Creating Renewable Energy from Living Organisms

by Stephen Lacey, Staff Writer

New Hampshire, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]

The death and fossilization of plants and animals gave us the dirty energy we rely on today; but it's living organisms that will give us the clean energy of the future.

In recent years, researchers have more aggressively explored how plants, animals, fungi and bacteria can help us develop next-generation fuels and electricity. Nature, it seems, has much to teach about the efficiency of energy conversion and consumption.

Take photosynthesis, for example. When a plant’s pigment molecules absorb photons, they enter an excited state that is moved to the “reaction center,” a chlorophyll molecule called the protein complex. The reaction center is where the plant first generates chemical energy. This energy transfer is instantaneous and happens with almost 100 percent efficiency. Now researchers are trying to figure out how to design photovoltaic cells that mimic this virtually flawless process.

Greg Engel, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago, is a researcher looking at this first stage of photosynthesis on the quantum level. He and other researchers have found that the energy transfer is actually a wave-like process, which allows the excitation to “feel” it’s way to the reaction center and sample many different pathways at once. That, says Engel, is why the process is so efficient.

“We need to start tweaking the system and understand how delicate a balance this is so that we can begin to get a feel for how we may build a similar system ourselves,” says Engel.

In a plant, the pigment molecules and the reaction center make up an antenna complex, which harvests the sunlight. One way to recreate the energy transfer is to build a large “living antenna” around a photovoltaic (PV) cell, says Engel. Because the average monocrystalline PV cell is around 11-15 percent efficient, modules must be bigger to collect more photons. However, with an antenna that collects more of the photons available, future modules wouldn’t have to be as big.

“Understanding how to do this with synthetic biology is still yet unclear,” says Engel. “This is probably a technology that is still decades away, but it stands to revolutionize the efficiency of solar collection.”

While the solar industry may be far away from mimicking photosynthesis, some bioenergy companies are mastering the process to grow algae specifically for fuels. These prolific plant-like organisms have the potential to produce massive amounts of oil that can be converted into ethanol and biodiesel. In fact, 40-50 percent of the body weight of certain algal strains can be oil. And if grown in the proper conditions, algal colonies can double in volume overnight. These factors explain why there are now over 30 companies around the world harvesting algae for fuel.

Sure, algae seem to be everywhere — in the neighborhood pond, lake or swimming pool. But it takes a very methodical, scientific approach to growing the right kind of algae that carry high amounts of oil.

“Everyone thinks, how tough can it be to grow algae? But in fact, in order to get high enough productivity, we really have to do some tricks to get the algae to grow at a fast enough rate to be commercially viable,” says Brian Willson, chief technology officer at Colorado-based Solix Biofuels.

Willson oversees the progress of Solix’s “biophotoreactor,” a closed-production system (as opposed to an open pond) made up of long plastic ribbons filled with algal colonies. Light is spread throughout the reactor at mid to low intensity levels, allowing for higher photosynthetic efficiencies. Then carbon dioxide is pumped in, giving the algae more “food” for growth. Once harvested, the algal oil can be converted into biodiesel and the carbohydrates can be made into ethanol.

According to Willson, Solix may be able to produce 7-8,000 gallons of oil per acre within the next 4 to 5 years. By comparison, palm only produces around 650 gallons of oil per acre. However, creating the optimal conditions to grow that much algae is still an issue. The company is currently experimenting with sunlight levels, salinity, water temperature, and nutrient levels, trying to get the process perfect in order to achieve high yields, says Willson.

“All the companies out there are still figuring these [growing conditions] out. I think you’re going to see more production this year, but it’s going to be a couple of years before you see significant quantities. It’s my view that it’s probably going to be 2012, 2013 before this becomes a contributor in terms of anything close to interesting levels of production,” says Willson.

In the meantime, the cellulosic ethanol industry is trying to get to meaningful levels of production too. One of the big issues facing producers is how to get the best mix of enzymes to cost-effectively break down cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin from biomass into sugars for fermentation. Again, researchers in this sector are turning to various organisms for the answers.

One of the biggest enzyme producers, San Diego-based Verenium Corporation, is looking at extracting enzymes from the stomachs of termites. The enzymes inside a termite’s digestive system help it break down 95 percent of the biomass material it consumes within a 24-hour period. That fact, says Bill Baum, general manager of Verenium’s Specialty Enzymes Business Unit, led the company to explore what could be done to turn these pests into heroes.

“These guys are just like little biorefineries…so we wanted to go in and identify a lot of these enzymes that are doing this. So we extracted the DNA and we were able to identify hundreds of new cellulase enzymes that we’d never seen before,” says Baum.

The result has been a “cocktail” of enzymes that are able to efficiently break down a variety of biomass feedstocks. However, the product is still much more expensive than Verenium’s other enzymes mixes, says Baum. It may be a few years before termite guts start eating away the market share of traditional sources of fuel.

Steve Hutcheson, CEO and President of the start-up company Zymetis, says that his company is developing a mix of enzymes that will significantly lower the cost of breaking down cellulosic material. Zymetis is working with a bacterium found on marsh grasses in the Chesapeake Bay that produces the most diverse culture of cellulose-eating enzymes known. In addition, says Hutcheson, the bacterium can be coaxed into making more enzymes that are better suited for cellulosic ethanol production.

“Having the diversity of enzymes and the ease of being able to extract enzymes from the culture makes it very inexpensive to produce,” says Hutcheson. “We think this is a big step for the industry.”

Zymetis says that the growth and preparation of the enzymes will cost ethanol producers around 30 cents per gallon of fuel. The average cost today is around 35-50 cents per gallon. Hutcheson says that the Zymetis process could lower to around 15 cents per gallon over the next couple of years.

“Wait a few years” seems to be the common theme as companies try to develop these new forms of energy. It could be decades before PV cells mimic photosynthesis; it could be five years before we start growing meaningful amounts of algae for fuel; and it may be a few years before cellulosic ethanol makes its way onto the market. But compared with the tens of millions of years it took to make the dirty fossil energies we use today, waiting a few years for clean, renewable energy doesn’t seem that long to these companies.

“It’s not about if we can commercialize these technologies, but when,” says Verenium’s Bill Baum. “It won’t be overnight, but I’m hopeful that the next-generation of energies from these organisms is upon us.”

US water pipelines are breaking

Billions for wars without end .....but no money for fixing the infrastructure.
Please remember: these billions for wars without end are your tax dollars falling into an abyss.

Two hours north of New York City, a mile-long stream and a marsh the size of a football field have mysteriously formed along a country road. They are such a marvel that people come from miles around to drink the crystal-clear water, believing it is bubbling up from a hidden natural spring.

The truth is far less romantic: The water is coming from a cracked 70-year-old tunnel hundreds of feet below ground, scientists say.

The tunnel is leaking up to 36 million gallons a day as it carries drinking water from a reservoir to the big city. It is a powerful warning sign of a larger problem around the country: The infrastructure that delivers water to the nation's cities is badly aging and in need of repairs.

The Environmental Protection Agency says utilities will need to invest more than $277 billion over the next two decades on repairs and improvements to drinking water systems. Water industry engineers put the figure drastically higher, at about $480 billion.

Water utilities, largely managed by city governments, have never faced improvements of this magnitude before. And customers will have to bear the majority of the cost through rate increases, according to the American Water Works Association, an industry group.

Engineers say this is a crucial era for the nation's water systems, especially in older cities like New York, where some pipes and tunnels were built in the 1800s and are now nearing the end of their life expectancies.

"Our generation hasn't experienced anything like this. We weren't around when the infrastructure was being built," said Greg Kail, spokesman for the water industry group. "We didn't pay for the pipes to be put in the ground, but we sure benefited from the improvements to public health that came from it."

He said the situation has not reached crisis stage, but without a serious investment, "it can become a crisis. Each year the problem is put on the back burner, the price tag is going to go up."

Catastrophic problems can arise when infrastructure fails. An 84-year-old steam pipe erupted beneath a New York street last year, creating a mammoth geyser that rained mud and debris down on the city.

In Chicago, an 80-year-old cast-iron water main broke earlier this year, spilling thousands of gallons and opening up a 25-foot hole in the street.

In Denver, up to 4 million gallons of water gushed from a ruptured 30-year-old pipeline in February, gouging a sinkhole across three lanes of Interstate 25. The lanes were shut down for nearly two weeks.

Cleveland has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure in the past 20 years but still must repair daily breaks. Last month, a break in a 2 1/2-foot-diameter water main turned a downtown square into a watery crater and knocked out other utilities.

The amount of wasted water from these breaches is staggering.

The 36 million gallons a day that leak from the 85-mile Delaware Aqueduct in New York state amounts to more than 1 billion gallons a month. That may be a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of billions of water consumed in New York City every year, but the daily leak in the tunnel would meet the daily demands of drought-ravaged Raleigh, N.C.

Residents in Wawarsing, about 100 miles from New York City, blame tunnel leaks for the constant flooding in their yards and basements. Department of Environmental Protection engineers are trying to determine whether the aqueduct is really responsible for the soggy mess along Route 209 that has gotten considerably worse over the last 10 years.

David Sickles said the water just bubbles up from the cracks in the concrete in his basement — even when it doesn't rain.

"It's like there is too much water in the ground already," Sickles said, showing off the water line on the concrete wall of his basement. "There's no place for this to go."

Nearly every house has a black discharge hose running from the basement through the yard, gushing water into already-soggy patches of grass.

The land around Laura Smith's house turns into a lake when the snow melts, and her driveway is so muddy your feet sink when you walk to her front door.

Utilites currently spend about $10.4 billion annually on large-scale repairs and improvements on drinking water infrastructure, a figure that has been relatively flat during the past two decades, the EPA said.

Cities have a hard time convincing residents that they should spend money on something they never see, buried hundreds of feet underground. And often, public officials pawn the responsibility off on the next person elected, Kail said.

Repairs tend to be long and costly, especially since many systems were built nearly a century ago, deep underground, where buildings and major roads now stand.

Even monitoring pipes for vulnerabilities can be expensive and tricky, since it's not possible to shut down a city's water supply to test for leaks. If New York were to do that to the Delaware Aqueduct, for example, the 13 1/2-foot-diameter tunnel might crumble under the crushing weight of the land without the water to support the duct.

The Department of Environmental Protection monitors leaks by sending water through the tunnel and measuring how much comes out at the end. The department also sends robots that swim through the tunnels and collect data on their condition.

The amount of water being lost is inconsequential, given that reservoirs are so full, said Environmental Commissioner Emily Lloyd. But she said it is important to fix the leaks now because there is no way to tell how the system might deteriorate in the next 30 years.

New York has spent decades digging a new $6 billion tunnel that will create an alternative source of water delivery and allow for easier inspection and repair of the other tunnels. It is expected to be completed by 2020.

Around the country, water rates are going up to help pay for the repairs, estimated at anywhere between $550 and $7,000 per household during the next three decades.

Augusta, Ga., raised rates 11 percent from 2001 through 2007 for a $300 million program to improve the deteriorating water system. Cleveland gradually increased rates by about 6 percent for more than 15 years to fund a $750 million project to address aging and inefficient pipes. Springfield, Mass., doubled rates for its 250,000 customers. Philadelphia, Kenosha, Wis., Portsmouth, Va., and other cities have followed suit.

Many engineers and water utilities say water bills around the country are too low. In New York City, where a studio apartment can rent for more than $3,000 a month, the cost of water and sewage is about $60 for an entire single-family home.

"We are the only utility where the raw material is free, but the infrastructure is the most expensive," said Nick DeBenedictis, chief executive of Aqua America, a water company that serves 3 million people in 13 states. "We have to dig up streets in order to do it, but once we make investments it's good for years."