Doubled Yield For Bio-Fuel From Waste

hankwang writes "Dutch chemical company DSM announced a new process for production of ethanol from agricultural waste. Most bio-fuel ethanol now is produced from food crops such as corn and sugar cane. Ethanol produced from cellulose would use waste products such as wood chips, citrus peel, and straw. The new process is claimed to increase the yield by a factor of two compared to existing processes, thanks to new enzymes and special yeast strains."

Duke Nukem Forever

[bzzfzz]

There have been research and "breakthroughs" in cellulosic ethanol production reported with stunning regularity since 1898. Yet, a commercially viable process remains elusive. The combination of enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation described as a breakthrough in TFPR is prior art and covered in the Wikipedia article (see link in summary).

Until the process becomes cost competitive with corn, this is just a story about some enzymes and yeast that only a zymurgy nerd could love.

We'll see whether they commercialize this before cold fusion becomes a practical source of commercial electrical power.

Monsanto effect

[RyanFenton]

There's a potential problem with the whole 'special yeast' part - yeast is airborne, and its main feature is that it rapidly reproduces as it eats. Historically, yeast strains were developed by leaving starched/sugared water out, then selectively culling the foam that grew on top until you had something that made bread rise and taste good.

Basically, yeast is everywhere - and the problem with using a special yeast is the same problem that many biofuels using microflora have: Contamination of your carefully bred cell lines, and spread of your proprietary licensed lines into nature leading to lawsuits.

I hope the Netherlands has better laws about owning and licensing life than Monsanto follows. Yeast would be FAR harder to legally control than even food crops, as enough use would mean you could accidentally gather their 'product' almost anywhere on earth just by leaving out some floured water, then rapidly selecting for best performance across quick generations.

Ryan Fenton

Re:Monsanto effect

[Attila Dimedici]

It has been encountered and ignored. For brewers and bread makers (and the many other varied users of yeast), it is really not that important that the yeast not get into the wild because that's where they got it from. Basically the question is, is this "special" strain of yeast one that they isolated from the wild or is it one they created by injecting new DNA into an existing strain? If the former, it is no problem if it gets into the wild, it was already there. If the latter than there may be problems, but just as important, it will be harder to monetize it because others will be able to obtain it by setting up collection points near your plant and using similar selection processes to what people have been usign for years to isolate this strain.

Re:Duke Nukem Forever

[Kral_Blbec]

A few years ago I did a write up about a company in Missouri that was converting waste from a turkey plant into crude oil. I don't remember details, but it seems that operations like that, even if not strictly cost effective on oil production, could have a major role to play once you factor in the elimination of a large portion of what now goes to a land fill.

Re:Farmer checking in

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, farmer checking back in to answer this.

You said: But now it's a golem that's eating your lunch. More money is made betting on the price of corn than growing and selling corn. That's not a healthy situation.

I get the impression that you missed every second word I typed, or failed to comprehend the implications, so here's an explanation for you:

First, if there weren't people dealing with the purchase, accumulation, marketing and shipping, I would have to do all that myself, and that is a lot of work. I'm busy already. Historically speaking a lot of wastage happened because of logistical and market problems - today it's still true but to a much lesser extent. People complain about carbon loads and food miles? It'd be a lot worse if every farmer had to run around in his truck pimping his wares on every street corner.

Second, the golem isn't eating my lunch. Because of the first point, it's making my lunch. A lot of farming efficiencies happened because every farmer didn't have to focus first and foremost on subsistence. Think it through: if you are a genuine subsistence farmer, you have a hell of a lot of different crops and creatures to deal with, all with their own needs, if you want anything approaching a balanced diet (not to mention usable goods like down, leather, horn and so on). Some variety is healthy, certainly, but you can easily spin yourself dizzy even taking care of a few things. Letting a farmer focus on a few things which work well on his land, and do them as well as he can, means that each farmer can, on average, be more productive. A lot of people seem to think that land is just land. I'm here to tell you that it is definitely not. A rocky hillside can be great for goats, but you'll never harvest wheat off it, not without a huge capital investment in changing the land.

Third, so people are making money speculating on what I produced. So what? They bought it. They can make cute little cabbage hats for themselves, if that's what makes them happy. If the cabbage hat market explodes, well, I got acres I can dedicate to cabbages. What if the cabbage hat market collapses between now and harvest? If I hoped to do it all myself, I'm screwed. If I sold cabbage futures, the cabbage market can turn into a dutch tulip fever collapse for all I care - I still have my money. As a sane human being, I hedge my bets by spreading things around, but that's the nature of a primary industry producing commodities. If the market undergoes a shift (lettuce hats are in now, cabbage is so last season) or prices force substitution (lettuce is cheaper than cabbage) the unprotected commodity producer had better hope he and his family can get some use out of that cabbage before it all goes bad. Hope you like sauerkraut. And cash for little Sally's school shoes? Doesn't exist. The evil lunch eating speculator golem means that I can buy my kids shoes.

Seriously, if anyone's lunch is getting eaten, it's the city folks, except that it isn't. Food is historically insanely cheap in the first world, in real terms. The real losers in this whole deal are the speculators who speculated wrong. The commodity markets are a shark pool, and I'm not swimming.

Somehow people keep this fantasy in their heads that middlemen don't deserve a cut. Until Joe and Jane America drive to my door and load up on my products at a reasonable price, the speculators are the grease which keeps the wheels turning. Let them get their cut. I'm cheering them on their way, and next season I will be calling them again to see what they want planted.