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Friday, October 20, 2006

Bacteria to Run Cars, Warm Homes

Bacteria to run our cars, warm our homes
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Physorg - http://www.physorg.com/news79725028.html

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Himadri Pakrasi explains the photobioreactor in his Rebstock Hall laboratory. Inside the tube photosynthetic bacteria are making ethanol more efficiently than other forms of biomass because the ccyanobacteria are natural fermentators. Photo by David Kilper / WUSTL Photo
The United States Department of Energy has devoted $1.6 million to sequencing the DNA of six photosynthetic bacteria that Washington University in St. Louis biologists will examine for their potential as one of the next great sources of biofuel that can run our cars and warm our houses.

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That's a lot of power potential from microscopic cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) that capture sunlight and then do a variety of biochemical processes. One potential process, the clean production of ethanol, is a high priority for DOE.

Himadri Pakrasi, Ph.D., Washington University Endowed Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, and Professor of Energy in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, will head a team of biologists at Washington University and elsewhere in the analysis of the genomes of six related strains of Cyanothece bacteria. One additional Cyanothece strain, 54112, already has been sequenced by the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, Calif., DOE's sequencing facility, the largest DNA sequencing facility in the world , that also will sequence the additional six.

The amazing Cyanothece 54112 is a one-celled marine cyanobacteria, which is a bacterium with a well-defined circadian rhythm, or biological clock. In particular, Cyanothece has the uncanny ability to produce oxygen and assimilate carbon through photosynthesis during the day while fixing nitrogen through the night, all within the same cell. Incredibly, even though the organism has a circadian rhythm, its cells grow and divide in 10 to 14 hours.

Why sequence six? The strains, two isolated from rice paddies in Taiwan, one in a rice paddy in India, and three others from the deep ocean, are related, but each one comes from different environmental backgrounds and might metabolize differently. Thus, one or more strains might have biological gifts to offer that the others don't , or else combining traits of the different strains could provide the most efficient form of bioenergy.

A natural at fermentation

"The Department of Energy is very interested in the production of ethanol or hydrogen and other kinds of chemicals through biological processes," said Pakrasi, who also is director of the University's Bioenergy Initiative. "Cyanobacteria have a distinct advantage over biomass, such as corn or other grasses, in producing ethanol, because they use carbon dioxide as their primary cellular carbon source and emit no carbons and they naturally do fermentation. In biomass, yeast needs to be added for fermentation, which leads to the production of ethanol. Cyanobacteria can offer a simpler, cleaner approach to ethanol production." Pakrasi heads a group of nearly two dozen researchers who will do a lengthy, painstaking manual annotation of the gene sets of each organism to figure out what each gene of each strain does.

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"The diversity in those sequences will give us the breadth of what these organisms do, and then we can pick and choose and make a designer microbe that will do what we want it to do," Pakrasi said. "We want to tap into the life history of these organisms to find the golden nuggets."

One possible way to produce ethanol using Cyanothece strains is a hybrid combination of the microbe and plant matter where the cyanobacteria coexist with plants and enable fermentation. The model exists in nature where cyanobacteria form associations with plants and convert nitrogen into a useful form so that plants can use the nitrogen product.

Extracting ethanol

At Washington University, Pakrasi and his collaborators have designed a photobioreactor to watch Cyanothece convert available sunlight into thick mats of green biomass, from which liquid ethanol can be extracted.

Pakrasi led the sequencing of Cyanothece 54112 as the focus of a Department of Energy "grand challenge project" that resulted in the sequencing and annotation of a cyanobacterium gene that could yield clues to how environmental conditions influence key carbon fixation processes at the gene-mRNA-protein levels in an organism.

Two of the most critical environmental and energy science challenges of the 21st century are being addressed in a systems biology program as part of a Grand Challenge project at the W.R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a national facility managed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for the Department of Energy. This program features an elaborate international collaboration involving six university laboratories and 10 national laboratory groups, Washington University being one of them.

Pakrasi is leading a grand challenge project in membrane biology that is using a systems approach to understand the network of genes and proteins that governs the structure and function of membranes and their components responsible for photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation in two species of unicellular cyanobacteria, specifically Cyanothece and Synechocystis.

The Cyanothece sequencing is the second Joint Genome Institute project involving Washington University. In 2004, the university was directly involved in sequencing the entire genome of the moss Physcomitrella patens at the Joint Genome Institute.

Source: By Tony Fitzpatrick, Washington University in St. Louis

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Ted Turner & Biofuels

Ecoworld, 26 Sep 2006

http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2006/09/26/ted-turner-biofuels/

Ted Turner & Biofuels
Yesterday another prominent businessman, who I admire greatly, has weighed in on the potential of biofuels. In a presentation delivered at a forum hosted by the World Trade Organization, Ted Turner said “biofuels could do more than fight problems like pollution and global warming. They can also provide wealthy countries a means of keeping their farmers in business, instead of subsidizing products that can be grown more cheaply in poor countries, products like cotton, sugar beets, sugar cane and rice.”

Turner has a good point. Wealthy countries with ample farmland that is already in service can grow biofuel instead of food. Because the land is already being used as farmland, there is no pressure to deforest. Because the farmers are already being paid subsidies to keep land out of production, these subsidies can be redirected towards encouraging biofuel production. In this manner, even a biofuel crop of marginal economic viability can improve a wealthy nation’s energy security while remaining ”tax neutral.”

It is in the developing countries that encouraging biofuel plantings is more problematic. As we point out in an earlier post “Deforestation Diesel,” planting biofuels is crowding out food production in countries where prices of food are already too high. Planting biofuels is also encouraging deforestation, since now there are two reasons, food and fuel, for taking down trees and planting crops. Moreover, planting biofuels will lead to desertification, since much of the topsoil in the tropics is very thin and deteriorates quickly when the tree canopy is removed.

To replace all energy used on earth with biofuel would require 10 million square miles of land, on a planet with only 5 million square miles of arable farmland. See proof for these figures in “Biofuel vs. Photovoltaics.” For this reason, as long as growing biofuel is profitable, and in many parts of the world it is very profitable, the pressures to deforest will be more compelling than ever.

Those who believe we need to manage atmospheric CO2 to manage global warming should be especially concerned. So what if biofuel is “carbon neutral” if producing it requires stripping the earth of even more forest canopy and contributing to the spread of deserts? More forests (cool and CO2 sponges) cool the planet, and more deserts (hot and no CO2 absorption) warm the planet. Their impact very likely dwarfs any advantage we may get from burning biofuel instead of petroleum. At the least, these trade-offs need to be evaluated.

This is the message that is currently lost on biofuel proponents: Biofuel should be grown on existing farmland in developing countries and on land that is already desertified - or in factories. Anywhere else ought to be subject to careful cost/benefit analysis. Biofuel is a promising source of supplemental fuel. Biofuel using factory farming techniques may become more than just a supplemental fuel, read “Factory Farmed Algae for Biofuel.” But in our exhuberance for biofuels let us not forget the forest for the fuel.

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Sequencing the DNA of Bacteria to Make Biofuel

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Sequencing The DNA Of Six Photosynthetic Bacteria To Make Biofuel To Warm Homes And Run Cars
Article Date: 11 Oct 2006

From Medical News Today

Excerpts:

1. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has devoted $1.6 million to sequencing the DNA of six photosynthetic bacteria that Washington University in St. Louis biologists will examine for their potential as one of the next sources of biofuel

2. There's a lot of power potential from microscopic cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) that capture sunlight and then do a variety of biochemical processes. One potential process, the clean production of ethanol, is a high priority for DOE.

3. Himadri Pakrasi, Ph.D., Washington University Endowed Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, and Professor of Energy in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, analyse genomes of six related strains of Cyanothece bacteria. One additional Cyanothece strain, 54112, already has been sequenced by the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, Calif.

4. The amazing Cyanothece 54112 is a one-celled marine cyanobacteria. In particular, Cyanothece produces oxygen and assimilates carbon through photosynthesis during the day while fixing nitrogen through the night.

5. Cyanobacteria have a distinct advantage over biomass, such as corn or other grasses, in producing ethanol, because they use carbon dioxide as their primary cellular carbon source and emit no carbons and they naturally do fermentation. Cyanobacteria can offer a simpler, cleaner approach to ethanol production.

6. The diversity in those gene sequences will give the researchers an undrstanding of what the organisms do, allowing them to pick and choose and make a designer microbe that can perform specific functions.

7. One possible way to produce ethanol using Cyanothece strains is a hybrid combination of the microbe and plant matter where the cyanobacteria coexist with plants and enable fermentation. The model exists in nature.

8. A photobioreactor is used to make Cyanothece convert available sunlight into thick mats of green biomass, from which liquid ethanol can be extracted.

Full article here

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A Blueprint for Energy Efficiency - Brazil Example

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A blueprint for energy efficiency
Birmingham News
Sunday, October 08, 2006, MARK HALL

Excerpts:

1. Brazil embarked on a long, arduous path toward energy independence more three decades ago. Its determined quest for energy self-sufficiency finally has paid off.

2. Brazil is now one of the world's leaders in renewable energy resources, with roughly 60 percent of its sugar production invested in ethanol. Ethanol alone accounts for 13.5 percent of Brazil's energy use. Ethanol fuels nearly half of Brazil's automobiles.

3. Brazil producers are confident that if they can keep the cost of ethanol at less than 70 percent of the cost of gasoline, as many as 9 out of every 10 cars sold in Brazil will be flex-fuel.

4. There is a lesson here for Americans - All levels of government must continue to help us stay focused on the prize.

5. Policymakers and Americans in general also should bear in mind that renewable fuels make up a very big and complicated picture. Indeed, current biofuels may only represent the first step toward energy independence and should be viewed as bridge technologies...

6. Feedstocks, such as corn, may turn out to be only short-term solutions until other more efficient technologies prevail.

7. Lucrative technologies? (1) use of algae, which can be bred and developed specifically for energy needs. (2) biomass derived from the cellulosic material of trees, switchgrass and other crop residue.

8. These second generation biofuels may be closer than we realize. For example, scientists recently announced that they had completed genome mapping of a poplar tree, black cottonwood or Populus trichocarpa, which offers huge potential as a biofuels source. The poplars mature in as little as four years and can reach as high as 100 feet.

9. Gene mapping could enable scientists to undertake dramatic improvements in plantation productivity associated with the tree.

10. Recently, Honda Motor Co. announced that it has co-developed the world's first practical process for producing ethanol out of cellulosic biomass. The new process would allow large volumes of ethanol to be produced from widely available biomass such as waste wood, leaves...

11. Meanwhile, Auburn University's David Bransby has emerged as a world leader in the adoption of switchgrass and other cellulosic materials as bioenergy alternatives.

12. Bransby believes by 2025, as much as 35 percent of energy in the United States could be produced by farmers.

13. The critical ingredient for the bioenergy success will be government incentives.

Full report can be found here

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East Japan Railway Debuts Hybrid Fuel Train

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Windpower Not Reliable Enough for Electricity Needs

Siemens Windpower Secures Order for the Largest European Wind Farm

http://www.windtech-international.com/content/view/820/2/

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