Getting to the root of biofuels

Oak Ridge National LaboratoryKeith Regan learns that the interdisciplinary approach may hold the key to unlocking biofuels that do not compete with food crops. In the search for alternatives to fossil fuels in the transportation realm, biofuels are considered the most viable short-term alternative. However, traditional biofuels made from food stocks such as corn and soy pose their own inherent problem: they create competition for prime farmland and force growers to choose between producing crops for fuel or food. The holy grail of biofuel development has long been to find a way to turn plant materials that can grow on marginal land into fuel. Now, thanks to a five-year, $125 million multi-institutional grant from the Department of Energy (DOE), the BioEnergy Science Center (BESC), headquartered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, has an interdisciplinary team of biologists, chemists, computer scientists and engineers working on that very issue. Director Martin Keller, who came to the lab two years ago after a 10-year career in the biotechnology sector, says the interdisciplinary approach of the Center is what sets it apart from research done at universities or in the private sector. ÔÇ£If you look at the field of biology research 50 years ago, it was someone looking at insects or trees. These days, itÔÇÖs changing so much and reaches into a lot of disciplines,ÔÇØ Keller says. ÔÇ£You come to a point where to solve problems in biology, you need to reach into supercomputing or into materials design to solve problems of physics or engineering problems. The national labs are in a position to bring all this to bear on our research.ÔÇØThe BESC is one of three bioenergy centers nationwide, with the other two centers located at the University of Wisconsin and the University of California at Berkeley. At the BESC, the focus is squarely on research aimed at commercialization of novel processes for converting plants such as switchgrass and poplar trees into fuels. Those species are abundant, fast growing, and can be grown on marginal land that is not suitable for other traditional crops. However, the sugars they holdÔÇöwhich when fermented become fuelÔÇöare harder to access because the plants are considered recalcitrant, or resistant to the breaking-down process that releases those sugars. While methods exist to get to those sugars, current methods are considered too costly to be carried out on a large enough scale to make such fuels commercially viable and widespread. Keller says researchers are attacking the problem on several fronts. For instance, additional research on the genome sequencing of those plants is being done to fill in knowledge gaps about which of the 2,000 to 4,000 gene sets are responsible for building the resistant cell walls that make those sugars hard to access. ÔÇ£If you can identify those genes, then it may be possible to modify some genes to make those cell walls easier to digest,ÔÇØ he notes. Researchers are also searching for new technologies to aid in the breakdown and fermentation of those sugars. Current methods involve extensive chemical pretreatment with enzymatic solutions to aid the breakdown process, which adds significant cost and time. Researchers are now searching for micro-organisms that might have the ability to both break down the cell walls to release the sugars and also aid in the fermentation process at the same time. This summer, researchers made a second trip to Yellowstone National Park to collect samples of micro-organisms that thrive in the superheated water of the ParkÔÇÖs geysers and eat biomass, for instance. Such consolidated bioprocessing could be a key step toward making the biofuel production more economical. ÔÇ£We hope to find something much better than the current technology out in nature that we can take and maybe even engineer to make it even more effective,ÔÇØ Keller says. The BESC has also developed a novel approach to pretreatment of the plant materials, which could eliminate the need to use large containers and slow processes that are resistant to automation. Borrowing from the approach of pharmaceutical firms from the last 20 years, researchers are seeking ways to enable robotic automation to play more of a role in the process. ÔÇ£We can use these tools to screen many thousands of samples in a week or even a day. ThatÔÇÖs never been done before, because all the disciplines werenÔÇÖt working together under the same hood to make it happen.ÔÇØ The centers are set up to enable intellectual property to be generated and quickly transferred to make the path to commercialization as short as possible. The Board of the BESC, for instance, includes venture capitalists and members of the business community as well as academics. The BESC also has three business partners that help keep researchers focused on the ultimate target of commercialization of the research. Those companies ÔÇö ArborGen, Verenium Corp. and Mascoma Corp.ÔÇöare actively involved in the field and round out a research and commercialization team that also includes partners such as the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Georgia and the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. The DOEÔÇÖs backing of the bioenergy centers underscores the governmentÔÇÖs commitment to renewable fuel production, Keller says, and the original funding has been augmented by state fundsÔÇöwhich helped build a pilot processing plantÔÇöand private support.Researchers at the BESC are mindful of the public perception that biofuels may have a negative side effect by pushing up food prices, especially when corn and soy crops are sought after for both food and fuel. He points to recent research that suggests the price of gasoline would be as much as 30 cents per gallon higher today if not for the introduction of ethanol and other biofuels into the market. ÔÇ£Sometimes you read that negative press and itÔÇÖs a little frustrating, because without biofuels there really are no alternatives in the transportation area,ÔÇØ Keller notes. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖre not saying we donÔÇÖt need to conserve and keep searching for alternatives, but biofuels can be a very significant part of the transportation picture in the future so that our children and their children can enjoy that same freedom to move around that we do.ÔÇØ ┬á