The Minority Report

It’s coming. Slowly but surely, alternative fuels are coming to the biomasses. I’m figuring in about 20 years, we’ll have a significant portion of our daily fuel (gasoline and diesel) combined with biofuels.

A tiny microbe found in the Chesapeake Bay is the focus of intense study for a biotech startup in College Park, MD. Zymetis has genetically modified a rare, cellulose-eating bacterium to break down and convert cellulose into sugars necessary to make ethanol, and it recently completed its first commercial-scale trial. Earlier this year, the company ran the modified microbe through a series of tests in large fermenters and found that it was able to convert one ton of cellulosic plant fiber into sugar in 72 hours. The trial, researchers say, illustrates the organism’s potential in helping to produce ethanol cheaply and efficiently at industrial scales. Zymetis is now raising the first round of venture capital to bring the technology to commercial applications.
Technology Review: A Better Biofuel Bug

The key point to take away from this story is that Zymetis is conducting their trials on a commercial scale and at a high rate of turn around speed, 24-72 hours.

Laughlin and his colleagues recently ran the organism through a trial and found that the organism chewed through one ton of cellulosic plant fiber, converting the pulp into sugar within 72 hours–a process that normally takes years in the wild. “Right now, we’re working on a 24-to-72-hour timescale,” says Laughlin. “It’s more an economic question to make it faster, but at what cost? So we’re working on a whole host of protocols of processing across different timescales to figure out an optimum run.”
Technology Review: A Better Biofuel Bug

Here is a link to a video of Scott Laughlin, CEO of Zymetis, discussing his company and their work on this groundbreaking bacteria (I hate when i can’t embed the fraking video…)

Don’t forget that in America, there is always a competitor to any good idea. Checkout Qteros, formerly SunEthanol, and the work that they are doing.

On Wednesday, March 4, 2009, Qteros and three other advanced-biofuels companies hosted a forum in Washington, D.C., to inform more than 100 government and industry representatives about the progress being made in next-generation biofuels and to communicate the importance of legislative and monetary support in order to move the country toward national, environmental, and economic security.
Qteros | News