TechPulse 360

Progress with second-generation biofuels is coming at a rapid pace, with commercial plants edging toward construction and technological breakthroughs occurring regularly.

The developments suggest what experts have been saying for several months: the industry is poised for expansion with fuel costs finally approaching those of gasoline.

Referred to as cellulosic, second-generation biofuels, such as ethanol, biodiesel and bio jet fuel, have the key advantage of not being derived from edible plants that otherwise might be consumed by a hungry world.

Up to now, price and technology have been holding companies back. Recently, the technology has begun to show itself to be ready. Next up will have to be a massive expansion of feed crop planting and the development of local production facilities to cut down on fuel transportation costs.

A first generation of plants expected to begin large-scale operations by the end of next year, with fuel competitively priced with gasoline and ethanol derived from food crops, such as corn.

A first generation of plants is expected by 2011.

Poet, the largest domestic ethanol maker, is already producing about 20,000 gallons per year of cellulosic ethanol at a pilot project in South Dakota. Costs, it says, are down to $2.35 a gallon and expected to fall further.

By 2011, the company expects a commercial-scale Iowa plant will be up and running and turning corncobs into 25 million gallons of ethanol annually. The Department of Energy awarded the facility $80 million in funding.

In nearby Kansas, Abengoa Bioenergy is to start building the nation’s first hybrid ethanol plant, producing fuel at a commercial scale and generating energy to be sold to Mid-Kansas Electric Company. The plant, to cost $550 million, will ferment 15 million gallons of ethanol a year from corn stover, wheat straw and switchgrass.

Demonstration plants, meanwhile, operate in Pennsylvania and Tennessee – run by Coskara and DuPont Danisco, respectively – and ZeaChem is preparing another for Oregon.

On the scientific from, progress is being made discovering new ways to break down plants into the simple sugars that are fermented into fuel.

Earlier this week, Novozymes and Genencor both unveiled enzymes designed to convert the complex sugars in plant cellulose to simple sugars. Novozymes said its new product will permit ethanol to be made at less than $2 a gallon.

University research could quickly push the envelope and drive the price lower. Michigan State University researchers say they have developed a technique for harvesting plant sugars using a method called ammonia fiber expansion in place of enzymes. It is more efficient, harvesting 90 percent of a plant’s complex sugars instead of the 15 percent.

The University of California at Berkeley and the private firm LS9 have an additional refinement. They have come up with a process that skips the enzyme step entirely. According to an article in the journal Nature, they have genetically adapted the E coli bacteria to turn plant sugars directly into fuel. Their next move: develop a commercial-scale project inside two years to convert Brazilian sugar cane into biodiesel.