Posted on 12/05/2003 3:39:31 PM PST by Mike Darancette
Forget about those exotic hydrogen fuel-cell cars, and those hybrid engine systems, as well. An Ottawa-based biotech company, Iogen Corp., thinks it has found the answer to the world's greenhouse-gas problems: a fungus once known for its ability to rot U.S. army tents.
That may seem bizarre, but Iogen is just one of a growing army touting ethanol in gas tanks as the answer for meeting emission reductions under the Kyoto Accord. Right now, most ethanol is made pretty much the way Hiram Walker made booze: producers start with a grain, usually corn, then ferment and distil it. Iogen, however, says it has found a way to turn agricultural waste such as wheat straw into fuel. There are some details still to be worked out. But technological bugs may be only the beginning of Iogen's struggle.
Ethanol in the gas tank is hardly a radical idea. It's long been added in small amounts to gasoline to act as, among other things, an antifreeze. Newer cars can burn a mixture of gasoline that contains up to 10% ethanol. What the fuel's advocates dream of, however, is a world where that ethanol level is bumped up to 85%. But its clean-burning properties are offset to a considerable extent by all the oil that's consumed to plant corn, make the fertilizer, and then to harvest and haul the crop around. Rather than transforming oil into crops that are transformed into fuel, Iogen's system starts with stuff like wheat straw that has been burned or plowed under. Using an enzyme derived from the fungus that ate the army's tents during the Second World War, Iogen breaks out the sugars in the straw that can be fermented and distilled into ethanol. Iogen says the reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions with their ethanol is about 90%, compared to 30% for the conventional product.
If its technology is successfully commercialized, Iogen will sell ethanol makers the enzymes to run their plants. Although Iogen has only a small demonstration facility, it has some big backing. Shell Chemicals Canada has invested US$29 million in the company, and the feds have supplied some R&D cash.
The catch in all this is ethanol's other agenda. Provinces funding the construction of ethanol plants, such as Saskatchewan, promote them as new markets for grain farmers. From a grower's perspective, of course, there's a difference between selling whole grain and getting some pin money for the stuff you now leave in the field. Even at the federal level, the Department of Agriculture has been as prominent as Natural Resources in promoting ethanol. In the 1970s, Iogen tried to push wood chips as an energy source. But as the energy crisis abated, so did that idea. Once again, it's likely to be politics, not technology or environmental arguments, that decide Iogen's fate in the energy business.
Copyright 2003, Canadian Business Magazine
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I don't get offended if you want to be removed.
Oh, well, if that's all then I'll have my broker buy 10,000 shares of Iogen in the morning. Oh nurse! Would you look up the stock symbol for Iogen?...
Sounds good to me!
I don't know about greenhouse gas problems, but magic mushrooms were good to me back in the '60's and early '70's.
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