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Beyond ethanol: Searching for the next viable green fuel

Anita Weier  —  4/30/2008 10:58 am

Eric Apfelbach is happy to talk about the promise of using plant sugars to produce synthetic gasoline. But anyone wanting to take a tour of Virent Energy Systems, his Madison-based company, must first sign a confidentiality agreement pledging not to reveal any trade secrets.

The request is not necessarily unusual in the world of biotechnology, but rather reflects the fierce competition among companies working to find an alternative to carbon-based coal and oil that also avoids the downsides of corn-based ethanol.

It's a spirited race, says Apfelbach, president and CEO of Virent, which has teamed up with Royal Dutch Shell to convert plant sugars from non-food crops like switchgrass or sugarcane pulp waste into synthetic gasoline that could be a substitute for petroleum-based gasoline: "You can't tell which horse will win."

Ethanol produced from corn kernels has been hailed as the savior that can lead the United States away from global warming and toward energy independence. Gov. Jim Doyle, an enthusiastic supporter, says ethanol is good for the state's economy -- by increasing demand for corn -- and the environment, by reducing heat-trapping gases caused by burning fossil fuels.

But as research and news reports have indicated of late, ethanol is far from a perfect solution. Though corn-based ethanol produces less carbon dioxide than fossil fuels, ethanol-blended gasoline increases emission of nitrogen oxide, a contributor to ground-level ozone pollution, according to a state Department of Natural Resources report in 2005.

And increased ethanol production has had unintended consequences for the world's food supply, as more than one-fourth of the United States' output of corn is now being used to produce ethanol, rather than feed livestock and people. Rising corn prices, driven in part by speculation, along with high oil prices and a drought in Australia, have contributed to soaring food costs and shortages around the globe.

That's why Virent and companies like it hold out such promise.

"We are looking at anything that can be a cheap global carbohydrate," Apfelbach says. "We are targeting broad, non-food sources."

Making bio-gasoline instead of ethanol produces less carbon, saves money and is a sustainable technology, he adds.

"Competing with the food supply is never a good idea and is never stable pricing."

3rd generation biofuel

The search for a new biofuel is in its third iteration, says Timothy Donohue, a professor of bacteriology and the lead scientist at the UW-Madison-based Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center.

The first generation of biofuel, he says, was the burning of wood to generate heat -- an era that lasted millions of years.

"The second generation is converting corn kernel-based sugars into ethanol," he adds. "We are looking for the third generation biofuel."

Last year the University of Wisconsin-Madison overcame stiff competition to snag a $134 million U.S. Department of Energy grant to develop one of three national research centers aimed at breaking down wood chips, grasses, cornstalks and other plant-based materials into sugars that can be converted into biofuel.

The UW and its partners in the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center -- including Michigan State University and Lucigen Corp. in Middleton -- are focusing on several goals, including finding ways to breed plants that can more easily be processed into fuel and identifying and improving enzymes that can better degrade biomass to produce biofuel.

They are also seeking better ways of converting plant material into hydrogen, electricity or other chemicals that can replace fossil fuels.

Moreover, the research center is linking with the private sector to test technologies in production-line facilities and to bring these new technologies to the marketplace.

"We have about 50 projects that have begun to move forward on campus and other sites, and we are buying major pieces of equipment and hiring scientists and investigators to get these projects off the ground," Donohue says.

He says the Department of Energy expected the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center to be up and running by January 2009, but it is running ahead of schedule: "I think we will beat that mark and be fully operational by fall."

In all corners of state

Biofuel development efforts outside of Madison are also going strong.

A major project is now under way in Wisconsin Rapids to transform a pulp and paper mill into an integrated forest biorefinery plant. The U.S. Department of Energy has pledged up to $30 million for the NewPage Corp. project, which aims to, among other things, produce a synthetic gas that could be used in place of natural gas.

NewPage also is looking at ways to make liquid transportation fuels from mill residues and unmarketable forest wastes.

"Papermaking is the backbone of the Wisconsin economy, but it is losing jobs," says Masood Akhtar, co-leader of the project. "If you can take the bark-and-wood residue the paper industry is not using in papermaking and generate green power, papermaking costs would be lowered and liquid transportation fuels could be developed to produce more revenue for the mill."

In Park Falls, the Flambeau River Biorefinery is also using federal funding from the Department of Energy to support its efforts to make wood pulp and ethanol from wood. Plans are to build a facility next to the existing Flambeau Papers mill that would use papermaking byproducts from that mill to create ethanol. Additionally, natural gas boilers for the mill would be replaced with a biomass boiler or gasifier, making it energy-independent.

Akhtar is also president of Clean Tech Partners, a nonprofit organization funded in part through the state's Focus on Energy Program, an energy savings initiative funded by utilities and overseen by the state Public Service Commission.

Clean Tech was founded in 2003 to provide capital, business mentoring and grant application assistance to commercial energy-efficient emerging technologies. One way of doing that is through the Biorefinery Deployment Collaborative, which helps members find funding and assess the true promise of new technologies. Flambeau River Paper is one of the members, as is Stora Enso, which previously owned the NewPage plant and applied for the federal grant.

"Technology is developing very quickly, and federal and tax incentives are changing very fast," Akhtar says. "One concern is that there is a lot of hype and people are confused on which technology to pursue."

Those who are slugging it out know they will likely hit some foul balls along the way.

"We are in the early innings of a very long baseball game," says Virent's Apfelbach.

"It requires a convergence of knowledge to solve problems that came out in the first inning with ethanol. We will get around barriers, and the industry will look a lot different in 10 years."

Anita Weier  —  4/30/2008 10:58 am