Biofuels That Look Like Gasoline

The offspring of Jay Keasling’s synthetic biology research and vision, Emeryville, CA-based Amyris Biotechnologies has made a double impact. First, the company, with more than $40 million of backing from the Bill Gates’ Institute for One World Health charity, developed a microbial route to the anti-malarial compound artemisinin. In and of itself this work was a stunningly successful scientific achievement, and the resulting process has been licensed to Sanofi-Aventis for low-cost manufacturing and distribution in the third world.

But how does that relate to biofuels? Well, producing the anti-malarial drug relied on the engineering of a metabolic pathway to produce a key intermediate that is in the class of chemicals called terpenes. Chemically, terpenes are hydrocarbons, similar to diesel or gasoline, and are therefore very good fuel compounds. Thus, the same basic science that led to artemisinin can be applied, with appropriate tweaking, to produce fuels based on terpenes. And according to the company, a desired fuel compound can be selected based on its properties (flash point, cloud point, boiling point, density, fuel value, etc), and then the pathway to produce it can be designed. Voila! You have a designer fuel. And being hydrocarbons with properties similar to gasoline, terpenes do not suffer from the limitations that alcohols (particularly ethanol) have as fuels. If you want to put something into your gas tank or jet engine, a designer hydrocarbon is likely to be superior to any alcohol. At least that is what Amyris argues.

Amyris has the backing of a well-heeled group of VCs: Kleiner Perkins, TPG Biotech, and DAG Ventures. In the area of bio-based production of gasoline-like fuels, Amyris is at the head of the class. Economics remain to be proven, but Amyris has formed a joint venture with the second largest Brazilian sugar producer, Crystalsev, to get access to inexpensive sugar feedstock, and the first demonstration plant is scheduled to be built right on the sugar plantation in Brazil by 2010. It will produce a biodiesel (with the interesting name of “No CompromiseTM”), currently being piloted at Amyris’ Emerville facility. Amyris promises that a bio-gasoline and a bio-aviation fuel are not far behind. If any company can make terpene-based fuels successfully, Amyris appears to be that company.

David Rozzell maintains a web site and blog dedicated to the latest developments and news in biofuels, biocatalysis, and industrial biotechnology. For informative, sometimes amusing, always opinionated analysis go to http://www.bio-catalyst.com He has 25 years of experience in biocatalysis and industrial biotechnology, and speaks frequently at international symposia. He is available for consulting projects. Contact him at david@bio-catalyst.com.

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Tags: Alternative Energy, Alternative Fuel, BioDiesel, BioFuels, BioMass, biomass fuels, electric hybrid cars, Ethanol, ethanol gasoline, fuel compounds, Hybrid Cars, hybrid electric vehicles, metabolic pathway

Hybrid Cars

November 19, 2008 by admin  
Filed under BioFuels, BioMass, Ethanol, Hybrid Cars

A hybrid car is a vehicle that uses two or even more distinct sources of power in order to get propelled. Among the power sources for a hybrid car there are gasoline or diesel fuel, on-board or out-board rechargeable energy storage systems (RESS), hydrogen, wind, compressed or liquid natural gas, solar, coal, wood or other solid combustibles, etc. The term hybrid car/vehicle is used most frequently to refer to hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) in which an internal combustion engine is combined with one or more electric motors.

As mentioned above, there are other hybrid vehicles beside the hybrid car we will mainly deal with here. Just think of mopeds and electric bicycles. These are the simplest forms of hybrid vehicles. They combine the power from an internal combustion engine or electric motor with the power of the rider’s muscles. Then there are hybrid heavy vehicles like railway locomotives, buses, heavy goods vehicles, ships or mobile hydraulic machinery. Usually, the term hybrid car/ vehicle is used to refer to hybrid electric vehicles. This category includes the following types of automotives: AHS2 (Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon, Chevrolet Silverado, Cadillac Escalade, Saturn Vue), Toyota Prius, Ford Escape Hybrid, Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Toyota Camry Hybrid, Honda Civic Hybrid, Honda Insight and many others. A petroleum-electric hybrid car usually gets its power from an internal combustion engine (gasoline or diesel engine) and an electric battery.

The beginnings of the hybrid car date back to the late 1900s when David Arthurs, an electrical engineer from Arkansas, invented the braking regenerative hybrid. Besides the hybrid car as mentioned above, which uses two or more different propulsion devices, there are also vehicles which use distinct sources of energy or input types but only one engine. These are also considered by some people to be similar to the hybrid car. Actually the latter should be more appropriately called dual mode vehicles (electric trolleybuses, dual mode buses, flexible-fuel vehicles, etc).

A hybrid car presents a number of advantages from the environmental perspective and there are two sides to consider here. First, there is the aspect of fuel economy, and secondly, the benefit for the environment and, implicitly, for humankind is undeniable in the fight to reduce pollution. These two advantages and benefits brought about by the hybrid car are tributary to at least three elements in the design: the combination of gasoline and the electric motors, a battery with plenty of storage capacity and the possibility to re-capture important amounts of energy, which are normally wasted while braking.

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