weight. With tobacco leaf productivity near 1.5 tons per acre, adding the oil in leaves to the oil in tobacco seeds ((approximately 0.24 tons/acre), the total oil yield could increase to as high as .34 tons, or 90 gallons, per acre — 60% higher than oil yields from soybeans.

Solazyme, which until now has positioned itself as a producer of biofuels from algae, has just announced a shift in focus to produce food oils. The company believes it can have products on the market in 2010.  According to chief technology officer Harrison Dillon, the decision to diversify into food products came about by almost by accident when scientists at the company discovered their algae could excrete oils that were similar to olive oil. Olive oil has a market price about 25 times higher than fuel; I’ll bet that also played a role in the decision.

Biofuels Digest has released its new rankings of biofuels companies. Here are the top 10, many of which have been profiled here in the past:

1 Solazyme,2 Poet, 3 Amyris, 4 BP Biofuels, 5 Sapphire Energy, 6 Coskata, 7 DuPont Danisco, 8 LS9, 9 Verenium, 10 Mascoma.

There were a few new names on the list: BP Biofuels was unranked last year and showed up at number 4 this year. Other newbies were further down the list.  Algae companies were strong this year, along with companies showing ability to scale up production for ethanol. We will take a closer look at some of these players in upcoming posts.

The cover story in the October 19, 2009 Wall Street Journal names 5 technologies that could, if successful, radically change the world energy picture, and next generation biofuels from algae is one of them. I would broaden the category to include designer microorganisms of the type being developed by Synthetic Genomics, but in general, I agree. Converting carbon dioxide into fuels using energy from the sun to drive the process would be a game-changer. Let’s hope it works out.