This may be the cost effective breakthrough necessary for producing ethanol cheaper than gasoline. M

Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Corn Primed for Making Biofuel
Researchers design a crop that can break down its own cellulose. By Alexandra M. Goho



In an effort to help boost the nation's supply of biofuels, researchers have created three strains of genetically modified corn to manufacture enzymes that break down the plant's cellulose into sugars that can be fermented into ethanol. Incorporating such enzymes directly into the plants could reduce the cost of converting cellulose into biofuel.

Last year, new federal regulations called for production of renewable fuels to increase to 36 billion gallons annually--nearly five times current levels--by 2022. Today, nearly all fuel ethanol in the United States is produced from corn kernels. To meet the required increase, researchers are turning to other sources, such as cellulose, a complex carbohydrate found in all plants. Corn leaves and stems, prairie grasses, and wood chips are leading candidates for supplies of cellulose. Cellulosic ethanol has many advantages over that produced from corn kernels. Cellulose is not only extremely abundant and inexpensive; studies also suggest that the production and use of ethanol from cellulose could yield fewer greenhouse gases.

However, the biggest obstacle to making cellulosic ethanol commercially feasible is the breakdown of cellulose. Enzymes that degrade cellulose, called cellulases, are typically produced by microbes grown inside large bioreactors, an expensive and energy-intensive process. "In order to make cellulosic ethanol really competitive, we really need to bring those costs down," says Michael J. Blaylock, vice president of system development at Edenspace, a crop biotechnology firm based in Manhattan, KS.

Mariam Sticklen, professor of crop and soil science at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, figured that she could eliminate the cost of manufacturing enzymes by engineering corn plants to produce the enzymes themselves. Instead of relying on the energy-intensive process of producing them in bioreactors, "the plants use the free energy of the sun to produce the enzymes," she says.

Typically, the breakdown of cellulose requires three different cellulases. Last year, Sticklen reported modifying corn with a gene for a cellulase that cuts the long cellulose chains into smaller pieces. The gene came from a microbe that lives in a hot spring. A month later, Sticklen inserted a gene derived from a soil fungus into the corn genome. That gene codes for an enzyme that breaks the smaller pieces of cellulose into pairs of glucose molecules. In this latest effort, Sticklen has modified corn to produce an enzyme that splits the glucose pairs into individual sugar molecules; the enzyme is naturally produced by a microbe that lives inside a cow's stomach. The final result: three strains of corn, each of which produces an enzyme essential to the complete breakdown of cellulose.

Go to this link to read the entire article:
Technology Review: Corn Primed for Making Biofuel

Great post but won't that lead to a lot of this type of corn being planted and still keep the cost of corn high and what are the dangers?

Some research (I shall look for it) with radio waves and salt water ha turned up the fact that the by product is Hydrogen. Still in the research stages.

Directory:John Kanzius Produces Hydrogen from Salt Water Using Radio Waves
From PESWiki
<< A Top 100 Energy Technology >> A test tube filled with salt water, with a paper towel inserted for a wick, burns when exposed to radio frequencies from John Kanzius' machine. The paper towel is not consumed.
Fire from Salt Water

Directory:John Kanzius Produces Hydrogen from Salt Water Using Radio Waves - PESWiki

John Kanzius has found a way to burn salt water with the same radio wave machine he is using to kill cancer cells.

Kanzius was testing his external radio-wave generator to see if it could desalinate salt water, and the water ignited. A university chemist determined that the process is generating hydrogen, which can be burned as fuel.

While the phenomenon is interesting, it is not yet practical for energy generation as long as more energy is consumed by the radio frequency device than is produced for burning. Efficiency-wise, they started at around 76 percent of Faraday's theoretical limit. (Other Hydrogen-from-Water methods, such as the one being pursued by Bob Boyce (Building A Hydrogen Carburetor -- One Man From the Trenches), are approaching 7x Faraday). They subsequently quietly reported that they surpassed 100% efficiency, which would mean that the system is somehow harnessing environmental energy such as from the zero point or some other yet-to-be discovered phenomenon.

Another problem to be overcome from burning salt water is the liberation of toxic chlorine (from the Cl of NaCl/salt).

Kanzius says if someone wants to buy up the rights to the technology, that would be fine. He would use the funds to finance his quest to cure cancer.

The whole search: 403 Forbidden

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I have posted articles on the new breakthrough using aluminum and galladium pellets or rods. There are several different teams of scientists worldwide developing different alternatives for cheap hydrogen.

I believe it is a passive process. No energy is consumed in the process. That creates a unique combination of no energy used to produce the reaction in the most favorable ratio to energy produced.

Does this mean Iowa is the new Saudi Arabia?

Aluminum rods and hydrogen could become great sources of energy used in cars because of the zero pollution but they still don't provide a good answer for a new great energy because alluminum and hydrogen still require huge amounts of energy to create on their own. Currenctly, if those we used cars would not pollute, but than coal powerplants would have to pollute and make the energy for those fuels. (even if coals plants are more efficent than gasoline powered cars.)

If algae or that new type of grain were created efficently it would generate its own energy on its own and not require polluting prosceses to create the actual fuel.

However if wind or solar was made more efficent than the alluminum and hydrogen fuels could work.

I don't think we are looking at one alternative to gasoline or one alternative to coal plants. We need to also think about intermediate strategies to buy us time to fully develope alternative energy sources. That is where ethanol can reduce our dependence on oil. Flex fuel vehicles need to be made mandatory and stronger E85 and E95 ethanol-gas mixes are needed and we need to start using the whole corn plant using the breathrough of enzymes and the leaves and stems being used.

There has been a breakthrough on batteries that will mean fewer batteries, longer distances between recharging and more power. Individual customers may soon be able to own a plug in electrical vehicle along with the new nanotech solar panels and unplug from the electricity grid and gas pump both at the same time.