Some competition for Iogen. Doug Woodard St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: EERE Network News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> A weekly newsletter from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) <http://www.eere.energy.gov/>Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The EERE Network News is also available on the Web at: <http://www.eere.energy.gov/news/>www.eere.energy.gov/news/ [extract] April 20, 2005 Novozymes and NREL Cut Cost of Converting Biomass to Ethanol Novozymes' new enzymes will be tested at the Abengoa Bioenergy pilot plant in 2006. Credit: Abengoa Bioenergy Novozymes A/S announced last week that it has successfully achieved a 30-fold reduction in the cost of enzymes needed to convert biomass to ethanol. Since early in 2001, Novozymes has been working with DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to reduce the cost of producing ethanol from cellulosic biomass, specifically the cobs, stalks, and leaves of corn plants, which are collectively referred to as corn stover. As opposed to starchy biomass sources such as corn kernels, such "woody" sources require special pretreatments and enzymes to release their carbohydrates and convert them into ethanol. The cost reduction was achieved through a combination of an improved pre-treatment process developed by NREL and new enzymes developed by Novozymes. Abengoa Bioenergy䴊an ethanol producer operating in both Europe and the United States䴊plans to test the improved process at its pilot plant in York, Nebraska, in 2006. See the <http://www.novozymes.com/cgi-bin/bvisapi.dll/press/press.jsp?id=32730>Novozymes press release and the <http://www.abengoabioenergy.com/feature.cfm?page=6>Abengoa Bioenergy Web site. According to a recent study by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a short-term target of replacing up to 13 percent of petroleum-based fuels with biofuels appears feasible in the United States and Europe, using available cropland. And although some people worry that converting crops to fuels can hurt world food supplies, the FAO finds that producing energy from biomass could be a key to eliminating extreme poverty and hunger throughout the world. The FAO notes that biomass energy projects bring economic development opportunities to rural areas, creating jobs and generating new sources of incomes for farmers. See the <http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2005/101397/index.html>FAO press release. _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
