http://www.justmeans.com/Forest-Sustainability-Activists-Welcome-COP11-Recommendation-on-Biofuels/56576.html
Antonio Pasolini
Oct 26, 2012 9:18 AM EDT
Biofuels and their impact on biodiversity was on the table during the
recent Conference of the Parties of the Biodiversity Convention (COP11),
which took place in Hyderabad in India between October 08-19. One of
the outcomes of the meeting was a recommendation regarding their
production, which was met with cautious approval by a leading forest
preservation organization.
The Global Forest Coalition (GFC) said in a statement that it welcomed
the recommendation on biofuels. The text said subsidy policies and
incentives should be reviewed and, in some cases, reversed, especially
when they cause harm to biodiversity.
The Conference also adopted a decision on incentive measures in general.
It stressed that there should be no delay on policy action when
candidates for elimination, phase out or reform are already known. It
encouraged parties to take appropriate action in such cases, taking into
account national socio-economic conditions.
"These recommendations by the world's leading intergovernmental body in
the field of biodiversity are very timely now that the European
Commission just this week launched proposals for a review of EU biofuel
policies," said Dr. Rachel Smolker of Biofuelwatch, the European focal
point to the Global Forest Coalition.
The recommendations on biofuels and other issues are weaker than the
organization expected, said Simone Lovera, GFC's executive, but she
admitted that they show that governments are genuinely concerned about
the impacts of the so-called bioeconomy, and associated new technologies
like synthetic biology, and that many southern governments, in
particular, insist on a strict precautionary approach to avoid the
potentially devastating risks of with these new and unproven
technologies.
Elsewhere, Helena Paul of Econexus, added that the "EC proposals are
only a first step towards recognizing that all incentive measures that
promote biofuel production should be abolished in clear evidence of
their devastating direct and indirect impacts on biodiversity, and on
the indigenous peoples, local communities and women. We hope these
recommendations of the Parties to the Biodiversity Convention will
encourage the EU to abolish support for large-scale industrial bioenergy
altogether, and that they will not allow threats of legal action from
the biofuel industry to deter them."
Showing posts with label genetics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label genetics. Show all posts
Friday, October 26, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Plant Gene for Improved Biofuel Processing
http://www.thebioenergysite.com/news/11541/plant-gene-for-improved-biofuel-processing
TheBioenergySite News Desk
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
US - Since 2007, researchers at the BioEnergy
Science Center, one of three Department of Energy-funded research
centres, have partnered to figure out how to break down plants so that
they easily release the simple sugars that can be processed into
biofuels. It’s a breakthrough that could make biofuels cost competitive
with gasoline.
Now, University of
Georgia researchers, who are part of the team, have taken an important
step toward that goal by identifying a previously uncharacterized gene
that plays a major role in cell wall development of Arabidopsis plants, a
discovery that promises to help turn plants into biofuel more
efficiently.
The team of researchers found that the gene GXMT1 is responsible for directing a key step in the development of the plant polymer xylan, a principal component of cell walls in woody biomass that make it resistant to biofuel conversion.
“Our goal is to figure out how the plants make this polymer,” said William York, the study’s principle investigator and faculty member in the UGA Complex Carbohydrate Research Center.
“If we can manipulate that process, we can change how plants make their cell walls, which could make them easier to turn into liquid fuel.”
As a member of the BioEnergy Science Center, York joins multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research teams pursuing the fundamental scientific breakthroughs needed to make the production of cellulosic biofuels derived from non-food plant fiber cost effective on a national scale.
York explained that the problem with many biomass plant candidates is not that they are difficult to grow or harvest, but that they are difficult to process. In order to make biofuels, processing facilities use microbes to ferment the naturally occurring plant sugars into ethanol and other valuable products, much in the same way distilleries make alcoholic beverages.
But plants have evolved powerful defenses against the microbes researchers use to break down biomass for fermentation. This research demonstrates that manipulation of biomass structure at the molecular level could yield a crop that is more easily converted into biofuel.
“We want to develop strains of plants that are strong and grow well but break down easily when we want them to,” said York, who is also a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and a member of the UGA Bioenergy Systems Research Institute.
In their paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers identified a mutant GXMT1 plant that produces structurally modified xylan that is more easily released when the biomass is treated with hot water. The release of xylan during this treatment will ultimately make it easier for microbes to digest the woody fibres and convert them to ethanol.
If researchers can find ways to capitalise on this mutant version of the plant and alter this gene without compromising the structural integrity of the wood, they can begin the process of developing plants specifically designed for biofuel conversion.
While the development of efficient biofuels is a major driving force behind their work, this research also contributes significantly to the understanding of basic plant development.
Before their discovery, GXMT1 was categorized in scientific literature as a protein of unknown function, but it is now the first enzyme shown to catalyze the formation of methyl-glucuronic acid, a key structural component of xylan in plant biomass.
Ultimately, York and his collaborators hope that their research will open the door to new ways of manipulating plants and making them more useful to humans.
“We use plants for everything: We eat plants, we build our homes out of plants, we make all sorts of things with them,” York said.
“If we can change them, we can make them easier to work with.”
Other UGA researchers on the study were primary authors Breeanna R. Urbanowicz and Maria J. Pena and co-authors Jason Backe, Malcolm A. O’Neill, Alan G. Darvill, Supriya Ratnaparkhe and Harry J. Gilbert. Collaborators and co-authors from BESC were Hongjia Li and Charles Wyman of the University of California Riverside and Marcus Foston and Arthur J. Ragauskas of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The team of researchers found that the gene GXMT1 is responsible for directing a key step in the development of the plant polymer xylan, a principal component of cell walls in woody biomass that make it resistant to biofuel conversion.
“Our goal is to figure out how the plants make this polymer,” said William York, the study’s principle investigator and faculty member in the UGA Complex Carbohydrate Research Center.
“If we can manipulate that process, we can change how plants make their cell walls, which could make them easier to turn into liquid fuel.”
As a member of the BioEnergy Science Center, York joins multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research teams pursuing the fundamental scientific breakthroughs needed to make the production of cellulosic biofuels derived from non-food plant fiber cost effective on a national scale.
York explained that the problem with many biomass plant candidates is not that they are difficult to grow or harvest, but that they are difficult to process. In order to make biofuels, processing facilities use microbes to ferment the naturally occurring plant sugars into ethanol and other valuable products, much in the same way distilleries make alcoholic beverages.
But plants have evolved powerful defenses against the microbes researchers use to break down biomass for fermentation. This research demonstrates that manipulation of biomass structure at the molecular level could yield a crop that is more easily converted into biofuel.
“We want to develop strains of plants that are strong and grow well but break down easily when we want them to,” said York, who is also a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and a member of the UGA Bioenergy Systems Research Institute.
In their paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers identified a mutant GXMT1 plant that produces structurally modified xylan that is more easily released when the biomass is treated with hot water. The release of xylan during this treatment will ultimately make it easier for microbes to digest the woody fibres and convert them to ethanol.
If researchers can find ways to capitalise on this mutant version of the plant and alter this gene without compromising the structural integrity of the wood, they can begin the process of developing plants specifically designed for biofuel conversion.
While the development of efficient biofuels is a major driving force behind their work, this research also contributes significantly to the understanding of basic plant development.
Before their discovery, GXMT1 was categorized in scientific literature as a protein of unknown function, but it is now the first enzyme shown to catalyze the formation of methyl-glucuronic acid, a key structural component of xylan in plant biomass.
Ultimately, York and his collaborators hope that their research will open the door to new ways of manipulating plants and making them more useful to humans.
“We use plants for everything: We eat plants, we build our homes out of plants, we make all sorts of things with them,” York said.
“If we can change them, we can make them easier to work with.”
Other UGA researchers on the study were primary authors Breeanna R. Urbanowicz and Maria J. Pena and co-authors Jason Backe, Malcolm A. O’Neill, Alan G. Darvill, Supriya Ratnaparkhe and Harry J. Gilbert. Collaborators and co-authors from BESC were Hongjia Li and Charles Wyman of the University of California Riverside and Marcus Foston and Arthur J. Ragauskas of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Georgia Voices: Biofuel research hopes growing at UGA Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal - Georgia Voices Biofuel research hopes growing at UGA
http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/19948527/article-Georgia-Voices--Biofuel-research-hopes-growing-at-UGA?instance=secondary_story_left_column
August 28, 2012 01:10 AM
The United States’ ethanol experiment has met with only limited success
at best. Our increasingly critical need for alternatives to fossil
fuels has been a case of good intentions that haven’t, or at least
haven’t yet, worked out the way we’d like.
The drawbacks are familiar. Most ethanol is now made from corn, the growing of which is an energy-intensive process. It’s almost the definition of a Catch-22: A substance distilled to create energy takes a lot of energy — i.e., other fuels — to make. It’s like a joke about a guy who eats to get the strength he needs to work off what he ate.
As if that weren’t enough of a challenge, corn-based ethanol also takes a lot of water. At a time when much of the country, including many corn-growing regions, is suffering from prolonged rainfall shortages and in some cases severe drought, a water-intensive process is as problematic as an energy-intensive one.
The difficulties of synthesizing corn-based ethanol have, not surprisingly, drawn fire from both thoughtful critics and usual-suspect hecklers. But somewhere between stubbornly plugging away at a process that costs at least as much as it yields, and surrendering to perpetual petrofuel addiction and the political and economic ransom — domestic as well as foreign — we will have to pay as a consequence, there must be some fertile middle ground.
Researchers at the University of Georgia may be close to finding it. A report by Susan Mittleman on Georgia Public Broadcasting and transcribed on the Public Broadcasting Atlanta website (pba.org) describes a promising new process for making ethanol and other biofuels from vegetation common to this area, such as switchgrass and pine or poplar trees. The idea of making fuel from biomass is not new. But like corn-based ethanol, fuel synthesized from biomass has so far been too expensive to make it practical. The difference, as UGA geneticist Janet Westpheling explained, is genetics — manipulating the DNA to make breaking down the raw materials cheaper and easier.
“Part of the conversion of really tough wood stuff like that,” Westpheling explained to GPB, “is that plants have evolved over millions of years to not be degraded by bacteria and the soil. But we work on bacteria that can eat the stuff … These organisms can do that without enzymes, without pre-treatment, which means they can do it economically.”
The other huge advantage, she said, is that such plants are plentiful in the Southeast and are “naturally drought resistant.”
We’re still a long way from being able to tell the Middle East to take its oil and … well, sell it elsewhere. But we’re getting just a little closer.
The drawbacks are familiar. Most ethanol is now made from corn, the growing of which is an energy-intensive process. It’s almost the definition of a Catch-22: A substance distilled to create energy takes a lot of energy — i.e., other fuels — to make. It’s like a joke about a guy who eats to get the strength he needs to work off what he ate.
As if that weren’t enough of a challenge, corn-based ethanol also takes a lot of water. At a time when much of the country, including many corn-growing regions, is suffering from prolonged rainfall shortages and in some cases severe drought, a water-intensive process is as problematic as an energy-intensive one.
The difficulties of synthesizing corn-based ethanol have, not surprisingly, drawn fire from both thoughtful critics and usual-suspect hecklers. But somewhere between stubbornly plugging away at a process that costs at least as much as it yields, and surrendering to perpetual petrofuel addiction and the political and economic ransom — domestic as well as foreign — we will have to pay as a consequence, there must be some fertile middle ground.
Researchers at the University of Georgia may be close to finding it. A report by Susan Mittleman on Georgia Public Broadcasting and transcribed on the Public Broadcasting Atlanta website (pba.org) describes a promising new process for making ethanol and other biofuels from vegetation common to this area, such as switchgrass and pine or poplar trees. The idea of making fuel from biomass is not new. But like corn-based ethanol, fuel synthesized from biomass has so far been too expensive to make it practical. The difference, as UGA geneticist Janet Westpheling explained, is genetics — manipulating the DNA to make breaking down the raw materials cheaper and easier.
“Part of the conversion of really tough wood stuff like that,” Westpheling explained to GPB, “is that plants have evolved over millions of years to not be degraded by bacteria and the soil. But we work on bacteria that can eat the stuff … These organisms can do that without enzymes, without pre-treatment, which means they can do it economically.”
The other huge advantage, she said, is that such plants are plentiful in the Southeast and are “naturally drought resistant.”
We’re still a long way from being able to tell the Middle East to take its oil and … well, sell it elsewhere. But we’re getting just a little closer.
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