GM-Backed Mascoma Vows Commercial Cellulosic Ethanol Plant In 2012
By John O'Dell September 29, 2008
By Robert E. Calem, Contributor
Electric vehicles such as the Chevy Volt and the recent new prototypes shown by Chrysler
are getting the lion's share of attention in the green car arena now, but when they roll out at dealerships in about two years these vehicles will represent only a tiny fraction of the cars on the road.
The EVs get the headlines, but out of the limelight, scientists are continuing to work on new and better ways to produce biofuels - such as cellulosic ethanol made from woodchips or other waste material rather than food-related crops such as corn and sugar cane - that can substitute for gasoline.
The fruits of their labor could be in your car's gasoline tank as early as 2010, thanks to recent significant advances in cellulosic chemistry.
Challenges remain, however, including the need to greatly expand the number of gas stations selling E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.
Versions of that same infrastructure dilemma -- what good's the solution if there's no way to get it to people - also dog advanced technologies such as hydrogen fuel cell and battery-electric cars: There are only a handful of hydrogen stations in the country, most centered in Southern California; and while there are lots of electrical outlets, there are very few fast-charging stations that would enable an EV driver to pull in, charge up and be on the road again in under 30 minutes.
While the infrastructure debate rolls on, Mascoma Corp.
, a small Boston-based company backed by General Motors Corp., says it has developed a new and better way to produce cellulosic ethanol using genetically engineered microbes.
GM's Energy Czar Joins Board
GM invested an undisclosed sum in Mascoma last May, when the two-year-old company raised $61 million in its third round of financing from stakeholders that also included petroleum giant Marathon Oil
.
Undisclosed though it is, GM's stake has got to be fairly large: Andreas M. Lippert, the automaker's director of global energy systems, has just joined Mascoma's scientific advisory board.
The news was overshadowed by the attention being given in the media to GM's introduction just days earlier of the production version of its plug-in hybrid electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, due to hit the retail market late in 2010.
But we cared, and on the day of Lippert's appointment we joined him on a tour of Mascoma's R&D laboratory in Lebanon, NH, where he spoke with us about the company's technology and the importance of biofuels going forward.
Also there to brief us were some of Mascoma's top executives and researchers: Company co-founder and chief scientist Lee Lynd (a professor of engineering at nearby Dartmouth University); CEO Bruce Jamerson (formerly president of corn ethanol producer VeraSun Energy Corp.); senior vice president of research and development Jim Flatt; and lab manager Nathan Margolis.
"We believe that biofuels are the most promising and most significant near-term solution to offset rising vehicle energy demands and reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Lippert, whose job at Mascoma, of course, is to push for more bioethanol in the marketplace.
Cick on map of biofuel croplands distribution for more detail.
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Close to Fruition
More than 30 percent of future U.S. vehicle energy demand could be offset by biofuels, he said, adding that "next-generation biofuels" including cellulosic ethanol are very close to availability.
"People used to talk about this as [coming] in a decade's time. Well it is not going to be a decade," he declared. "2010 is when this commercialization will start rolling out."
Mascoma's big advances are in an ethanol production technique called consolidated bioprocessing or CBP, which drastically reduces the steps needed to create the fuel from a "cellulosic biomass" such as woodchips.
Normally, Lynd explained, producing cellulosic ethanol is a multi-step process that entails mixing the biomass with enzymes called cellulases . Those enzymes convert the cellulose in the biomass into sugars, which are then fermented to produce the ethanol.
CBP reduces all of that to "a single integrated step," said Lynd.
The Breakthrough Bug
There are a number of companies pursuing CBP, but the breakthrough for Mascoma - which has been working on it since 2006 - is a new microscopic bug the company created named ALK2.
A strain of Thermoanaerobacterium Saacharolyticum (T. Saach) , the ALK2 bug is able to grow on cellulose, manufacture its own cellulase enzymes and ferment the resulting sugars into ethanol - with no outside help.
The bug also reproduces itself in the process, seamlessly enabling the next batch of biomass to be converted into ethanol. "Once you've got that bug it will grow and replicate and you can put it in factories, and there's no added investment," Lynd said.
"It's self sufficient. That's the key advance," said Flatt. "Right now, conventional biological approaches require enzymes to be purchased [and] those enzymes are the most expensive part of the process. Those conventional biological processes are not economical."
"At the end, we end up with a fermentation broth that basically consists of ethanol. And we then go and separate the ethanol from that fermentation broth and purify it into a transportation fuel," he added.
The final yield from one molecule of sugar is two molecules of ethanol and two molecules of CO2, Flatt said, adding that using ALK2 retains most of the energy of the sugar and avoids generating the usual byproducts of acetic and lactic acid.
But even with this CO2 production, the net generation of the greenhouse gas is lower with CBP and ALK2, Flatt noted.
For one thing, using ALK2 will avoid the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the continuous trucking of the cellulase enzymes to the ethanol plant from wherever they may be produced.
Going Commercial In 2012
Mascoma already has built a 50,000-square-foot demonstration plant in Rome, NY, and says it will transfer the ALK 2 bug to this plant from the lab next year for testing in a production process..
The Rome plant is capable of converting up to 20 metric tons of biomass per day, for a potential annual yield of 500,000 gallons of cellulosic ethanol, Flatt said.
The next step will be construction of a commercial plant, which Mascoma expects to open in 2012. The company's goal is to produce cellulosic ethanol at a cost on par with the lowest-cost source of biofuel, which currently is cane sugar, according to Flatt.
"There's a lot of momentum gaining. By the end of the year I want to drive a vehicle on our product, and I expect that we will be able to do that," Mascoma CEO Jamerson declared.
Vehicle Modifications Necessary
Using E85 fuel requires certain modifications to a vehicle's engine and other parts, and so far only "flex-fuel vehicles" incorporate these modifications.
Today, according to Lippert, there are seven million flex-fuel vehicles in the U.S. More than half of those were made by GM, which has said it will offer a choice of 18 flex-fuel models in its lineup next year.
GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. each have promised to make 50 percent of their models E85-capable by 2012. Besides Mascoma, GM also is working with scientists at various consortia, universities, research centers and other biofuel companies.
Lippert noted, for example, GM's investment in Coskata, Inc. , "which has a different approach you could classify as biothermal and which ultimately is complementary, both in terms of feedstock and in terms of process, with Mascoma's technology."
In addition, he said, GM is partnering with the National Governors Association to promote the expansion of E85 stations by state.
Biggest Roadblocks
Once the cellulosic ethanol is produced, there will remain the challenge of boosting its use in this high-level blend and distributing the fuel to consumers.
But first, some of the primary challenges facing the biofuels industry will be in the area of sustainability.
The "production, gathering, processing of sustainable feedstocks - biomass, agricultural waste and ultimately purposely grown energy crops - is critical," Lippert said.Samples of four of the biofuels feedstocks Mascoma and other cellulosic producers can use.
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But today - while the number of cars capable of running on alternatives like electricity remains very small - biofuels may be the most immediately feasible., Lippert and others argue.
Plenty of cars already on the road or in development are flex-fuel vehicles and, Lippert declared, "we can make them to utilize biofuels now."
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