Oak Ridge Today

BESC, Mascoma develop revolutionary microbe for biofuel production

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Yeast

A yeast engineered by Mascoma and BESC could hold the key to accelerating the production of ethanol in the U.S. (Submitted photo)

 

Biofuels pioneer Mascoma LLC and the U.S. Department of Energy’s BioEnergy Science Center have developed a revolutionary strain of yeast that could help significantly accelerate the development of biofuels from nonfood plant matter.

BESC is led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The approach could provide a pathway to eventual expansion of biofuels production beyond the current output limited to ethanol derived from corn.

C5 FUEL, engineered by researchers at Mascoma and BESC, features fermentation and ethanol yields that set a new standard for conversion of biomass sugars from pretreated corn stover—the non-edible portion of corn crops such as the stalk—converting up to 97 percent of the plant sugars into fuel. [Read more…]

ORNL researchers contribute to major UN bioenergy, sustainability report

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Keith Kline and Virginia Dale

ORNL researchers Keith Kline and Virginia Dale contributed to a major United Nations report on bioenergy and sustainability. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

A major United Nations report on bioenergy and sustainability released Tuesday concludes the sustainable production of bioenergy can be an important tool for addressing climate change.

Two researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory contributed to the multinational UN document, which offers science-based evaluations of bioenergy issues—including food and energy crop production and bioenergy—as a climate change mitigation strategy.

Keith Kline of ORNL’s Environmental Sciences Division contributed to a chapter on land use for the UN Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) Bioenergy and Sustainability Report.

“Misconceptions about the availability of land needed for growing food crops and about the opportunities and synergies possible from combined production systems could undermine investment in a key strategy for climate change mitigation,” Kline said. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge could become first EPA-designated Green Power community in Southeast

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Mark Watson

Mark Watson

The City of Oak Ridge is on the verge of being selected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a Green Power Community, the first in the Southeast, a press release said.

The EPA’s Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program that encourages organizations to buy renewable energy. To be designated as a Green Power Community, a local government must purchase or produce green power in amounts that meet EPA minimum purchase requirements as determined by community electricity usage.

Green power is defined as electricity generated from renewable resources, such as wind, solar, biogas, biomass, and low-impact hydropower. Oak Ridge Electric Department customers can buy Green-e Energy certified renewable energy through the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Green Power Switch program.

To qualify, local governments must also initiate a community-wide green power campaign to encourage renewable energy purchases. The City of Oak Ridge, playing off its nickname as the Secret City due to its historical origins, created a campaign called, “The Secret’s Out: Oak Ridge Loves Green Power,” to encourage residents and businesses to buy green power. [Read more…]

Vertimass licenses ORNL biofuel-to-hydrocarbon conversion technology

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Vertimass LLC and ORNL Ethanol Fuel

Vertimass LLC has licensed an ORNL technology that converts ethanol into a hydrocarbon blend-stock for use in transportation fuels. ORNL inventors (from left) Chaitanya Narula, Brian Davison, and Martin Keller display the technology with Vertimass chairman William Shopoff.

Vertimass LLC, a California-based start-up company, has licensed an Oak Ridge National Laboratory technology that directly converts ethanol into a hydrocarbon blend-stock for use in transportation fuels.

The ORNL technology offers a new pathway to biomass-derived renewable fuels that can lower greenhouse gas emissions and decrease U.S. reliance on foreign sources of oil.

“Vertimass is very pleased to be partnering with ORNL to commercialize this revolutionary technology that can broaden the market for alternative fuels, ” said Vertimass chairman William Shopoff. “We have assembled a team of industry and technology leaders, including Dr. Charles Wyman, our president and CEO, who will take this novel catalyst from the lab to the marketplace. We see this technology as a significant step in moving the United States toward energy independence.”

The technology developed by ORNL’s Chaitanya Narula, Brian Davison and Associate Laboratory Director Martin Keller uses an inexpensive zeolite catalyst to transform ethanol into hydrocarbon blend-stock. The resulting liquid can be blended at various concentrations into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels without negatively affecting engine performance. After mixing with petroleum-derived fuels, the blend-stock does not require modifications to the existing distribution infrastructure. [Read more…]

UT names bioenergy expert as 14th UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair

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Art Ragauskas

Arthur Ragauskas

KNOXVILLE—Arthur Ragauskas, an authority in bioenergy, has been named the 14th University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair.

He will serve as Governor’s Chair for Biorefining, based in UT’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering with a complementary appointment in the UT Institute of Agriculture’s Department of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries.

He will also serve in the Energy and Environmental Sciences Directorate, Biosciences Division, at ORNL and as a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s BioEnergy Science Center, or BESC.

Ragauskas begins at UT on June 1. [Read more…]

ORNL uses neutron scattering, supercomputing to study biofuel production

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Lignocellulosic Biomass

This graphical representation of lignocellulosic biomass based on supercomputer models illustrates a new Oak Ridge National Laboratory study about the inner workings of plant cell walls during bioenergy production. (Image credit: Thomas Splettstoesser; http://www.scistyle.com)

Researchers studying more effective ways to convert woody plant matter into biofuels at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have identified fundamental forces that change plant structures during pretreatment processes used in the production of bioenergy.

The research team, which published its results in Green Chemistry, set out to decipher the inner workings of plant cell walls during pretreatment, the most expensive stage of biofuel production. Pretreatment subjects plant material to extremely high temperature and pressure to break apart the protective gel of lignin and hemicellulose that surrounds sugary cellulose fibers. [Read more…]

TVA’s Green Power Switch generates one million megawatt-hours of electricity

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TVA Ed Stephens and Buffalo Mountain Wind Farm

Ed Stephens, program manager for the Renewable Energy Program at the Tennessee Valley Authority, explains the 18 wind turbines at the Buffalo Mountain Wind Farm north of Oliver Springs.

WINDROCK MOUNTAIN—A Tennessee Valley Authority program that allows customers to buy electricity produced by renewable energy sources has generated about one million megawatt-hours—enough to power 68,000 homes, officials said Monday.

TVA considers the innovative Green Power Switch program, the first of its kind in the Southeast when it started 13 years ago, a success story. TVA said the program has helped prevent more than 700,000 tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere. That’s equal to keeping about 135,000 cars off the road for a year.

And it’s grown from 2,000 customers in 2000 to roughly 12,000 today. That could be because customers today are more aware of environmental concerns and have a greater understanding of their power sources, said Patty West, director of TVA’s Renewable Energy Program. [Read more…]

Energy Department announces investments, including at ORNL, for next-generation biofuels

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Ernest Moniz

Ernest Moniz

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WASHINGTON—Building on President Obama’s newly announced plan to cut carbon pollution, the Energy Department this week announced four research and development projects to bring next-generation biofuels on-line faster and drive down the cost of producing gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels from biomass. The projects—located in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin—represent a $13 million Energy Department investment.

One of the projects selected for negotiation is worth up to $2.1 million and located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. [Read more…]