From a strange brew, cheaper fuel
That is goal as company tries to simplify ethanol production via bioengineering
LEBANON, N.H. - What does it take to brew a tank of biofuel?
At the Mascoma Corp. lab, the recipe might include a dash of enzymes from termite guts, elephant stomach mixed with yeast, a load of pulverized switch grass or paper sludge, and a few days of fermentation.
Anything goes here, as scientists try to find a quicker, cheaper way to make cellulosic ethanol, a "second generation" biofuel that uses non-food plant residue and other waste as its main ingredients, instead of corn or soy.
The key is splicing together the right combination of genes, such as those found in termites or an elephant stomach, to create a super bug capable of producing cellulose-digesting and sugar-fermenting enzymes that will help to streamline the brewing process from four steps to one.
"Don't ask, 'How did you get something that used to be in an elephant stomach?' " joked Bruce Jamerson, Mascoma's chief executive and a member of Massachusetts' Advanced Biofuels Task Force, which was created by the state last November.
Jamerson's company, which has corporate offices in Boston, recently partnered with General Motors Corp. to help further its scientists' work at the research facility in Lebanon, which has 66 employees.
"I'd like to be [test] driving some vehicles by the end of this year with our product," Jamerson said.
If successful, Mascoma's biofuel could be a locally produced substitute for gasoline made out of petroleum, as well as for gas alternatives made from food crops. Such "first generation" biofuels have come under fire because crops that once fed people were being used to make fuel, possibly driving up food costs, and producing more greenhouse gases than first thought.
Environmentalists say Mascoma's biofuel looks promising because it has the potential to be both affordable and sustainable.
"One of the big things [they're doing] is making it possible to use a lot of different materials like grasses or wood chips," said Jeremy Martin, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group in Cambridge.
And it appears Mascoma is asking questions that Martin said early biofuel makers often did not ponder, such as, "Where do those [materials] come from and what's the impact of getting them?"
But commercial production of an environmentally friendly, cost-competitive biofuel like the one Mascoma is developing is still years away, according to the state task force. It estimates that by 2025, the biofuels industry could add up to $1 billion a year to the Massachusetts economy and create up to 4,000 jobs. Challenges include getting production and fuel-distribution facilities running and making vehicles powered by biofuels more available.
For now, Mascoma researchers in Lebanon are still trying to hit upon the right ingredients for their biofuel recipe, which is likely to include a strain of the microbe Thermoanaerobacterium saccharolyticum, or T. sacch.
Jamerson said his company's ethanol-making process takes less time than the traditional four-step process, which calls for the addition of costly enzymes that range in price from 50 cents to $1 or more for every gallon of fuel produced.
On a recent afternoon, bottles filled with samples of microbes lined the shelves in the "organism discovery" room of the Mascoma lab. It's here that microbes, some of which were found in hot springs at Yellowstone National Park, are tested in an oxygen-free chamber to see what they do.
"Just because they grow in a hot spring doesn't mean they're going to grow in a plant," said Larry Feinberg, a research scientist.
In the "molecular biology" room, which is permeated with the odor of yeast, scientists splice together genes to develop microbes with specific properties, trying to find the right combination. The cultures - which look like little dots of cake frosting - are grown in petri dishes. Later, they are transferred to shaking flasks.
"They like the agitation," explained lab manager Nathan Margolis.
In the pretreament room, materials such as switch grass, corn stover, wood chips, and paper sludge get heated and turned into a substance the color of coffee grounds that resembles ripped-up peat moss.
Eventually, everything gets tossed together in a fermentation tank that looks like an oversize French press accessorized with random tubes.
"This is where the action is," Margolis said of the dark beer-like substance brewing in the tanks. "At the end of the day we're going to send it over to analysis and find out, you know, how much ethanol is in there. More is better."
Environmentalists, Massachusetts officials, and others are monitoring Mascoma's progress.
Ian Bowles, secretary of the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, called biofuel a key part of Governor Deval Patrick's energy vision.
The state recently passed legislation giving cellulosic biofuels an exemption from the gas tax.
"Job one is to be an alternative to petroleum," Bowles said of such fuels. "The second is to do that in an environmentally benign way."
Environmentalists say that's going to be one of the biggest hurdles for companies like Mascoma to overcome.
The Conservation Law Foundation, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group with offices throughout New England, is calling for a low-carbon fuel standard that would scrutinize every fuel - not just biofuel - and its production, and regulate and rank them based on which pollute the least through their life cycles.
"You are looking at how to get the greatest greenhouse gas reductions from every step in the process rather than just at the tailpipe," said Shanna Cleveland, a staff attorney with the foundation.
Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com. 