Cellulose ethanol companies around the world are trying to reduce excessive processing costs, but a Canadian trait development company is approaching the problem from a different angle.
The delay with cellulose ethanol has been figuring out an economical way to break down the tight chains of indigestible sugar molecules that make up plant cell walls. It is the major cost in making fuel out of plant fibre.
Performance Plants Inc. thinks the answer lies in modifying the feedstock rather than tweaking the production process. The company from Kingston, Ont., has developed a trait that alters plant walls to significantly improve their conversion into biofuel.
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On March 6, the company received $5.6 million from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) to help advance the $16.5 million research project towards commercialization.
“The support of SDTC is important and greatly appreciated as it validates the efficacy of our technologies to more efficiently convert non-food biomass into cellulosic ethanol,” said Performance Plants president Peter Matthewman.
“We believe our technologies are the critical link to developing a profitable and sustainable clean energy sector that replaces such feedstocks as coal and petroleum with non-food biomass crops.”
The money will be used to introduce the company’s Enhanced Conversion Technology into four high biomass crops – sorghum, switchgrass, hemp and miscanthus. The genetically modified crops will be field tested in North and South America.
At least one commodity group isn’t happy to be included. The Canadian hemp industry wants nothing to do with a project that genetically modifies their crop, even if Performance Plants is working only with genes within the plant and not introducing foreign material.
“You’re taking the last sacred crop that we have and you’re trying to do something totally unnatural to it, which we do not support at all,” said Anndrea Hermann, interim executive director of the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance.
She said the industry has expressed concerns to Performance Plants that talk of a GM hemp crop could disrupt the industry’s market development work. Hermann will soon be making another call to the company to reinforce that message.
Once the traits have been field tested, Performance Plants will join with a cellulose ethanol company to conduct a real-world, pilot scale test to see if the technology makes the production process more economical.
If successful, the new technology would help pave the way for what is expected to be a $40 billion cellulose ethanol industry.
The company has budgeted 3½ years for the project. During that time, it will also develop its Biomass Enhancement and Water Use Efficiency technologies.
Those two traits will benefit producers by helping them produce up to four times the biomass per acre of today’s crops and by cutting water needs almost in half. They will be stacked with the Enhanced Conversion Technology trait to create crops that offer benefits to producers and end users.
The North American market for biomass crops is expected to be significant. The U.S. renewable fuel standard calls for 83 billion litres of cellulose ethanol production by 2022. A sizable portion of that will be made from plant material.
“Current assessments for the North American biofuels market indicate that over one billion tonnes of dry biomass per year will be required to switch current petroleum consumption to 30 percent renewable fuels,” Matthewman said.
Performance Plants is working with a number of partners, including major agricultural seed development companies that will provide the trait developer with access to their elite varieties.
This isn’t the company’s first commercialized trait. Its Yield Protection Technology drought tolerance trait has been licensed to seed companies such as Syngenta, Stine, RiceTec and Scotts Miracle Gro.
It has also developed a Heat Tolerance Technology that protects plants against seed yield losses that can occur when crops are exposed to a few hours of hot summer temperatures.
