U of M researchers developing fossil-fuel alternative

SASKATOON (CUP) — Over the course of only a few years, corn-based ethanol went from possible environmental savior to villain, leaving the question of what will replace fossil fuels unanswered.

University of Manitoba researchers Richard Sparling and David Levin are developing a solution to that problem.

Sparling and Levin have been working for six years to improve the production of biofuels, which is fuel produced with biomass rather than oil.

“What we’re looking at is called consolidated bio-processing,” Sparling said. “It consolidates all the different steps of breaking down cellulose into one step.

“The bacteria break down cellulose into its component sugars, eat those, and one of the byproducts of their digestion is ethanol.”

The current corn-based ethanol that is most commonly produced in North America is usually made from the starch of the corn plant, which is a significantly smaller portion of the plant than cellulose.

“Think the wood on a tree” to understand how much of a plant’s mass cellulose comprises, said Sparling.

The team has proven that it is possible to produce ethanol inside bacteria, which was the first major breakthrough. However, the team’s current method is not commercially viable. The bacteria take too long and do not produce enough ethanol at a time.

Sparling said the team has received a Genome Canada grant to continue on the current portion of their project until 2013, at which point they “might have enough information and enough good bacteria that in the five-year horizon from then this could be commercially viable.

“Right now we’re understanding how the bacteria works so we can force them into making more ethanol faster. They can do it; the principle is established. Now the question is how can we make them produce more ethanol faster, how can we increase their tolerance to larger amounts of ethanol,” he said.

Finding uses for the other digestive byproducts and for the remaining cellulose are also goals of the project. Sparling explained that he and his team “don’t want to produce just one product, but extract as many products of value” as they are able to.

The push to develop more than one technique in a project is partially a product of increased environmental awareness, Sparling said, referring to the process as bio-refinery. His team has a set of organisms capable of producing bioplastic, which they are also in the process of developing.

It is important to look at biological materials commonly considered waste and to see them as useful materials that need not be cast aside, according to Sparling.

“I like not only to spread information about my research, but also to say, ‘Hey, if you’re in a small town and you see a lot of straw, that has value too; or if you’re in a city and you see a bunch of coffee cups lying around, they have a use.’”

The search for alternative, renewable sources of fuel has seen increasing attention in recent decades. Increased use of corn-based ethanol fuels led to severe spikes in world food prices that peaked in 2008.

Because most ethanol is produced from either cornstarch or sugarcane, large-scale production of ethanol from traditional sources requires massive government subsidies and cuts into the global food supply. The subsidies are necessary because corn production is expensive and, ironically, fuel-intensive.