This may make wood alchohol production useful again, as you can now break down both the lignin AND the cellulose.
On 3/30/07, Jones Beene <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
leaking pen wrote: > Theres direct cellulose conversion now? Yup. Only this year has the Rumpelstiltskin effect <g> come into fruition - with at least three companies moving from pilot plants to full production. One leading contender is called Dyadic. They are a bit tight-lipped, but the plant pictured here has been in operation for several months now : http://www.dyadic-group.com/pdf/DyadicAd.pdf Here is an story on them last year from Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_51/b4014081.htm BTW in Grimm's fairy tale, Rumpelstiltskin spins straw into gold. There are various ways to do this with biomass. Cellulose ethanol generally exhibits a net energy content three times higher than corn derived ethanol based on the weight of input raw material. The economics of this are staggering. Dyadic, started doing this commercially a few months ago by converting Distiller's Grain - since it is in effect "free" as a low value co-product of corn fermentation. Their enzyme process and those of other competitors will work on many kinds of biomass, but the enzymes need to be tailored to specific raw materials, like corn stalks or saw grass. There are literally millions of acres in the mid-west where wheat straw is left standing in the field, after harvest benefiting no one. The US Department of Agriculture says that wheat straw hemicellulose can be easily hydrolyzed enzymatically by using 'Viscostar' from Dyadic, and that alone could provide several billion gallons of new cellulose ethanol with zero effect on food - since it is now unused straw from growing wheat. Same with rice straw and cotton stems and other waste crops. Of course there is massive biofuel potential in forests, especially in Canada. None of this has any effect on food cost - as does corn. But hey, you have to learn to crawl before you can run, and that is where we are now in the process of dumping Arab oil in favor of energy self-sufficiency. Thank heavens these far-sighted (and lucky) scientists and inventors neglected to read what's-his-name... Jones
-- That which yields isn't always weak.
