Corn and sugarcane based ethanol may be replaced by cellulose based ethanol soon

The Honey Mushroom is very common at Ojibway, found growing
on stumps and fallen logs. Freshly cut wood infected with
the actively growing fungus glows in the dark. This fungus
often kills trees that are weakened from other disease or injury.
Photo courtesy of Ojibway Nature Center
Nowadays, the recent problem of mass production of bio fuel based on ethanol is food shortage. Need of corn, soybean and sugarcane as raw of material of ethanol in large scale has made these commodity prices soar up. The current technology of bio ethanol requires carbohydrate and polysaccharides to be fermented by bacterias to provide ethanol over fermentation process. But unfortunately, the need of carbohydrate and polysaccharides can be able to be supplied almost only by food. It’s the main cause why bio ethanol production causes food shortage and it becomes the world concern about global hunger in the future.

Additionally, corn based ethanol production still depend on government subsidies. While sugarcane based ethanol is like corn based ethanol too. Even its cost production is cheaper than corn based ethanol but the both require fertilizers which depend on natural gas in the production process. As a result, corn and sugarcane based ethanol do not solve the world dependencies on fossils energy.

Driving up corn, soybean and fertilizer prices have made VeraSun Energy Corp., a corn based ethanol producer, collapsed on last Friday, October 31. While the others are in the similar situation amid global credit squeezed.

A Good News is coming from Novozymes A/S laboratories today. According to Bloomberg, fungi like mushrooms and lichen make enzymes to eat rotting logs and decaying leaves. Biofuel producers use the proteins to break down the complex carbohydrates in plant cells into a soup- like mixture of simple sugars that yeast can eat. In a process much like making beer, yeast ferments the mixture, producing ethanol. Enzymes now on the market can't break down the tougher parts of plants effectively enough to be affordable.

Novozymes’ Chief Executive Officer Steen Riisgaard confirmed in a September interview in Copenhagen that the Company plan to have enzymes commercially available in 2010. Availability of the enzyme will allow ethanol producers to produce at cost around $2.50 per gallon of ethanol.

The key of this fungi technology is effectiveness of the fungi enzyme to convert cellulosic matter into sugars, prior to fermentation which cannot be done by the current ethanol production technology which is using bacteria. In the fermentation process by using bacteria, the bacterias are anaerobic. When oxygen is present, it will inhibit or kill the bacterias. Fermentation process will also increase temperature in the medium that will cause the bacterias die. Those limit ethanol mass production by using bacteria. Cellulose fermentation by using bacteria requires mutant bacteria, ie: Mutant Escherichia Coli, which is still in the research.

Related Posts :

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2. George Soros: investing in green energy could save global economy
3. George Soros: energy investments will fuel America’s next boom

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