The Obama administration’s latest hope in developing a next-generation renewable fuel is a bacteria normally associated with food poisoning.
The Energy Department on Monday released a list of nearly 100 technologies and companies it is funding under its Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, including a company committed to making E. coli bacteria the next big thing in clean-burning biofuels.
The advanced research agency is charged with pushing the envelope on new energy technologies to spur private-sector innovation. President Obama touted the agency’s spending last week, and said the advanced energy program has brought $1.25 billion to the table in support of advanced clean energy technologies. The list was released Monday at ARPA-E’s seventh annual conference held in Oxon Hill, Md., near Washington, D.C.
ARPA-E awarded the company Ginkgo Bioworks $6.6 million to develop what it calls “electrofuels” that can bypass the use of plant matter, like corn or agriculture waste, in the production of biofuels. The agency explained that the process doesn’t use plant crops as the basis for the fuel, as corn-based ethanol does, which removes the need for sunlight as the principal way of producing the fuel.
The agency says relying on photosynthesis, the process that plants use to turn sunlight into sugars, is an “inefficient” way of producing renewable fuels. Typical biofuel producers that make ethanol breakdown corn, or other plant matter, to release the sugars, which are then fermented to be turned into alcohol and then refined into fuel.
Ginkgo wants to bypass the entire plant-growing process to expedite biofuel production, which it says is possible by manipulating the E. coli bacteria.
The Energy Department says the payoff of this research would be big, on the order of tens of billions of dollars to the nation’s economy.
“A domestic electrofuels industry could contribute tens of billions of dollars to the nation’s economy,” according to ARPA-E. “Widespread use of electrofuels could also help stabilize gasoline prices, saving drivers money at the pump.”
The E. coli fuels would also reduce demand for fertilizers, land and water use that are traditionally needed for biofuels. The agency says widespread use of electrofuels would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which many scientists blame for causing the Earth’s climate to warm.
“Cost-competitive electrofuels would help reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil and increase the nation’s energy security,” ARPA-E says.
Many of the companies in Monday’s list are working on vehicle technologies, including technologies that would make crops like sorghum and beets a commercial alternative to corn for producing ethanol and other biofuels, according to the agency.
Other technologies are focused on bring the cost down for advanced batteries used in electric vehicles, to make them as competitive as gasoline- and diesel-powered cars and trucks.
