Inexpensive Biofuels: Isobutanol Made Directly from Cellulose - Science Daily

[JohnWxy]

a research team composed of scientists from UCLA and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have genetically engineered a strain of bacteria that can both digest cellulose directly (without need of various pretreatment regimens) and secrete isobutunol. With this microbe the biofuel biobutanol can be made more efficiently and thus at a lower cost than with the other multiple step methods explored so far (with varying degrees of success).

Their achievement, hopefully, will shorten the time horizon for making a cellulose based biofuel a commercial reality.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110307124917.htm

While cellulosic biomass like corn stover and switchgrass is abundant and cheap, it is much more difficult to utilize than corn and sugar cane. This is due in large part because of recalcitrance, or a plant's natural defenses to being chemically dismantled.

Adding to the complexity is the fact biofuel production that involves several steps -- pretreatment, enzyme treatment and fermentation -- is more costly than a method that combines biomass utilization and the fermentation of sugars to biofuel into a single process.

To make the conversion possible, Liao and postdoctoral researcher Wendy Higashide of UCLA and Yongchao Li and Yunfeng Yang of Oak Ridge National Laboratory had to develop a strain of Clostridium cellulolyticum, a native cellulose-degrading microbe, that could synthesize isobutanol directly from cellulose. "This work is based on our earlier work at UCLA in building a synthetic pathway for isobutanol production," Liao said.

While some Clostridium species produce butanol, these organisms typically do not digest cellulose directly. Other Clostridium species digest cellulose but do not produce butanol. None produce isobutanol, an isomer of butanol.

[madinmaryland]

1. WTBF.

Winning the Biofuel Future.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/07/winning-biofuel-future

Today, the Department announced that a research team at our BioEnergy Science Center achieved yet another advance in the drive toward next generation biofuels: using a microbe to convert plant matter directly into isobutanol. Isobutanol can be burned in regular car engines with a heat value higher than ethanol and similar to gasoline. This is part of a broad portfolio of work the Department is doing to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil and create new economic opportunities for rural America.

This announcement is yet another sign of the rapid progress we are making in developing the next generation of biofuels that can help reduce our oil dependence. This is a perfect example of the promising opportunity we have to create a major new industry based on bio-material such as wheat and rice straw, corn stover, lumber wastes, and plants specifically developed for bio-fuel production that require far less fertilizer and other energy inputs. But we must continue with an aggressive research and development effort.

America's oil dependence -- which leaves hardworking families at the mercy of global oil markets -- won't be solved overnight. But the remarkable advance of science and biotechnology in the past decade puts us on the precipice of a revolution in biofuels. In fact, biotechnologies, and the biological sciences that provide the underlying foundation, are some of the most rapidly developing areas in science and technology today - and the United States is leading the way. In the coming years, we can expect dramatic breakthroughs that will allow us to produce the clean energy we need right here at home. We need to act aggressively to seize this opportunity and win the future.

..snip\

[GliderGuider]

2. A genetically engineered bacterium that digests cellulose and produces alcohol.

What could possibly go wrong?

Does anyone remember the story about Dr. Elaine Ingham and Klebsiella planticola?

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=ingham+klebsiella

Klebsiella planticola


Klebsiella planticola is an interesting bacterium. It seems to be a normal bacterium with an uninteresting life, but then some scientists in Germany found out how to genetically engineer it for greater purposes, with devastating consequences. The GM (genetically modified) strain was rushed through testing and could have lead to devastating terrestrial problems if it had been left unchecked.

K. planticola is of the genus Klebsiella, which is a non-motile rod-shaped gram-negative enterobacterium . This is one of the exceptions to the enterobacteria family, which are mainly mammalian, gut-inhabiting bacteria. This however resides on the root systems of plants. K. planticola of strain SDF 15 is the environmentally-safe, natural bacterial strain. K. planticola (SDF 15) is the parent cell line for another strain, which is called K. planticola (SDF 20). K. planticola (SDF 20) is a genetically engineered version from Germany which was designed to increase the production of lactose fermentation of agricultural wastes .

Careless testing of this strain of K. planticola allowed it to almost enter the public domain, before research by independent scientists (Dr. Elaine Ingham, et al.; Oregon State University) showed that this GM-strain actually killed any wheat planted into the soil where the GM-strain was dispersed. Plant matter was to be collected along with GM K. planticola in large containers for ethanol production. After the plant matter was decomposed, there would be a deposit left over that would be rich in nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and sulfur-basically a good fertilizer. It was after this residue was redistributed on the fields that it would do its damaging deed. K. planticola actually sticks to the root system of plants by creating a slime-like layer. The GM- K. planticola would then be connected to the plants root system and while it is there it would produce ethanol in levels of 17 ppm (~1-2 ppm ethanol is deadly for plants) , . K. planticola can attach to any plants, not just wheat, so essentially all global plant life could have been put into jeopardy because of a genetically altered bacteria.

[JohnWxy]

4. "In 1992 th EPA was only a few weeks away from ending life on the planet"? But aren't we still here?

to quote from your citation:

"In 1992 the Environmental Protection Agency was only a few weeks away from ending life on the planet as we know it."??

I read and read and didn't find out if the EPA stopped this disaster from happening, and if they did how did they 'wake up' to the 'danger'? Did they finally believe Ms. Ingham?

I'm forced to observe that we are all here... well, at least I am. So what happened? Was she wrong? If they stopped, why did they stop if they were not listening to her?


I obviously am not privy to details of the organism engineered (in the matter mentioned in OP) but I do know that one way in which researchers provide protection to the environment when they are working with new synthetically derived organisms is to design the organism so that it has to have certain conditions present, which will only be met in the laboratory, in order to survive. That way, if the organism was to get out, it would not survive in the natural environment.

Is it possible they thought of these things already and that not everyone involved in genetic engineering is a 'mad scientist'?

[GliderGuider]

5. As best as I can determine,

After Holmes' results were given to the EPA the organism was "not commercialized" - meaning it was probably quietly withdrawn by the offending company after the EPA had a chat with them in a back room in Washington. The biotech world, not surprisingly, has gone to some length to obscure the facts and vilify Dr. Ingham.

[Nihil]

6. Thank you for that.

Wonder if that figures into the infamous "Doomsday Clock" or if the
closing of ranks by the GM-funded "interested parties" has managed
to let it fall off the radar there too?

Who knows? Maybe now you've flagged this important near-miss for the
entire planet (as opposed to a mere locality) then someone will keep
posting the reprints to "remind" us how close that truly dangerous
technology brought us to extinction (as opposed to inconvenience)?

Doubt it somehow ...

[madokie]

3. I see it as a source of feedstock for all sorts of products we use daily

that are derived from fossil fuels now.

rec'd