Biocatalysis

Every idea needs to be presented in a compelling way if it is to catch on. According to Jeremy Shere, “What we need more of, to my mind, are stories about energy on a human scale, stories that give the average person a sense of what’s at stake and why he or she should care.” More here.

Verenium, the enzyme developer that was created when Diversa merged with cellulosic ethanol developer Celunol, has now sold its cellulosic business to BP for $98.3 million. Included in the transaction are the facilities in Jennings, LA and San Diego, CA.

Verenium will retain its specialty enzyme business, including its enzymes for facilitating biofuels production.

As a result of this deal, Verenium is returning to its original focus on biocatalysis and the development of improved enzymes for industrial applications. Read the press release here.

A great article by Jim Lane on what he calls the “infinite loop” of renewable fuels financing. Shari Lewis could not have described the situation any better.

Novozymes, the largest and IMHO best enzyme maker on the planet, has just introduced another innovation. It is called GH-61, which tells you nothing about what it really is. Novozymes calls it an “enzyme booster” that turbocharges the enzymatic degradation of cellulose. Imagine: an additive that boosts the performance of Novozyme’s already high-performing cellulases. Accelerating the conversion of waste cellulosic raw materials–things like corn cobs, straw, corn stalks, sugar cane bagasse (the stalks left over after the sugar has been crushed out), and the like– into sugars that can be fermented to produce biofuels is step forward on the path toward more plentiful and less expensive biofuels.

Commercialization has just been initiated, and sales are only beginning. But CEO Steen Riisgard says: “We are a real company, and when we say we are ready, we mean we are ready.”

I believe him.

POET, the largest US-based ethanol producer recently outlined its plans for expanding to 3.5 billion gallons per year of cellulosic ethanol production. According to CEO Jeff Broin, success is contingent on loan guarantees by the US government, and the company has submitted its application for the guarantees.

Producing fuel ethanol from corn has the problem that food crops are crowded out, putting upward pressure on food prices. Producing any biofuel from cellulose alleviates this problem, using, for example, corn cobs and stalks as the feedstock instead of corn. This is surely the future of biofuel production, but it is useful to put the cost and scale required to develop this technology into perspective.

Genera Energy has opened a 250,000 gallon per year demonstration cellulosic ethanol plant in Vonore, Tennessee that uses switchgrass as the raw material at a cost of $50 million. Now, 250,000 gallons may sound like a lot of ethanol until you consider that at a price of around $1.50 per gallon, it only equates to about $375,000 in sales at market prices. The scale of operation needs to be about 1000 times bigger for this technology to be competitive. Developing technology that operates at this scale is expensive.

In a press release yesterday Massachusetts-based Qteros, developer of the Q-microbe “”superbug” (actually Clostridium phytoferrans, but “Q” is much easier to pronounce and type).

The processes uses a material the company calls Recyllose-sewage sludge solids that are high is cellulose. Turning sewage sludge into ethanol offers a big opportunity for Qteros, which is partnering with Israel-based Applied CleanTech to develop the technology. Recyllose is a particularly good type of cellulosic feedstock as it contains very low amounts of lignin, the plant cell wall component that is difficult to degrade. Qteros-ACT scientists claim 120-135 gallons of ethanol per ton of Recyllose, and titers of 9% ethanol currently.

Quoting from the press release: “Our customer is every municipality that has a wastewater treatment plant,” said Jeff Hausthor, Qteros co-founder and senior project manager. “It will provide a value-added product for municipal wastewater plants, thereby making treatment plants much less expensive to run and helping local governments throughout the world with their constrained budgets.”

Israel Biran, ACT’s CEO, added, “It also helps answer the question of what municipalities can do with their sewage sludge, a major challenge now facing every wastewater treatment plant operator.”

There has been a PR blitz over the past 24 hours, and it appears to be well-merited.

There is no shortage of biofuels conferences to attend. The 5th Annual Biofuels FInancial Conference is coming up in Minneapolis, MN June 24-25.

The newest pretreatment method to get investor backing is actually a very old method: hydrochloric acid.

A lot of attention has focused on the development of more efficient cellulases and hemi-cellulases to convert cellulosic feedstocks into fermentable sugars. Once this step becomes efficient, biofuels come much closer to a practical reality. Well, a company called HCL Cleantech has just received investments from high profile VCs Burrill & Co. and Khosla Ventures based on a different, enzyme-free approach. HCL Cleantech claims a low-cost biomass to sugars conversion using good, old concentrated hydrochloric acid, offering a process that uses little water and is self-sufficient energetically. As a path to fermentable sugars, the methods would help biofuels development broadly, whether the product is ethanol, butanol, or hydrocarbons. R & D is ongoing in Israel currently, with a pilot plant slated for the USA in 2010. Read the full story here.

T. Boone Pickens on ethanol as a fuel: “It’s an ugly baby, but it’s our ugly baby.”

To read our previous take on ethanol as a fuel, click here.