E. coli is a bacterium that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded animals.

Two ongoing research projects are using
E. coli to create two very different types of fuel. In one project, researchers have ’tweaked’ E. coli so that it will produce large amounts of hydrogen. In another,
E. coli is being used to create higher-chain alcohols, which can be used as a gasoline substitute, Renewableenergyaccess.com reported.
Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a bacterium that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded animals.
At Texas A&M, chemical engineering professor Thomas Wood has altered a strain of E.coli so that it produces substantial amounts of hydrogen. Specifically, Wood’s strain produces 140 times more hydrogen than is created in a naturally occurring process.
By selectively deleting six specific genes in E. coli’s DNA, Wood has basically transformed the bacterium into a mini hydrogen-producing factory that’s powered by sugar. Scientifically speaking, Wood has enhanced the bacteria’s naturally occurring glucose-conversion process on a massive scale.
With sugar as its main power source, this strain of E. coli can now take advantage of existing and ever-expanding scientific processes aimed at producing sugar from certain crops, such as corn, Wood said.
“A lot of people are working on converting something that you grow into some kind of sugar,“ Wood explained. “We want to take that sugar and make it into hydrogen. We’re going to get sugar from some crop somewhere. We’re going to get some form of sugar-like molecule and use the bacteria to convert that into hydrogen.“
Biological methods such as this are likely to reduce energy costs since these processes don’t require extensive heating or electricity,“ Wood said.
“One of the most difficult things about chemical engineering is how you get the product,“ Wood explained.
“In this case, it’s very easy because the hydrogen is a gas, and it just bubbles out of the solution. You just catch the gas as it comes out of the glass. That’s it. You have pure hydrogen.“
There also are other benefits.
As might be expected, the cost of building an entirely new pipeline to transport hydrogen is a significant deterrent in the utilization of hydrogen-based fuel cell technology. In addition, there is also increased risk when transporting hydrogen.
The solution, Wood believes, is converting hydrogen on site.
“The main thing we think is you can transport things like sugar, and if you spill the sugar there is not a huge catastrophe,“ Wood said. “The idea is to make the hydrogen where you need it.“
In related E. coli news, researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a new method for producing next-generation biofuels by genetically modifying E.coli bacteria to be an efficient biofuel synthesizer.
Higher-chain alcohols have energy densities close to gasoline, are not as volatile or corrosive as ethanol, and do not readily absorb water. Furthermore, branched-chain alcohols, such as isobutanol, have higher-octane numbers, resulting in less knocking in engines. Isobutanol or C5 alcohols have never been produced from a renewable source with yields high enough to make them viable as a gasoline substitute.
“These alcohols are typically trace byproducts in fermentation,“ Liao said. “To modify an organism to produce these compounds usually results in toxicity in the cell. We bypassed this difficulty by leveraging the native metabolic networks in E. coli but altered its intracellular chemistry using genetic engineering to produce these alcohols.“
The research team modified key pathways in E. coli to produce several higher-chain alcohols from glucose, including isobutanol, 1-butanol, 2-methyl-1-butanol, 3-methyl-1-butanol and 2-phenylethanol.
This strategy leverages the E. coli host’s highly active amino acid biosynthetic pathway by shifting part of it to alcohol production. In particular, the research team achieved high-yield, high-specificity production of isobutanol from glucose.
This new strategy opens an unexplored frontier for biofuels production, both in coli and in other microorganisms.
“The ability to make these branched-chain higher alcohols so efficiently is surprising,“ Liao said.
“Unlike ethanol, organisms are not used to producing these unusual alcohols, and there is no advantage for them to do so. The fact that they can be made by E. coli is even more surprising, since E. coli is not a promising host to tolerate alcohols. These results mean that these unusual alcohols in fact can be manufactured as efficiently as what evolved in nature for ethanol. Therefore, we now can explore these unusual alcohols as biofuels and are not bound by what nature has given us.“

One potential obstacle to achieving more trade in the global biofuels market is confusion over differing--and sometimes conflicting--standards for characterizing the makeup and properties of biofuels.

Recently, the governments of the United States, Brazil and the European Union released an analysis of current biofuel specifications with the goal of facilitating expanded trade of these renewable energy sources.
Spurred by increased market demands, the report was solicited by the US and Brazilian governments and the European Commission (EC) on behalf of the EU, with the work conducted by an international group of fuel standards experts. Renewableenergyaccess.com reported.
One potential obstacle to achieving more trade in the global biofuels market is confusion over differing--and sometimes conflicting--standards for characterizing the make-up and properties of biofuels.
To clarify the current situation and identify potential roadblocks to improved compatibility, the US and Brazilian governments and the EC convened a task force of experts from standards developing organizations (SDOs) to compare critical specifications in existing standards used globally (factors such as content, physical characteristics and contaminant levels that govern a fuel’s quality) for pure bioethanol and biodiesel.
After a six-month review process that considered thousands of pages of technical documents produced by ASTM International, the Brazilian Technical Standards Association and the European Committee for Standardization, last week the task force published the “White Paper on Internationally Compatible Biofuels Standards.“
The White Paper placed the 16 specifications for ethanol and 24 for biodiesel into three categories regarding overall compatibility.
The first category is similar (and can be considered compatible), the second category is different, but could be reconciled in a short period, and the third category is for standards that are irreconcilably different as they stand. Overall, the experts found that the bioethanol and biodiesel standards, and the specifications they contain, have very much in common and therefore should be able to overcome obstacles to biofuel trade.
The task force stated that 9 of the 16 ethanol specifications reviewed are “in alignment“ and all but one of the remaining specifications could be aligned in the short term. For biodiesel, the report listed six specifications as compatible and suggests that many of the remaining differences could be handled by blending various types of biodiesel to create an end product that meets regional specifications for fuel quality and emissions.
In formal letters to representatives of the standards community, the US and Brazilian governments and the EC on behalf of the EU applauded the efforts of the technical experts and encouraged the SDOs to consider the results of those efforts.
Fran Schrotter, senior vice president and chief operating officer at ANSI also commented on the report. “This was an incredible undertaking and represents the commitment of many individuals and organizations from both the private and public sectors.
The standards and conformity assessment community must be diligent in its review of this report, and plan a course of action that will offer the greatest impact in meeting both market needs and biofuels policy goals,“ she said.
Recognizing that many of the issues relating to variations in specifications can be traced to different measurement procedures and methods, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Brazil’s National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality have plans to collaborate on the development of joint measurement standards for bioethanol and biodiesel to complement the efforts of the SDOs.
“Initial efforts focus on creating certified reference materials to support development and testing of bioethanol and biodiesel, and analytical measurement methods for source identification, to determine if a fuel comes from a renewable or non-renewable source and the source of origin of biodiesel, e.g., soy, palm oil, animal fat, etc.,“ said Mary Saunders, Chief, Standards Services Division, Technology Services, NIST. Saunders said that the reference materials should be completed by the end of 2008.
The report marks a major milestone in the global advancement of biofuels and could eventually lower market prices for biofuels.
“This important analysis will enable industry stakeholders to focus their efforts to enhance compatibility in biofuel standards, where practical, on those areas that will provide the greatest return. This effort can lead to lower biofuel costs for end users,“ said Saunders.
Brazil already requires up to a 25 percent blend of ethanol with all gasoline that is sold. The EU has established a bioethanol blend mandate for its member states of 5.75 percent by 2010, and at least 10 percent of all vehicle fuels by 2020. In the United States, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 sets a 7.5 billion gallon goal for national biofuel consumption (usually ethanol) by 2012.
The United States, Brazil and the EU are all members of the International Biofuels Forum (IBF) and will continue to engage other IBF governments in future work. The named SDOs will also seek to involve their counterparts in the other IBF member countries--China, India and South Africa--in the effort to make biofuels standards compatible worldwide.

Plans to build Texas’ first biomass power plant in Lufkin are moving forward.
A year after sending in an application for an air permit, Aspen Power has received a draft air permit from the state and has sent it back in with a few comments for the final air permit.
Danny Vines, whose company, Aspen Power, is working on building the plant on a 67-acre tract of land off Kurth Drive inside Loop 287, said he hopes the state will issue the final draft by mid-March, Lufkindailynews.com reported.
In the meantime, approximately 60 percent of the engineering drawings for the plant have already been drawn up, he said. Once Aspen Power receives the final air permit from the state and all of the drawings have been completed, the company will take soil samples to see what kind of foundation will be needed for the plant before construction begins, Vines said.
He said he expects construction to take approximately 16 months and that the company hopes to have the plant fully operational by September 2009.
Aspen Power plans on using as many local construction workers as possible, creating 150 to 200 possible construction jobs once the actual construction on the plant begins, Vines said.
When Aspen Power first approached the city about the plant, the company met opposition from local residents worried about possible air and noise pollution, and increased truck traffic.
However, Vines promised the plant would produce no smell and no smoke, and be a clean and neat operation.
“This will be the cleanest power-producing plant within the state of Texas,“ Vines said.
Once operational, the biomass power plant will produce 150 to 160 jobs, ones would include health insurance and pension plans, Vines said. The plant would also open Lufkin to some grant opportunities from the federal government, including housing grants and improvements in basic infrastructure, he said.
“That’s a part of Lufkin that could use the support and help,“ Vines said. “Over the years, North Lufkin used to have a lot of manufacturing jobs, and today there aren’t many of these jobs left.“
When looking for a good place to build the first biomass power plant in the state, two things had to be considered, Vines said. First, there had to be enough fuel supply from wood and debris within a 70-mile radius of the plant’s location. With Lufkin’s location in the center of the Pineywoods of East Texas, plenty of wood and debris can be found for the plant’s use, he said.
Second, there had to be enough transmission capacity at the site. Four 138,000-volt power transmission lines cross the property where the plant will operate.
“This is the only part of the county where you have that much capacity available in one spot,“ Vines said.
In May the state Legislature passed House Bill 1090, which provides a subsidy of $20 per dry ton of wood waste that’s turned into fuel for power plants.
“It’s one of the best state subsidies I’ve ever seen adopted,“ Vines said.
In August 2007 city council members approved in a 5-2 vote a zoning change allowing 10 acres of land on Minnie Lou Street to be used for a portion of the biomass power plant. Members R.L. Kuykendall and Rose Boyd both voted against the zoning change but were outvoted by their fellow council members.
Kuykendall said the zone change was the city’s only participation in the plant’s coming, and that he has received little feedback from constituents since that decision.