Important Developments and Innovations in fuel/energy production.                  

February 8, 2007

Today I heard an important and exciting program on NPR's Science Friday program. 

Two recent studies published in the journal Science suggest that growing additional biofuel crops might actually increase the amount of carbon entering the atmosphere, especially if existing forests or grasslands must be cleared for biofuel farming. The question under consideration in this program: Do these fuels make sense from an environmental and economic standpoint?  This is an important issue and raising it might imply already having run up against a dead end for a truly sound alternative to the use of oil.  When U.S. politicians talk about biofuels, most of the time they are talking about ethanol made from fermenting corn.  The good news, however, is that there are many other types of biofuels, including biodiesel from algae and cellulosic ethanol technology. Experts discussed various approaches to biofuels and the advantages and disadvantages of each.  I listened to the presentations by both Solazyme, Inc. and  Coskata, Inc.  Because it appears that the Solazyme approach will or may involve the development of genetically modified organisms, because it is one or two years away from achieving cost parity with petroleum, and because the Costaka approach appears to be completely benign in its process, appears to completely negate any damaging threats to land use and the concurrent problem of raising the cost of grains by dedicating their growth for a fuel source, and because it does not appear to involve any lengthy "on line" considerations.

I found Costaka to be the most deserving of public awareness.  Solazyme is an algae-based biodiesel product, whereas Coskata is a biology-based renewable energy company, whose  technology enables the low-cost production of ethanol from a wide variety of input material including biomass, municipal solid waste and other carbonaceous material. Using proprietary microorganisms and patented bioreactor designs, they claim to be able to produce ethanol for under US$1.00 per gallon., as compared to $2.00per gallon to produce petroleum based fuel (gasoline.)

More information on both companies can be found at www.solazyme.com and www.coskata.com .  Please check them out, even if only for your own peace of mind that small private companies are doing us an immense service to help us to break away from the petroleum based economy of perpetual war and perpetual global warming, or as one statesman I know and respect put it "global warring and global warming".

NPR's discussion and programming for this topic can be seen at  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18800996

Yours truly,

Norbert Belanger

P.S.  Interestingly enough, both companies discuss the use of switchgrass as a source material.  Here is a related story you may wish to look into: 

Study Boosts Switchgrass as New Alternative Fuel  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17910749