A woody grass called Miscanthus is one of the biofuel feedstocks being examined.

Despite all the buzz around biofuels, commercial production has been slow to scale up. As a result, the EPA scaled back its goals for advanced biofuels earlier this year. Still, some Bay Area scientists recently made a breakthrough that could move us one step closer to a day when our cars run on fuels from plants.

The idea behind biofuels is pretty simple. Plants take sunlight and use that energy to make sugars. The biofuels industry wants to transform those sugars into fuel. That requires some molecular rearranging, so they’re looking to microbes to do the job.

At the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) in Emeryville, e.coli is the microbe of choice. Researcher Greg Bokinsky shows me racks of glass tubes that are home to e.coli cultures that have been biologically engineered. They’ve created e.coli that munch on a woody plant called switchgrass.

If you’ve heard anything about biofuels, you’ve probably heard about ethanol that’s made from corn, which you can buy at gas stations today. But ethanol can’t be transported long distances because it corrodes pipelines. And using corn for fuel has also raised some concerns.

“Corn is used extensively to feed animals. Corn is also used for some food as well, human consumption. So we want to be very careful about using corn itself,” says Jay Keasling, CEO of JBEI.

Engineering Microbes

JBEI was founded 5 years ago with a $125 million grant from the Department of Energy. It’s a partnership between UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and other groups with the mission of creating biofuels from plants that aren’t used for food – also known as cellulosic biofuels.

“Switchgrass is one that gets mentioned a lot,” says Keasling. “Switchgrass is a native to much of the Midwest. It grows without a lot of water and fertilizer.”

But unlocking the energy inside switchgrass is no easy task. “Plants have evolved to be tough. There are beetles, there are fungi that want to attack them all the time and get access to those sugars. So they’ve evolved defense mechanisms,” he says.

The first line of defense is like a barbed wire fence. Plants protect their sugars with a tough material called lignin. Keasling’s team breaks through it using a liquid salt solution.

Once it’s gone, the sugars still have to be broken down further. Most companies use industrial enzymes to do that. But this is where Keasling’s engineered e.coli comes in.

“What we’ve done is we’ve gone to places like the rainforest in Puerto Rico and to compost piles. We’ve sequenced the organisms that are breaking down that biomass and then cloned those genes into e.coli,” Keasling says.

The e.coli break down the sugars for themselves, saving an expensive step in the process. Using the sugars, they produce fuels. “Really they’re pooping out fuels,” says Keasling. “And these are fuels that can be put directly into gasoline engines, diesel engines or jet engines.” These microbes are an exciting breakthrough for Keasling, since they could help bring down the cost of production.

Federal Goals Scale Back

The federal government was once excited about cellulosic biofuels, too. In 2006, former President George W Bush included them in his State of the Union address, saying “we'll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks or switchgrass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within 6 years.”

Congress set up tax credits for cellulosic biofuels with a goal of seeing 500 million gallons produced in 2012. Since then, the industry has faced a harsh reality. The goal for next year has been cut back to just 12 million gallons.

“It was oversold. There was a lot of hype around it. It’s a tough problem. We can’t expect this to happen overnight,” says Keasling.

Keasling says if there’s anything that casts a shadow over biofuels, it’s the price of their biggest competitor. “If oil is under $100 a barrel, we’re not going to see many advanced biofuels on the market. They’re just not going to be able to compete. It’s virtually impossible,” he says.

Chris Somerville, director of the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), agrees. “The costs are still not where we need them to be.” EBI is also run by UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab, among other collaborators. It was started with a $500 million grant from BP.

Like JBEI, EBI’s mission is also engineering cellulosic biofuels. They’ve developed specially engineered yeast that eat feedstocks like miscanthus. “It’s going to be another 10 years before it really scales up. And it’s not because there’s a big problem. It’s just takes time to build and bring online big industrial facilities that are first of a kind.”

Companies, including BP, are now building commercial-scale biofuel plants. But the science is evolving so quickly, Somerville says it’s hard for companies to commit. “If you’re a company that has to lay down some hundreds of millions of dollars for a new facility and you look around and everyday, there’s new advances, you think, well maybe I’ll wait until next week and build a better facility.”

Although some in Congress are impatient over the progress of advanced biofuels, Somerville is confident that it’s just a matter of time before the industry scales up. “What we’re really trying to do is change the world. And we have this huge entrenched energy sector. And so there’s lots of entrenched players that don’t welcome change.”

And he says, if we care about addressing climate change, we won’t be able to do it without remaking the fuels that go in our cars.

A Riverine Command Boat running on a 50/50 blend of algae-based and traditional fuel.

Here's a question: Who’s the largest energy user, by far, in the United States?

Answer: the U.S. Military. Its annual energy bill runs about $15 billion dollars a year, which is why the Department of Defense has developed a keen interest in finding other ways to meet its energy needs, including investing in alternative energy.

Traditionally, the military has been deeply dependent on fossil fuels, which power its helicopters and ships, as well as over a hundred thousand diesel generators that keep tents air conditioned and batteries charged in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

But on the battlefield, oil can be a dangerous liability. Last year there were more than a thousand attacks on US military fuel convoys. US Navy Secretary Ray Mabus says in order to be an effective military force, you have to know what your own vulnerabilities are.

"One of the ones that rose to the top was our dependence on fossil fuels," says Mabus.

The Price — and Opportunity — of Instability

Fossil fuels aren't just highly flammable, they can also require doing business with the very countries the US is often in conflict with. Political instability often leads to price spikes. Take, for example, the recent conflict in Libya.

"Libya is a big oil producer, but not the biggest one," says Mabus. "But simply the disruption in Libya caused the price of oil to go up almost $30 a barrel."

That's no small hiccup for an organization that consumes 300,000 barrels of oil a day.

Even an increase of just one dollar a barrel can force a major reshuffling of funds, says Mabus. "Every time the price of oil goes up a dollar a barrel it costs the Navy an extra $31 million in fuel costs."

"The only place we have to get that is from our readiness account," he says, "so [there are] fewer flying hours, less training."

This sensitivity to price spikes has sent the military in what might seem an unlikely direction: It’s become a major investor in alternative energy.

Phyllis Cuttino directs the clean energy program for the Pew Charitable Trusts and is author of a recent report on the military and alternative energy, From Barracks to the Battlefield: Clean Energy Innovation and America's Armed Forces.

She says whatever the military can do to reduce fuel use, it's doing. According to the report, over the last four years the military has tripled its investment in technologies like biofuels, solar panels, and electric vehicles, to $1.2 billion a year.

"The Department of Defense is not doing all this work in biofuels and efficiency, for example, because they are green, or because they are environmentalists," says Cuttino. "They are doing it because they want to increase effectiveness and reduce costs."

New Partnerships in Silicon Valley

That’s been a boon for people like Bob MacDonald, the CTO and co-founder of Skyline Solar, in Mountain View, California. Skyline's solar arrays are relatively low-tech, made from off-the-shelf components and are easy to assemble.

Bob MacDonald helped get Skyline Solar its $1.58 million military contract

A few years ago, MacDonald saw that the military was looking for clean tech companies like his to partner with. He flew to Washington to present Skyline's product. He says it was a bit intimidating.

"There was a lot of brass," he recalls, "literally, a lot of stripes and shoulder adornments around the table. I kept it simple. Sir, yes sir."

MacDonald soon realized his audience had a lot in common with the venture capitalists he does business with out here in California. The military officials liked that Skyline's components are easy to source and that they're portable. An added benefit is the stealth effect, says MacDonald: Solar panels are a lot quieter than a diesel generator.

Macdonald has a $1.58 million contract to try out his arrays on two US military bases, one in Texas, one in Southern California. If the pilot is successful, he’d like to see his systems operating overseas, powering remote bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Solazyme, in South San Francisco, is also benefiting from military investment.

The company's algae-based biofuel is being tested in Seahawk helicopters, as well as Navy vessels in Virginia and other parts of the country. CEO Jonathan Wolfson says the $8 million military contract is less than a quarter of his company's revenue, but it sends a powerful message to other investors.

Jonathan Wolfson is CEO of Solazyme, which produces algae-based biofuel for the US Navy

"I mean, eight years ago we were five people with a completely delusional dream," says Wolfson. "So go from that to [being partnered with] an entity like the military, which is very, very disciplined and demands an enormous level of discipline out of its suppliers. It does really good things to help a company like Solazyme."

Bridging the "Valley of Death" Between Innovation and the Market

Wolfson says by the sheer force of its purchasing power, the military can transform a technology from cutting edge to mainstream. He points out that it's happened before.

"People forget that the Internet they go log onto every day was funded by the Department of Defense. They forget that the entire semiconductor industry was [built up] by they Defense Department. They were the ones that got the first orders and got the first plants built."

The Solyndra Effect

Lately, in Washington, the words “clean technology” have become a political flashpoint. At a September 22 hearing focused on the bankruptcy of Fremont-based solar panel maker Solyndra. Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee railed against the Obama Administration's investments in alternative technology.

"The Obama Administration has systematically waged a war on carbon-based energy in pursuit of new green energy," said Issa. "Jobs have not been produced in a sustained fashion or in the number promised and bills of taxpayer dollars have done little to truly stimulate the economy."

Issa and other Republicans have argued government should avoid investing in clean tech all together. And this has put Navy Secretary Mabus in a curious position: A high level military official turned into one of clean tech’s most vocal defenders. He says as the head of the US Navy, that’s his job.

"We’re doing this to become a better military, to make us better war fighters. We’re doing this as a matter of security, of energy security and national security. The fundamental purpose of our doing this is so that we will be better at the mission that the US has given us."

Mabus says his goal is that by the year 2020, the Navy and Marine Corps will get at least half its fuel from non fossil-fuel sources.

Is corn ethanol a poor fit for future U.S. liquid fuel needs?

The timing, then, was quite appropriate for a panel discussion last week organized by the Friends of Berkeley Lab at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Titled “Hope or Hype: What’s Next For Biofuels?” the event, hosted by KTVU’s John Fowler, featured a panel with Jay Keasling, Susanna Green Tringe, and Jim Bristow, three scientists exploring the role that synthetic biology might play in fabricating a better fuel for tomorrow’s autos. The evening consisted mainly of two themes: the relative limits of both crude oil and corn-based ethanol, and an outline of research being pursued to make new ideas practical.

Fossil fuels are unsustainable, a point that saturates public rhetoric each election cycle to the point of ad nauseum. It might be slightly more surprising to learn, however, that fuel based on ethanol (the alcohol found in all common beers, wines, and liquors) may be as bad for global warming as gasoline, perhaps even be worse. When extracted from corn, considerable energy is lost on fertilizers. If that energy was generated using a coal plant, global warming is still a problem. Additionally, ethanol is an unwieldy fuel. It is corrosive, for example, and therefore must be trucked, rather than piped, from one location to another. “I like to say that ethanol is for drinking, not for driving,” Keasling joked as he explained these faults.

The push in the American science community, then, tends to be away from corn-based ethanol and toward something called cellulosic biomass (Editor's Note: see our QUEST video "Beyond Biofuels" for more information). The idea is to make fuels not from corn, but rather from corn stover—plant leftovers after the crop has already been harvested. Alternatively, almost any other organic material ranging from wheat stover to sorghum to garbage could be used if the proper techniques are developed.

There are considerable scientific challenges. Much of the material we might like to use as fuel is tough and woody. Scientists have yet to figure out a satisfactory method for breaking this down, and a great deal of gene-sequencing effort is currently underway with the aim figuring this out. There are also challenges in terms of deciding what product will be generated from these woody materials. At least one idea is to genetically engineer an organism that can transform organic matter not into ethanol, but rather into something more amenable to transport and carbon neutrality.

What should we make of these new efforts? My own feelings are mixed. I enjoy my car, and I love road trips. As Bristow said during the panel, “The reality in the U.S. is that people are going to drive cars. We need liquid fuel.” The current push in biofuels research is tremendously important. The vast majority of energy sources are simply inadequate for powering cars to the extent that the public is accustomed to. The maximum power one could ever expect to obtain from a solar-powered car, for example, is less than 10 horsepower. Even the Geo Metro gets 55 horsepower. The new Volkswagen Beetle gets over 100 horsepower. Electric cars might hold some promise, but at this point it is impossible to tell whether batteries or biofuels will ultimately make a better alternative. These two fronts are also not necessarily exclusive, as the hybrid explosion of recent years has shown.

And yet, for all the excitement, selling the American public on biofuels feels a little like feeding methadone to a heroin addict. We believe that a shift to biofuels will assuage the continued seeping of carbon into the atmosphere. But there are a lot of side effects. The controlled production of biomass requires land, and with that allocation comes a host of ecological concerns. When it comes down to it, there will never be a substitute for good old fashioned belt-tightening.

37.8768 -122.251