MSU to Create Genomic Clearinghouse for Cellulosic Ethanol Energy Crops
14 August 2008
Michigan State University (MSU) scientists, supported with a $540,000 Federal grant, are creating a Web-based genomic database of information on energy crops that can be used to make cellulosic ethanol. Genomic databases contain information on the molecular biology and genetics of a particular species.
C. Robin Buell, associate professor of plant biology and project leader and Kevin Childs, a postdoctoral researcher in her lab, will use the joint grant from the US Departments of Agriculture and Energy (USDA and DOE) to centralize the genomic databases, create uniform annotations (notes or descriptions of the genomes), provide data-mining and search tools, and provide a Web site for scientists from around the world to access the databases. They also will regularly update the information.
Ultimately this will allow us to create better biofuel crops. Right now, about half of the biofuel crops don’t have genomic databases, and the ones that do are in many different places and are annotated differently, which makes it difficult to compare and use the information.
Our biofuel genomic database portal will include information on any crop that can be used to produce cellulosic ethanol, including all the grasses such as corn, rice, maize, wheat and other biofuel species such as poplar, willow and pine.
—C. Robin Buell
Separately, in a paper published in the 14 August edition of the journal Nature, Eddy Rubin, Director of the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, argues that genomics is fundamental to a viable biofuels future.
The development of alternatives to fossil fuels as an energy source is an urgent global priority. Cellulosic biomass has the potential to contribute to meeting the demand for liquid fuel, but land-use requirements and process inefficiencies represent hurdles for large-scale deployment of biomass-to-biofuel technologies. Genomic information gathered from across the biosphere, including potential energy crops and microorganisms able to break down biomass, will be vital for improving the prospects of significant cellulosic biofuel production.
—Eddy Rubin
While Rubin acknowledges that the use of genetics and genomics to catalyze progress towards delivering economically-viable and more socially acceptable biofuels based on lignocellulose is in its infancy, he notes that rapid progress is being made.
Over the past 10,000 years, wild plant species were selected for their desirable traits resulting in today’s highly productive food crops. We simply don’t have thousands of years in the face of the energy and climate challenges, so by applying the power of genomics to these problems, we are seeking to speed up the domestication of energy crops and the technologies for converting them to suitable biofuels as a more carbon-neutral approach to meeting part of our transportation needs.
—Eddy Rubin
Each step in the production of cellulosic biofuel—the harvesting of biomass; pretreatment and saccharification; and the conversion of those sugars into biofuels through fermentation—offers an opportunity for genomics to play a significant role, Rubin says.
With the data that we are generating from plant genomes we can home in on relevant agronomic traits such as rapid growth, drought resistance, and pest tolerance, as well as those that define the basic building blocks of the plants cell wall—cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Biofuels researchers are able to take this information and design strategies to optimize the plants themselves as biofuels feedstocks—altering, for example, branching habit, stem thickness, and cell wall chemistry resulting in plants that are less rigid and more easily broken down.
—Eddy Rubin
For microbial biomass breakdown, Rubin says that many candidates have already been identified. These include Clostridia species for their ability to degrade cellulose, and fungi that express genes associated with the decomposition of the most recalcitrant features of the plant cell wall, lignin, the phenolic “glue” that imbues the plant with structural integrity and pest resistance. The white rot fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium produces unique extracellular oxidative enzymes that effectively degrade lignin by gaining access through the protective matrix surrounding the cellulose microfibrils of plant cell walls.
Another fungus, the yeast Pichia stipitis, ferments the five-carbon “wood sugar” xylose abundant in hardwoods and agricultural harvest residue. Rubin says that Pichia’s recently sequenced genome has revealed insights into the metabolic pathways responsible for this process, guiding efforts to optimize this capability in commercial production strains. Pathway engineering promises to produce a wider variety of organisms able to ferment the full repertoire of sugars derived from cellulose and hemicellulose and tolerate higher ethanol concentrations to optimize fuel yields.
Rubin also touches on the emerging technology of metagenomics—characterizing, without the need for laboratory culture, the metabolic profile of organisms residing in an environmental sample—for the identification of enzymes suitable for industrial-scale biofuel production.
Using this prospecting technique, we can survey the vast microbial biodiversity to gain a better picture of the metabolic potential of genes and how they can be enlisted for the enzymatic deconstruction of biomass and subsequent conversion to high energy value fuels.
—Eddy Rubin
As an example, Rubin cites an analysis of the hindgut contents of the termite, (published in Nature (450, 560-565 [22 November 2007]), which has yielded more than 500 genes related to the enzymatic deconstruction of cellulose and hemicellulose.
The Nature Review goes on to list the feedstock genomes, microbial “biomass degraders,” and “fuel producers” completed or in progress. These include the first tree genome completed—that of the poplar Populus trichocarpa and other plants in the sequencing queue, such as soybean, switchgrass, sorghum, eucalyptus, cassava, and foxtail millet. In addition, Rubin points to oil-producing algae as an alternative source for biodiesel production—with the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, as just one of several algal species that has been characterized for their ability to efficiently capture and convert sunlight into energy.
Given the daunting magnitude of fossil fuel used for transportation, we will likely have to draw from several different sources to make an appreciable impact with cellulosic biofuels, all of which will in some significant way will be informed by genomics. Toward this end, rapid new sequencing methods and the large-scale genomics previously applied to sequencing the human genome are being exploited by bioenergy researchers to design next-generation biofuels, higher-chain alcohols and alkanes, with higher energy content than petroleum and more adaptable to existing infrastructure.
—Eddy Rubin
Resources
Edward M. Rubin (2008) Genomics of cellulosic biofuels. Nature 454, 841-845 doi: 10.1038/nature07190
There is not enough land area in the US to grow crops for any substantial portion of the fuel needed for the US or even just the fuel needed for tranportation. There has emerged, without consideration of any facts, a belief that renewable crop growth can replace a substantial part of the US energy needs. The massive deforestation of England and other countries at the beginning of the industrial revolution clearly points out the ecological danger to the US. Iceland was totally denuded of large trees by the early settlers.
The only bio-mass that should be converted to energy is that which is now being put into landfills.
Nuclear reactors do and can supply a substantial part of the US energy requirements including transportation. Coal now used for electric power can be diverted to produce gasoline and diesel. These can be produced at far lower costs than the present price for gasoline.
Nuclear reactors can also supply much of the energy needed for coal to liquid conversions. Proposed reactors can supply all of the energy.
All life forms, including humans, must ingest, billions of years old ,naturally radio-active potassium in order to live. Humans thus have always had built in radioactivity, so the unmeasurable increase from nuclear power plants is not a problem. Coal fired power plants produce hundreds of times more radio-active exposure than nuclear ones do. Your lawn and garden and walls of your rooms do this also.
Used fuel rods are not waste, but retain more than 95 percent of their initial energy, and processes are now in operation that can extract all of this energy, and new ones are being invented. Fusion reactors, inspite of uninformed comments, actually create radio-activity and can be used to create more nuclear materials for bombs, if ever made to work, than can fission reactors.
Fission reactors put out fewer pounds of radiactive materials than are put in, and actually make use of elements that are destroying themselves naturally anyway. Since the earth was formed, much more than half of the main nuclear fuel, U-235, has dissappeared.
Because of the low price for several decades, the US uranium industry is almost dead, and the speculators have driven up all uranium prices by a factor of ten. Because almost no part of the consumer price of electricity is the price of the fuel, electricity from nuclear reactors is not as dependant upon raw uranium prices as is power from gas dependant upon the price of gas. Proposed reactors can get more than ten times the energy out of uranium than do the present reactors. Some of the proposed reactors can even use thorium which is three times more abundant than ordinary uranium, but there is already enough mined uranium in storage to produce all the power needed for the next hundred years and more if the energy in used fuel rods is used. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 14 August 2008 at 08:00 AM
Okay Henry...why don't you argue with Ceres then?
http://bioage.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/08/03/land.png
Who to believe...Henry or Ceres....I choose Ceres.
Posted by: ejj | 14 August 2008 at 10:04 AM
The Billion Ton Study done by the U.S. Government says that there are one billion tons of biomass that can be used each year, excluding the amount that needs to be left in the field.
Syntec has yields of 100 gallons of alcohols per ton of biomass, so 100 billion gallons of fuel each year would go a long way in helping us with transportation. I do not know of anyone claiming that it will provide all transportation energy let alone all energy, but that is not the point.
Posted by: sjc | 14 August 2008 at 11:52 AM
The Ceres figures assume that productivity of 20 t/ac can be maintained even on marginal lands, and that substantial diversions of land from current uses will have no impacts. These are just two questionable claims from one picture.
Posted by: Reality Czech | 14 August 2008 at 12:09 PM
The U.S. has 1.37 billion acres of available land for energy crops, half of it could be used to produce 4.5 billion tons of biomass over a wide range of ton/acre yields.
This does not include cropland except the 18 million acres in corn for corn ethanol and the 10 million acres in soy for biodiesel (which is not needed).
Wetlands: 90 M acres
Degraded or abandoned farmland: 170 M
Cropland,highly erodible and should be stabilized: 100 M
Patureland/rangeland: 526 M private, 274 M federal
Private forest: 40 M
CRP setaside: 35 M
Military reservations: 10 M
Roadsides: 100 M
370 million acres of cropland is not used nor is 500 million acres of public lands.
The total is still 1.37 Billion acres. If 780 million acres would be used at an average of 5.8 tons per acre yield it would produce 4.53 billion tons of biomass, about 4 times what is needed.
A renewable energy economy would require 15 quads of bio-methane...this could be produced with 1.5 billion tons of biomass and waste. The above does not include waste which is another 1.4 billion tons of potential feedstock.
About the last thing we need is nuclear energy.
Posted by: bud | 14 August 2008 at 06:12 PM
5.8 tons per acre yield
What the heck are you growing that produces this much yield?
Posted by: ratherdashing | 14 August 2008 at 07:51 PM
I like Ceres' numbers
I like henry's nuclear power.
I want it all.
I hate loosing 700 billion $ each year for imported oil.
I hate doing nothing about it.
Posted by: ToppaTom | 14 August 2008 at 09:02 PM
I would agree with everything but the nuclear power. If they find a way to make the waste harmless, then I might change my mind. But they have not and until they do, leave it for aircraft carriers and submarines.
Posted by: sjc | 15 August 2008 at 07:51 AM
@ratherdashing; "What the heck are you growing that produces this much yield?"
1X Duckweed grown in constructed wetlands will produce 5 TPA
2X Mesquite grown in Texas on desertified grasslands with no input will produce 10 TPA, cattail in a swamp in a cold climate will produce 12 TPA
3X H-133 Sorghum will easily produce 16 TPA on marginal land. Kelp farms offshore, without the benefit of land, have been shown to produce 16 TPA. The Ceres numbers for Miscanthus are 20 TPA.
4X Leucaena in FL will produce 25 TPA on poor clay
5X Moringa, water hyacinth or cattail will all produce 26 TPA. Hyacinth, loosestrife and cattail in wetlands and where Hyacinth has been known to produce 100 TPA under certain conditions. Arundo donax will produce more than 26 TPA
The above could all produce a minimum of 10 million BTUs of bio-methane per ton. A Brayton cycle (Biotenpower.com)turbine could use any of it directly and make electricity for 5 cents per kWh.
The levelized cost of energy for nuclear is 19 cents per kWh...again why would one (other than Toshiba, Hitachi, Areva...all foreign corps looking for free US money) even think about nuclear, it isn't necessary?
Posted by: | 15 August 2008 at 08:39 AM
There is no way that we can replace imported oil at the rate 15 million barrels/day with home grown bio-fuel without running into major food shortages and sky high food prices.
Of course, all waste should be converted to usable energy but in the long run, vehicles and HVAC electrification may be to only sustainable way to go.
France has proven that most (75+ %) of the electricity required can be produced with save nuclear reactors. There are no good reasons why USA cannot to the same.
The other 25+ % can come from Solar and Wind.
Posted by: HarveyD | 18 August 2008 at 11:44 AM
"There is no way that we can replace imported oil at the rate 15 million barrels/day with home grown bio-fuel without running into major food shortages and sky high food prices."
First of all, it is less than 14 million barrels imported every day. Second of all, not all of those barrels goes to gasoline for cars. Less than 7 million barrels per day goes for that. Cellulose biofuels can create 100 billion gallons of fuel per year from the land we already use. That would be about 2/3 of our gasoline usage. Combine that with biofuel crops on marginal lands, PHEV fuel economy and the number of barrels of imported oil will go down over time.
Posted by: sjc | 26 August 2008 at 09:58 AM