Bacteria in the Bay makes Garbage to Fuel Possible

[Rayne]

Source: Washington Post

A strain of bacteria accidentally found in the Chesapeake Bay more than 20 years ago -- a bug that decomposes everything from algae to newspapers to crab shells -- could help produce cheaper fuel, according to scientists at the University of Maryland.

Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) will tout the work of professors Steven Hutcheson and Ronald Weiner on campus today in announcing that Zymetis, a U-Md. spinoff company, will use the organism to generate ethanol.

The hope is that the bacterium can be used to produce ethanol more efficiently and inexpensively and in effect recycle junk into energy. The bacterium, which is very difficult to find in nature but easily reproduced in the lab, has turned bench scientists into entrepreneurs.

It's a remarkable bug, Hutcheson said. "There's nothing out there that compares to it."

With environmental, economic and geopolitical reasons to find alternatives to gasoline, there's a sense of urgency behind scientists' drive to make cheap fuels out of such plants as grasses and wood. Other scientists said that the U-Md. research might mark a significant step in that struggle but that it was difficult to judge the discovery in detail without more information.

Ethanol is, essentially, fermented plant matter: Parts of the plants are broken down into sugar, which is converted into a kind of alcohol that is usable as fuel. For now, most U.S. ethanol is made from corn, but scientists want a source that isn't also sought after for food.

They are now seeking to make fuel out of such things as wood chips, cornstalks and a prairie plant called switch grass. But the fuel in these plants is locked up chemically in such substances as cellulose, which nature has engineered not to break down, unlike the starches in grains.

"That's the reason why you eat bread but you build houses out of wood," said Philip Pienkos of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

That's where this bug comes in. The bacterium Saccarophagus degradans, or sugar eater, can create a mix of enzymes that degrades plant matter. It has the largest known concentration of enzymes that eat carbohydrates, Hutcheson said.

"It basically is the ultimate bottom feeder," said Jonathan Dinman, an associate professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at U-Md. "It eats what nobody else will eat -- cornstalks, leftover chaff from hay or whatever -- and can turn that into ethanol."

...

There are still a lot of hurdles, Dinman said. There is plenty of competition, too. Weiner said the big question is whether it can be cost-competitive; Hutcheson said they reduced production costs 20-fold in less than a year.

Hutcheson hopes to have the pilot plant running this summer. And when he gets a chance, he'll go back to the marsh. He's still looking for [Saccarophagus degradans].

Anyone a fan of Back to the Future? Bio Mr. Fusion anyone?

With all the waste in the Chesapeake, this is probably the best thing to ever be dredged up as a result of all that mess in the bay. Though, reports say that this bacteria is no longer found in the water in mass quantities if at all, there are still large sums of bacteria stored away on campus.

More ethanol out of these guys means less farmers hoarding their corn crops for ethanol production means less carbon waste and works towards less dependency on petroleum.

Yeah, yeah, it's been echoed dozens of times before but getting bacteria to produce ethanol while breaking down carbon was one of those breakthroughs they've been waiting on to make ethanol production more viable.

 

[Lesley_GSC]

Intresting. The world learns something new every day.

 

[I Started A Cult]

(claps)

 

[PokemonHero]

Man this directly affects me. I live on Kent Island, which is located in the Chesapeake Bay across not far from Annapolis. I'm surprised I hadn't heard about it sooner. My dad works at Maryland Environmental Services and this sounds like a thing they would be involved in.

Anyways, its good to see that the Bay is in the news for a good reason.

 

[Rayne]

Really, and with O'Malley's budget cuts on Clean the Bay initiatives (they were already looking at red marks on that bill) that's another set back that this stressed ecosystem doesn't need. At least the waste from the bay had one good thing come out of it.

Though I doubt Bay stewards and supporters can make the 2010 milestone they had hoped for I really do hope they can clean up the Bay eventually.